Top o' the Morning!

The first two weeks of March rushed by before I could really blink twice!  With the weather trying to improve for us, soccer season starting, St. Patrick's Day, and Riley's 1st (yes! first!!) birthday, we have been up to our eyeballs in activities and the out-of-doors.  I'm going to cram all of the last two weeks into one post (and honestly, I'll probably end up doing the same thing for the second half of March).

So, let's get started!

Reading:
The first week of March (and the last week in February) in reading with Hayden was spent working on the blending sounds of /ch/, /sh/, /th/, and /wh/.  It was time to cover these sounds with him because in reading new words, he would not know to put the two sounds together and just assumed to sound out the letters as he had been (i.e. instead of saying "ship", he would say "sip").

I was able to find the /ch/ and /sh/ digraphs on First School Preschool Activities and Crafts which is where we got all our little ABC mini books from 2 years ago.  We've held on to them, and each year we do a little more with them.  Sawyer started them last year as well.  So, they each have their own sets.

We also used Starfall to listen to all the blending sounds and learn some words with each of them.  Then, I found this little game that I let Hayden play for a little while.  I wound up stopping him after about 5 minutes or so because it looked like it was a neverending game, and we needed to move on to something else.  What fun is a game that doesn't have an ending? Or a reward or surprise at the end for finishing?  Enough said.

After all the digraphs/blends were learned, we did a gumball matching activity.  Instead of printing out a bunch of smaller sized gumball machines, I decided to make a few larger ones and laminate them.  That way, I could write words on them in dry erase marker, erase them, and write new words on them whenever we wanted to change it up a bit.  Hayden's job was to match up the digraph to the word.  Each word was missing it's digraph.  In putting together the activity, I knew that there were different possibilities for some of the words (i.e. ship and chip; there and where), so that made it challenging to come up with enough for him to match them all correctly.  There were also some instances where he sounded out the word phonetically correct, but it was not the right word, and that made it tricky (i.e, he put /wh/ instead of /sh/ on the word ___ ock, thinking it was the word "walk").

Gumball Matchup Activity for the "ch, sh, th, & wh" blends.

Finding the right blend/digraph in each word.

Blending game on the computer

The week before St. Patrick's Day, we did a lot of holiday activities (of course).  Some of them were repeats from last year.  It was fun to see how much improvement there was with Hayden from last year, and Sawyer getting to participate more was exciting for him as well.

A new game we did this year was Leprechaun, Leprechaun, Where's Your Gold?  I printed out a bunch of dancing leprechauns and stuck some words that they both would know on each one.  They took turns guessing which leprechaun was hiding the pot of gold by reading aloud the word on each one.  The other person had to go up to the word the first one had read and turn the card around to see if he was right.

Leprechaun, Leprechaun, Where's Your Gold?

We found the pot of gold!!

Shamrock Real or Nonsense Words.  An activity we did last year.  It was fun to see how many more words Hayden was willing to write this time, and how much his handwriting has improved.

Real or Nonsense Shamrock Words

Last year's Real/Nonsense Words on the top.  This year's on the bottom.

Shamrock Picture Hunt.  Another activity from last year, but with a few more shamrocks added to the mix.  They both hunted the shamrocks down, and Hayden wrote the word that matched the picture onto a sheet corresponding the numbers on the shamrocks as well.

Sawyer finds a shamrock (must have been the lucky helmet that helped!)

Shamrock Hunt Words

Books we read these last two weeks:

Hayden's reader, Help for Dear Dragon by Margaret Hillert

Sawyer's reader, Dot and Mit by Bobby Lynn Maslen

St. Patrick's Day by Anne Rockwell

A Fine St. Patrick's Day by Susan Wojciechowski

Lucky O'Leprechaun by Jana Dillon

The Leprechaun's Gold by Pamela Duncan Edwards

Writing:
Our writing over the past couple of weeks involved some journal writing, spelling words, guided instruction drawing, and copy work.  Hayden is getting a lot better at this, and I'm enjoying seeing the improvement as we move throughout the school year!  Sawyer still insists on gripping his pencil with his whole fist, but I'm not pushing him too much at this point.  Usually, I'll try to encourage him to do a few lines using the correct pencil grip, and then I'll let him hold it however he wants.  At least he's participating, right?

Working on the Letter D and curved lines.

Making pyramids with his spelling words

Working on our coloring and scissor skills.

It's a toy snake!

Journal Entry: Playing Soccer

Hayden's copywork: An Irish Blessing (sorry it's sideways!)

Journal Entry: My favorite kind of potato (after studying potatoes in math)

Leprechaun Guided Drawing
(I put up the barrier between them so they couldn't see what the other was drawing).

End result of the leprechaun in my instructions.

Hayden's Leprechaun

Sawyer's Leprechaun

Close up of them side-by-side

Math:
I tried to do some St. Patrick's Day themed math stuff combined with our regular math curriculum, and Sawyer had a few math activities to do himself.

Getting to know the Math Balance.  

Sawyer's math order activity

Working on putting together a calendar for the year 2014.

Shamrock Addition Bingo

Using our fingers to figure out a problem.

Getting close to a BINGO!

 Potato Project:  I got several different varieties and sizes of potatoes to measure, weigh, compare, etc. for a math activity during St. Patrick's Day week (you know, since potatoes are a big crop produced in Ireland.  The boys enjoyed this activity a lot!

Picking out their favorite potato

Putting the potatoes in order from smallest to largest

Weighing the potatoes

 We kept one of the potatoes to watch over the next couple of weeks.  I wish I had bought some of these potatoes a while back so they would've had time to grow a few roots from the eyes.  It's going to take longer for our experiment to go from start to finish because of that, but oh well.  Gives us something to do, I suppose!!

Art/Music:
We had a good time with art and music these last couple of weeks.  Holidays are such a great time for this subject!

Melted Crayon on Canvas that Hayden put together
for his oral presentation at Classical Conversations.

Finished product

Cutting the shamrock out of one of the plates after the painting.

Dancing with our Shamrock Shakers to Irish jigs.

And of course, Riley Finn got his very own to play.
It took all of 10 seconds to rip it apart.  Ha!

Last, but not least, we celebrated sweet Riley Finn's very first birthday!  I can't believe our little mascot has been here for a year already.  It's not fair how fast time flies by!!!

I'm a BIG boy now!!