We went to the library this week, did therapy and dance, and lots of learning! In my last post I mentioned that I was planning on starting Harvest Time curriculum next week. A friend pointed out to me that it is scheduled to be started this week. So, because I already had the books from the library, I decided to go ahead and get going. We read The Vegetables We Eat and Tops & Bottoms a few times. Both of these books are about vegetables and talk about what part of the plant they come from, and I thought that both were very good.
This morning we made salt dough vegetables that I baked and we're going to paint them later (I'll edit this post with pictures when they are done). The whole time were were playing with the salt dough, Lydia kept telling me that she was making "crops" or a hare or a bear. I guess she was listening to the books! Please forgive the girls' hair in these pictures. It was morning and I hadn't brushed their hair yet.
Can you tell which ones I made and which ones Lydia and Eleanor made?
***Edited because we finished them:
They took several hours to dry out in the oven and we didn't get around to painting them until today (several days later). We aren't artists, and yes, my pumpkin looks like a tiger, but we did it!***
Tomorrow we're going to either go to the grocery store produce department or the farmer's market for a field trip. It will depend on if it is raining or not.
As for regular academics, here was our week:
Math:
We did pages 106-115 in Essential Math A. We finished up patterns and started measurement. Patterns took us a while and we spent a few days mostly practicing them with manipulatives. She still struggles with more complex patterns like ABBABBA or ABCABC. She has ABABA down though, and I decided that I'd keep working on patterns informally. No doubt she'll see them again.
I think I've decided to ditch MEP Reception for now. I just don't really like it for Lydia. There are too many games and too much talking for her. I bet Eleanor will like it when it is her turn, but it doesn't work very well for Lydia.
Reading:
We're working on short "e" words as well as short "i" words. We are through lesson 35 on OPGTR. Because I am using the book as a guide and not scripted, like it is intended, I decided that at the very least I would have her read all the practice sentences in it. I made up a reader for her to read off the iPad. Basically, I just put a sentence or two on a page, added a relevant picture, and then moved to the next page. This week I've had her read a page or two of our homemade reader and then she can do Reading Bear, which is her favorite. She'll practice with Reading Bear for 45 minutes or more lots of days if I let her. Her reading is definitely improving.
Memorization/Calendar:
Calendar is more of the same, except I've noticed that Lydia is using her newly found reading skills to guess the day of the week. She looks at the first letter of the name of the day (so "w" for Wednesday) and then guesses that it is Wednesday. I'm happy to see her starting to decode these types of things, even if she isn't reading the whole word yet.
For Memorization, we finished the continents and started oceans and the 2nd Article of Faith. We mostly practice the continents and oceans from a map of the world, but some days I'll get down the globe and we practice them from there. She almost has the 2nd Article of Faith down. Oh, and we practiced all of our past memorization every day too.
Miscellaneous:
We did page 23-27 in Bigger Steps and Lydia's handwriting skills continue to improve. We also started listening to our Debussy selections for this term. Tomorrow I pick up our Renoir prints and we'll start learning about those as well.
So cute!
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