December 10 - 14

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four lessons in his math book this week.  He is working on adding and subtracting money, which is perfect since we have been working on adding money for our Disneyland fundraiser.   

Marissa:

Marissa completed four lessons in her math book this week.  She loves it!  She also has been asking me to quiz her on multiplication facts (something she is figuring out on her own).  So far, she is thrilled to realize how easy 0, 1, 5, 10 and even 2 can be.  I taught her a trick for figuring out 9.  She is SO EXCITED to learn a skill before her book teaches it to her.   

Caleb:

Caleb LOVES numbers.  He completed three lessons in his math book.  He also played a matching game, a sorting game and a game that includes dice to work on counting and simple addition problems.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four lessons in his language arts book this week.  He had several poems to read, which were all about summer and bugs (didn't match up well with our seasons, but we thought they were fun anyway).  One of them was a poem we have in our big Robert Louis Stevenson poetry book.  He recognized the poem before I said anything, which was a fun payday mom moment for me.  I guess he's paying attention even when it doesn't seem like it.  ;) 

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four lessons in her language arts book this week.  She isn't loving language arts right now so we are taking it easy and completing sections that are less frustrating for her.  She also did journal entries complete with illustrations for extra writing practice.   

Caleb:

Caleb completed three lessons in his language arts book this week.  We are mainly focusing on writing letters right now since fine motor skills are still a major struggle for him.  He loves laying out letter tiles and sounding short words out.  He especially loves putting nonsense words together and giggling after he realizes they don't make a word at all.  We also read a lot of stories out loud as a family.  That's our favorite time of day!  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We attended "Scooge: A Christmas Carol" at Beverly's Terrace Playhouse this week for World Geography.  Our friends Owen and Slade from co-op class are part of the play so we attended the play to watch them perform.  Owen plays the part of Tiny Tim.  It was so sweet to watch Preston be so excited for his friend to perform and do so well.  Marissa had already been told by Slade all of the parts he was in so she kept me informed throughout the play of what was happening next and how well her little buddy was doing.  It was very fun to participate in something that was so meaningful to us.  We took older brother, Dylan, with us and left Caleb with grandma since dad was at work.  We decided two hours was  a little too long for a 5-year-old.  Caleb got to watch his cousin's choir concert and then play at grandma's house instead.  It was a perfect night!  

We talked a little bit about England and the accents the actors had in the play.  We talked about Charles Dickens and different books he has written.  It was so much fun to discuss with the kids!  

Ready to attend the play "Scrooge: A Christmas Carol"

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston put together his Tinker Crate this week.  It was a catapult arcade game.  We had so much fun assembling it and have had lots of fun playing the game ever since!  

Marissa:

Marissa completed the second half of the Kiwi Crate this week.  She was still learning about hydraulic power and put together a magical aquarium that colors and then erases as the hydraulic arm moves up and down.   

Caleb:

Caleb had a part of his farm kit still to put together from a month or two ago.  He and Marissa assembled the barn and put together the vegetable garden.  They had a lot of fun turning the vegetable garden into a memory matching game.  I love when they are creative and make up games without any nudging from me.  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class this week.  He is still working on learning the katas for the belt test in a couple months.   

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She continues to work on perfecting her back handsprings, add more together in a sequence and works on back tucks and back whips with a spotter.   

Caleb:

 Caleb attended his karate class this week.  He learned a self-defense sequence and was reminded that karate should be used to defend ourselves until we can get away and find someone to help us.  It was good for him to learn.  

December 3 - 7

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed 4 assignments in his math book this week.  He is currently learning about estimation and rounding.  He also got lots of practice with counting money for the chocolate chip cookie fundraiser.   

Marissa:

Marissa completed 4 assignments in her math book this week.  She has had a lot of addition and subtraction review as well as introduction to addition with carrying.  She also helped with money and got a lot of hands' on experience adding and sorting money to figure out how close we are to our goal.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed two assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on counting and skip counting by ten.  He is also working on writing numbers better to improve his fine motor skills.  Caleb spent time playing Inchimals this week for extra math practice.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed 4 assignments in his language arts book this week.  He worked on a new spelling rule that teaching that "v" and "u" cannot come at the end of a word in English so a silent "e" needs to be added.  He caught onto the rule very well, but was extremely frustrated with all the other lack of rule following his spelling words had.  Why is "solve" pronounced with the short o sound and shove is pronounced with the short u sound but still spelled with o?  And move is spelled with only one o instead of the double o that we learned makes the oo sound?  I didn't have a great answer except that words in English originate from many different countries with lots of different phonics and spelling rules.  Some things you just have to learn and memorize.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed 4 assignments in her language arts book this week.  She has been doing a lot of work with nouns and verbs. She is also learning a lot of new word endings in the reading/phonics portion of her language arts curriculum.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed 2 assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also did some computer work on ABC mouse and Starfall to practice letters and their sounds.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We completed our study of North America by learning about Canada.  The kids were really excited about the new snow that had fallen so we focused a lot on the cold climate of Canada.  We learned about mounties, animals that live in Canada, provinces and the big cities.  We watched a video about polar bears and learned how to build an igloo.  Then we made our own igloos out of marshmallows.  The kids also decided they wanted to "camp out" in Canada so they built a tent with Marissa's building kit and a sheet.  It was quite fitting with the Christmas tree behind them.  

They also learn about how air takes up space in their science and PE class.  They had a lot of fun with that as well.  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston spent most of his time finishing his snow fort in the backyard.  He came in regularly to report how much better he was able to get the snow to stick if he used a little bit of cold water to solidify it.   

Marissa:

Marissa assembled her kiwi crate for building and engineering this week.  It was all about hydraulics.  She built a really cool inch worm that moves with hydraulic power.   

Caleb:

Caleb assembled his koala crate this week.  He was thrilled that it was all about pirates.  He built a pirate hat, eye patch, parrot and two pirate ships.  Marissa ended up joining him for pirate play and we read a couple pirate books we had on the shelf to add to their afternoon.  So much fun!  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate classes four times this week.  During sparring time, he actually won the match against another student who is a blue belt.  He was thrilled!   

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She worked on putting four back handsprings together in a row with more power and speed.   

Caleb:

Caleb attended karate class twice this week.  He loves it!  He learned and practiced X block, Wedge block, outer block and inner block.  

November 19 - 30

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed two math assignments the week of Thanksgiving and five math assignments the following week.  He is still working on three digit addition and subtraction as well as reviewing some time and money concepts.  

Preston has had A LOT of practice counting money the past several weeks.  The kids decided they want to go to Disneyland for Christmas.  This is something we have been trying to make happen for almost four years and finally decided to go for it.  It's a HUGE goal for our family and our budget.  We told the kids they would need to help earn part of the money.  We gave them the astronomical task of raising $1000 by Christmas.  Preston and his older brother, Dylan, did quite a bit of yard work before the weather turned.  In addition to manual labor, Preston, Marissa and Caleb have been selling chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate.  They are about 3/4 of the way to their goal and do not show any signs of giving up.  It's been a great opportunity for them to choose something they can do to make money, set a specific goal, find times and locations they can try to sell to earn a profit and work hard even when it gets cold and dark.  Preston has spent most of his time selling cookies, counting money in the jar and figuring out how much more we need to make it to our goal of $1000.   

Marissa:

Marissa completed two math assignments the week of Thanksgiving and five math assignments the following week.  She is just starting on lessons that will introduce her to the concept of carrying.  She is learning about two numbers in the one's house and one number in the ten's house.  It seems to be making sense and she is excited to start working problems on paper that look like the ones Preston has to complete.  

Marissa is also getting lots of practice with money selling chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate.  She is a hard worker and quick to figure out money in her head.  

Caleb:

Caleb is grasping simple addition better than I thought he would so we have been focusing on forming numbers to practice his fine motor skills.  Most of his math has been writing numbers since the actual figuring and computing seems to come a little more natural to him than other kids.  We use many opportunities in daily life to incorporate math for Caleb.  This week, Preston and Caleb sorted all the army guys from Toy Story into different types (standing, kneeling, lying down, etc)  Then they counted each group and arranged them for an epic battle.  Here is a picture of part of the army moment captured with my phone.   

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed two language arts assignments the week of Thanksgiving and five language arts assignments the following week.  He is progressing well in his reading, writing, spelling and grammar.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed two language arts assignments the week of Thanksgiving and five language arts assignments the following week.  She doesn't love language arts right now so we are trying to ease into the assignments to keep her excited and prevent burnout.   

Caleb:

Caleb completed one language arts assignment the week of Thanksgiving and three language arts assignments the following week.  We are focusing on forming letters now that he has a fairly solid grasp of the names and sounds of the letters.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We had a Thanksgiving party with our friends from our co-op class the week of Thanksgiving.  We made pilgrim hats, Indian headbands with feathers and had a finger feast with Thanksgiving-type foods.  We watched a short video about the first Thanksgiving.  We later read a couple books about Thanksgiving, including one called "The Pilgrims at Plymouth" that we really liked.  

The following week, we attended "Newsies" at Northridge High School for our co-op class.  We really enjoyed it and got to see friends we know who were part of the play.  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

The kids worked together this week to build a snowman and a big fort under the tramp.  They used water to make the snow stick better and solidify the sides more.  It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts.    

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class Monday-Thursday.  He loves it! 

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.   She is still working on her back tuck, but her back handspring looks amazing!  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his karate class on Monday and Wednesday.