Birthdays and More

This month, we are blasted with birthdays.  Hayden and Sawyer are two of them, and with all the excitement, it makes it difficult for them to stay focused and calm (even without the excitement, it's hard for them to do that!).  But, we got through quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, and this is what the boys accomplished:

Language Arts:

Handwriting without Tears workbook.  Sawyer had to aim for each star and
firefly and scribble on each one.

Hooked on Phonics.  The -an Family.

Riley wanted in on the computer action once Sawyer left it.

Building words.

Reading out loud to baby brother.

Word Dice Game.  This actually was really hard, and I got frustrated with the
fact that we couldn't make words with half the rolls we made with these dice.
We were supposed to only use 3 dice, but I ended up going with all of them.

Matching capital letters to the lowercase letters.

Books We Read - (Sept. 16-20)
The U.S. Constitution by Norman Pearl
We the Kids by David Cartrow
Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss
Old Hat New Hat by Stan and Jan Berenstain
I Face the Wind by Vicki Cobb
Wind by Ann Herriges
Wild Science Projects About Earth's Weather by Robert Gardner

Doing some Reading Eggs on the computer.

Letter B worksheet.

Working on our pencil grasp.  He actually did it right without even realizing
it, but when I got all excited about it and tried to take a picture, he reverted
right back to the old fist grip.  Lol.  Oh well.

Finding sight words in the easy reader for the week.

Handwriting.  Writing words with beginning blended sounds.

Making Word Family Flip Cards with the -all and -ack families.

Oo and Xx Sounds worksheet.  Coloring and cutting and gluing each picture
to the correct side.  One picture he couldn't decide because both sounds were
in the word.  So, he just stuck it in the middle.  :)

Reading the easy reader for the week:  Jack and Stan

Word Family Sticks activity with the -at and -an families.

Math:

Symmetry with Letters

Adding more than two addends

Place Value Activity.  Roll the dice, write the number, and break it down
into tens and ones.

Sawyer learns how to use the abacus.

Hayden's work:  Mentally adding 2-digit numbers and checking his answers
with the abacus.

Even and odd numbers up to 100.

Learning with tally sticks

Science:

We have a lot going on with science these days.  Between the Magic School Bus, Nature, and Dinosaurs, we've got it covered!  

Magic School Bus

Writing in minibooks for the Magic School Bus lapbook on Rocks and Minerals.

 Random Science Experiment

Making oobleck after reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  This was actually
a spur of the moment idea.  I felt we needed a break in the daily routine, and this
ended up being the perfect opportunity.

It took a lot of persuasion, but I finally talked the boys into actually touching it!

 Dinosaurs

Mixing up some rocky looking salt dough to make some fossil imprints
for our study on dinosaurs.

Cutting out our rock circles.

Imprinting the "rocks" with baby dinosaurs

The coolest of the dinosaurs.

Finished product.  Didn't turn out as awesome as I would have liked, but
it was still fun.

 Nature

After reading about wind and weather, we made a weather vane.
It worked pretty well.  Until we forgot it outside in the rain.  

Social Studies:

We had a good amount of American History and Geography these last couple of weeks.  Little Passports sent us an envelope full of information from Brazil!  We had a really good time locating Brazil on the map and discovering little tidbits about the country.

Sticking a map pin onto Brazil.

We got a "stamp" to put in their passport.

Trying to solve the word search to figure out what food they'll be eating in
the country they'll be visiting next.

Coloring in the country of Brazil on the map of South America

Inside the envelope from Sam and Sophia, the boys got a picture of a red ukari monkey and an amethyst along with the stamp of the Brazil flag and the map pin for the world map.  It was very exciting!

For American History, we read about the Constitution and how it affects us (in little kid language), and the boys also started watching Liberty Kids, a series of cartoons that feature kids who travel back in time to confront the dangers of the American Revolution.  The show that the boys watched this week was The Very First Fourth of July.  I wasn't sure if they'd follow it well or not, but they really seemed to enjoy it.  So, yay!

Eating lunch and getting smart all at the same time!  (And they're so engrossed
with the show, that Hayden doesn't notice Riley stealing a treat off his plate!)

Plodding Along

How did September get here so fast?

It's been non-stop learning over here in the Holbrook household.  The boys are doing such a great job with their work, and I'm getting (a tiny bit) better at managing the time used between each one of them. I'm a little disappointed with the Reading Eggs program we've been using....really more disappointed with the Mathseeds part of it for Sawyer because it keeps locking up on him.  Apparently, it's not very compatible with Mac computers, and nothing I do has definitively solved the issues we've been having. So, we may stop using it altogether and find something else.  In the meantime, Sawyer is getting a good amount of hands-on activities with me while Hayden works on other stuff, and that seems to be working for us.

Books Read This Week:
Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood
The Liberty Bell by Mary Firestone
If Maps Could Talk by Erika L. Shores
Somewhere in the World Right Now by Stacey Schuett
The Statue of Liberty by Lloyd G. Douglas
Spot Goes Clip Clop by Debbie Strayer (Hayden's Easy Reader)

Language Arts:

Working on the -at family by reading, tracing, and pasting together sentences.

Sequencing events 

The finished product

Sawyer's Cookie Sheet Challenge #3
Beginning Sounds Mm and Ss

Roll-a-Dough Letters 

Sawyer "LOVES" doing these.  The letters this week are B, F, O, and X.

Letter "F" worksheet.  He had to trace and copy the letter Ff and color the
pictures that start with the "f" sound.

Another angle of the same activity.

You'll notice, I'm sure, that there are more pictures of Sawyer than Hayden in this section.  Sometimes, it will be that way.  I'm allowing a lot of his writing and reading to be done with lap booking, in which case, those pictures will show up underneath our science and social studies sections.

Math:

Quantities 1 to 5.  Learning that 5 has a middle.

Playing a matching game.  

Count Your Beans Place Value Activity.

Count Your Beans worksheet to follow the activity.

On the Number Game.
We took turns making rows of 15 or 18 (random numbers chose by Hayden).

Adding three numbers together to get 10 or 15.

Science:

For science this month, we added geology to Hayden's list since that is what he is working on at co-op in his Magic School Bus science club.  We read the MSB chapter book, Rocky Road Trip, (which I forgot to include in my pic of books earlier) at home.  He is completing a lapbook at home as well, and doing activities at the co-op on Tuesdays.

Working on the lap book

Metamorphic "rock" made at co-op from sedimentary "rock" crayon shavings.
To see pictures from our co-op days this semester,
you can go to my Free Range Learning Co-op album on Facebook

Social Studies:

After learning about the American Flag and its history, along with a few patriotic songs, we moved on to other symbols of the United States.  We watched a little video from the website, BrainPopJr., about American symbols, and we read two books this week - one about the Liberty Bell, and one about the Statue of Liberty.

We also worked on mapping a little bit in preparation of our Little Passports that should be coming in the mail soon.  I found the Classical Conversations song on YouTube about the continents and oceans.  So, we listened to that and practiced on our map at home.  Then, we read the book, Somewhere in the World Right Now, and talked about time zones, etc.  Hayden completed a word search of the names of the continents as well.

Getting a feel for what the number 7 billion (approximately,
the number of people in the world) looks like.

Making a map of the school room (wow, was this hard!)

Using shapes to represent items in the room.

Word Search on the continents.