Weekend,Frogs,Hadley

This weekend was chock full of fundamental fun. Saturday marked the arrival of our African Dwarf frogs with bonus snail. They are going to permanently reside in the school room as a living example of a mini eco-system. We have to feed the frogs one to two times a week. The living plant provides oxygen and the snail keeps everything clean. You are supposed to only have to clean it once a year. The frogs can live up to 5 years. The children think it is fun. Corbin's favorite is the snail, who is named Slug. Bert and Ernie are the frogs names. Clint said if they spawn, they are out of here. HA!

Sunday provided a lot of hands on experience in Science. We spent part of the day watching chickens lay eggs. No matter how many times I see that it is still neat. Corbin and Hadley can both predict when the chicken is ready to pop an egg out. Really, we were out there trying to identify our egg eaters. We caught 3 of them in the act. We hope that is all of them.

We observed Mouse(the cat)catching a snake. That was pretty wild. She didn't eat the snake, just played with it for a long time. We observed how she moved slowly or quickly, and how she got down low to the ground.

Finally, we got the cold weather plants and seeds into the garden. We planted potatoes, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, strawberries and blueberries. The children really got into it. Our rows might not be perfectly straight, and the potatoes might be planted too close together but it was great watching the kids. They learned why we put "poo"(horse manure) in the around the plant/seed, they also learned that it would not result in "yucky" tasting food.

Today we had regular school lessons. I decided to see what they did with Handwriting today. They both loved it! It is going to be a regular thing. I am thinking about adding a new "subject" in once every couple of weeks so we can gradually work our way up to the heavier 1st grade load. Corbin did really well using words on papers to make sentences again. Our "focus" for this week is Maple Trees and Syrup. On Friday we are leaving for a weekend of Maple Syrup making in the northern part of the state. Can..not...wait.

Phonics: ETC 1.5 pg 14-15

Handwriting: HWT pg 9-14

Math: S1A-looked at text for adding and subtracting numbers to 20. He worked with multi-link cubes for a bit but did not want to do the workbook.

Books: "Police Patrol"-really neat book talking all about Police. We discussed many things while reading this. "Maple Tree"-talked about the life cycle of a maple tree. "Maple Harvest"-talked about harvesting maple syrup. "Sugaring Time"-more maple syrup. "Ben and Me"-book written from a mouses perspective about Benjamin Franklin. I remember watching this video when I was a child and loving it. I saw the book at the library and decided to make it one of our older book read-aloud. We will read a chapter each day.




Now, for Hadley. I feel kind of bad not mentioning her on the school blog. I am going to start keeping track of what she is doing. I realized I should today since she is doing the same subjects as Corbin, is actually a little ahead of him in "reading", and has started asking to do school everyday. As with Corbin I let her go as far as she wants each day in any giving subject. Someday's it is one page, others it is 10. This is her get up to date section:

Phonics: ETC 1 pg 6-9. She does really well. Where I have to read pretty much everything but a few words for Corbin, she can do this almost completely independently. She was reading sentences today with little help. She was very proud of herself.

Math: SKA pg 142-158. When we began today she told me she wanted to go all the way to the end. I wasn't sure if she would, but she did. She finished the Singapore Kindergarten A book, tomorrow she gets to start on the B book. Again, very proud of herself.

Handwriting: HWT pg 7-10.

Books: The same as Corbin

I will just start combining all of this tomorrow.