Holbrook Heroes: Summer School

For the second half of the summer, we tested out a new curriculum for language arts, Hayden finished up his RightStart Level C, we studied one more country, and Riley began his real "Letter a Week" activities. We also got in a couple of field trips, went through a stomach bug, rearranged our whole schoolroom, and the big boys attended summer eco-camp at UNF for a week.

Riley
After a few more trial runs with Traveling Tales from the public library, we began a Letter of the Week curriculum. I'm kind of building it as we go, pulling from Pinterest and other great blogs out there. We made it through letters A, B, C, and D. Most of the pictures I have are probably going to be of Riley's work because it's so cute, and it's more interesting than a sheet of multiplication problems, but I tried to tone it down as much as possible.

Letter A Books We Read:

No Ordinary Apple by Sara Marlowe

Little Apple Goat by Caroline Jayne Church

Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Letter A Activities

Forming letter A with playdoh and putting playdoh "apples" in order from
smallest to largest.

"Climbing" the masking tape apple tree by walking it like a balance beam. Then
he had to "pick" the apples and bring them back to the basket at the bottom of the
trunk. Sawyer thought it looked like a lot of fun and insisted on giving it a try, too.

Felt board apple pie. His job was to assemble the apple pie by putting everything
on the board in the correct order.

Find the letter A activity. We did this first with pom poms. Then with dot stickers.

This is a working pocket chart that I'm changing each week. It has his name at the top,
the letter of the week, the number of the week, color, shape, and picture cards that start
with the letter of the week.

Letter B Books We Read:

A Bug, A Bear, and A Boy by David McPhail

Three Bears in a Boat by David Soman

Starting Life: Butterfly by Claire Llewellyn

My! Oh My! A Butterfly! by Tish Rabe

Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McClosky

Letter B Activities

Putting colored flat stones on the Letter B.

Stamping all the Letter B's!

Playing with bugs in chocolate scented playdoh (aka MUD)

Roll the dice and move the caterpillar that many butterflies.

Butterfly Snacks! (The big boys like being included in this part of Riley's school).

Brown Bear felt board activity.

Here, Riley had a snack cup of m&m's. He had to match the colors to the animals
and then color in the graph.

Learning patterns with teddy grahams and blueberries.

Letter C Books We Read:

Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (yes, again) by Eric Carle

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

Little Cloud by Eric Carle

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld

The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson

Click Clack Moo! Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

Letter C Activities:

Putting together the ABC Caterpillar on the felt board.

Playing with a "cloud" that we made from ivory soap in the microwave.

Hand painting (not finger painting) a cloud.

Cars on the Letter C.

Putting "spots" on the cow. I showed him a card with the number, we said the
number, and he put that many pompoms on the cow.

Caterpillars!!!

Letter D Books We Read:

How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs? by Jane Yolen

There's No Such Thing As A Dragon by Jack Kent

One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root

What's Up, Duck? by Tad Hills

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Dr. Seuss

Go, Dog! Go! by P.D. Eastman

Big Dog, Little Dog by P.D. Eastman

If You Give a Dog a Doughnut by Laura Numeroff

Letter D Activities:

Dot stickers on the letter D

Making shape dinosaurs

Sensory bin with toy dinosaurs and a variety of beans.

Duplos on the Letter D

Going through all our A-D picture cards and sorting them into food - not food categories.

D is for Duck!

Letter D snack

Dice game: roll the die and mark the matching die hat faces up.

Making doughnuts with the chocolate scented playdoh.

And now on to the big boys....

Language Arts
We started the curriculum, Moving Beyond the Page which is allowing both boys to work on the same thing at the same time at their own level. I did this, thinking it would cut down on our time spent on language arts since I wouldn't have to switch off kids. However, this curriculum has proven to be more intensive and detailed with character development, writing, and other concepts that I haven't touched on much with the boys. So, it took us WAY longer than I expected to finish this test unit. Still, it's a much more enjoyable curriculum. So, we are sticking with it, and we will adjust and adapt as needed.

The unit that we tested out was the book, "Charlotte's Web", by E.B. White. Of course, everybody knows this story. I thought, "This will be the perfect way to try this curriculum out!" It WAS great. We loved it. But we've definitely met our match as far as challenges go. Here are some of the things we did:

Like Charlotte in the book, the boys made webs with adjectives describing each
person in the family. (Sawyer is giving a mad face because one of Hayden's original
adjectives wasn't very appealing to him. So we changed it.)

Matching vocabulary words to their definitions.

Poems that the boys wrote about spiders.

Finding the vocabulary words in the book and writing the sentence using that word.

Watching how a spider lays eggs and how they hatch.

The boys had to design a carnival/fair game that included the theme of cycles.
They chose spin the wheel, and all the winning spots relate to life cycles.

Trying to make spider webs: one with yarn and one with popsicle sticks

The unit ended with the boys having to make a book advertisement as you might see in a magazine. Originally, it was supposed to be a team project, but this day brought a series of events that kept the boys from being able to work together well. So, they each made their own (from the same rough draft that we all worked on together the day before).

We also took a field trip to CJ Acres Animal Rescue Farm where the boys could get an idea of what life on a farm is like. This farm is a bit different from most farms in that they don't use the animals for profit. They save the animals from abandonment, abuse, and neglect. I posted to my photography blog about it here.

Math
Sawyer's math took him from skip counting, working with patterns, and adding 4-digit numbers, to making change, learning non-standard units of measurement, and how to find the perimeter of a figure.

Hayden finished his Level C unit (YAY!) with finding perimeters & areas, fractions, an introduction to division, more multiplication, and tangram puzzles.

Geography
We took about 4 weeks to study the country, Argentina. I didn't do as good a job with the meal this time around. I think that maybe I'm a little burned out on studying countries? Whatever the reason, the boys didn't notice too much, and they learned a lot about this country's topography.

Books We Read:

The Magic Bean Tree by Nancy Van Laan

Animal Poems of the Iguazu by Francisco Alarcon

On the Pampas by Maria Cristina Brusca

The Tiniest Giants: Discovering Dinosaur Eggs by Lowell Dingus

The Gaucho by Jose Luis Lanuza

Argentina: Enchantment of the World by Martin Hintz

Cultures of the World: Argentina by Ethel Caro Gofer

Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa by Francis Kalnay

Children Just Like Me pg 12-13 by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley