Week In Review

Well, here we are!  Into our final weeks of school! We have one more week left, I know I had said earlier that we were going to be going until the end of May, but in all honesty we are just done!  The kids have had enough and with my parents coming into town next week, I am sure nothing will get done anyway.  So we will continue through next week but, then its summer vacation for us!

Zach's preschool this week focused on some Daniel Tiger activities.  I found this cute packet from none other than, yes you guessed it, 1+1+1=1!  They are too cute!  He was able to do quite a few of the activities in the packet but some of them were geared more towards kindergarten age.  I kinda slacked off and didn't get any books to go along with our unit this week, so I did the best I could with the books we had.  He really enjoyed them!

Noah had a great week!  He finished All About Reading Level 1!  He was super excited to get to put up his last two stickers.  As soon as he did, he asked if he could begin the next one, meaning level 2!  Silly kid!  If you have been following us much this year you know that this kid and reading have had a love hate relationship.  He claims that reading is his favorite subject but, oh how he struggles!  Since we began Level 1 towards the end of last school year and are just now finishing it, I too am ready to move on!  I'm still working on a good strategy to keep this all fresh in his mind over the summer.

Finished reading his last story in Level 1!

He looks a little crazy but he was so excited!

For our geography studies we traveled to our last country, which is Australia!  I decided to switch things up a bit for this last one, and we are making a country lap book.  I really wish I would have done that with all of the countries instead of using the worksheets, which I think we both found really boring.

We are also doing a lap book for our science studies, we are studying the Great Barrier Reef.  I'm not sure if making two lap books at the same time is a good idea, but I think they are enjoying them.  I will share the finished products next week, so stay tuned.

We also went on a field trip this week.  It was one that my little guy was in heaven over!!  We went for a real train ride!  It was so cool!  We learned about railroad safety and about the old steam trains and when trains were the main mode of transportation.  Very fun stuff!!

Do you think he was excited!!??

Well, here's to a great last week of school for us!!  There will be great celebrating next week as we finish everything up!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Week In Review

The countdown continues!  One more week down, 5 to go!  The summer itch is hitting us hard, I am so anxious to be done.  Part of that might be the fact that my parents will be here in about 3 weeks and there is much to do to prepare!  You saw my house the other day, that is not parent ready!  I have always been one that works well under pressure though, so it will get done just probably not until the last minute.

This week's preschool theme was Monsters!   We had a great time doing our monster activities.  This little pack I got from 1+1+1=1, and it was just perfect for my little guy.  I had a horrible time finding appropriate books to go along with this theme though.  So we ended up just reading some cute little stories and using some books we had.  The books I chose this week were Go To Bed, Monster! by Natasha Wing, Animal ABC by Marcus Pfister, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff and Dr. Seuss's ABC.  He loved all of those books!

For Noah this week I had to get a little creative.  All About Reading includes fluency sheets after almost every lesson.  We really slacked on them this year because they were so daunting for him, but I realized recently just how important they are!  So I spiced it up a bit for him, using some ideas from All About Reading, we did a Feed The Monster Game!  He loved this!  It made the reading fluency sheets not so intimidating for him.

In geography we have been in Russia this week.  For a fun craft we made Russian Nesting Dolls.  I was a little behind in my planning and wasn't sure how the boys would like the doll craft, but I didn't have any other ideas.  So I found one on Pinterest and went for it.  Only Noah took part and he really enjoyed it!  Elijah didn't want anything to do with it, but he really isn't into crafting much, and only wants to color when its something he's interested in.

Finally here a few more shots from our week:

Week In Review

Our preschool theme this week was Curious George/ Monkeys.  He loves the Curious George books so I got a lot of those from the library and even found some that were centered around baseball (which he loves!).  This unit I found at One Little Two Little, and we made a tot book to go along with it.

We made a Monkey paper bag puppet, he did a puzzle, shadow matching, and counting.

We traced a line to get George to the Man with the Yellow Hat, he colored shapes in a booklet, we did ABC's with George, we repeated the puzzle, and he did a coloring page.

One little mistake I made was that I put the tot book together before I had him finish everything and it was pretty difficult for him to do some of the activities.  But here are some pictures of the finished Tot Book that we put together.

Noah this week has been learning about plural words, and we have done a lot of reviewing in his reading.  He only has six lessons left and he is really excited about finishing up!

In our geography studies we traveled to Japan this week.  We learned the art form of origami!  I had a lot of fun but my boys didn't care for it too much!

I have been teaching Elijah to take responsibility when he wants something.  In doing so he is responsible for doing his own laundry, and he's also learning to use the stove with supervision.  This week he learned how to make his own mac and cheese.

Don't mind the disaster of a kitchen, it looks like this all the time!

Elijah also did some achievement testing this week, so his schooling was a bit short.  This was the first time he had taken any sort of achievement test, and I was happy to hear that he thinks he knew most of what was on the test.  So we will see!  

I hope you have a great weekend!  I know I will!!  It's homeschool convention time for me tomorrow!  

Week In Review

Whoo hoo!!  Here is my SECOND post on our week in review!  I am on a roll!!!  This week Zach was on spring break from preschool so it gave me a good chance to work on his home preschool set up.  I kept with his theme of transportation that we did last week.  He loves all things that move, trains, cars, buses, you name it!  If it has wheels he's all about it!

Just a reminder that he is 3 years old, and we are just beginning to do preschool at home with him.  He also attends a preschool program two days a week.  I used the Transportation Preschool pack from Homeschool Creations, which is where I also found the cute idea for the paper tube train!

For Day 1 he did shadow matching vehicles, word cards, vehicle words, and an alphabet train puzzle. We also practiced tracing his name, but he needed lots of help with that so I wasn't able to get any pictures.

On Day 2, he again did the shadow matching, he practiced his cutting, we did our first try at 3 Part Cards, and we finished up a paper tube train craft.  Last Friday I had him do the painting of the tubes so that it would be dry to work on this week.  

Our final day this week, Day 3, he was really not into school at all.  I finally got him to do that train puzzle, and then we also did a worksheet on B is for Bus.  As you can see I am not pushing him at all and we are taking it slow.

Noah worked really hard this week, and we were able to get 4 lessons completed in his All About Reading!!

He also did great on his math this week.  It was tricky for him, but he worked hard and finally got it!

In Exploring Countries and Cultures we are learning about China.  Last week we made a cool initials stamp using an eraser and an ink pad.

This week we made Chinese Lanterns!

In Science we have been learning about the Ocean and we did a fresh water verses salt water experiment.

We also watched a Torchlighter video about Amy Carmichael.  We finished reading her book last week and I thought it would be a fun way to end.

That has been our week!!  Whew!  Now to get our house in order for the Easter Holiday!  I am praying everyone has time to reflect on the reason we celebrate easter!  He is Risen!  He is Risen Indeed!!!