Sep 23 - 27

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on multiplying 3's and is also starting to learn fractions.   

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She is working on double digit addition and subtraction.  She is also very eager to learn fractions and multiplication with Preston.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on counting and adding.  He also attended his "Math through Music and Movement" class this week.  They read a story about ants and learned how solving mysteries is math.  They got to follow clues to solve a mystery.  They also started learning "Tomorrow" from Annie.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  He is learning about plural nouns and also learning about possessive nouns and using apostrophes.  He also reads at least 30 minutes every day.  He is LOVING the Nate the Great series and has checked out 20 books so far form the library.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book this week.  She is learning "ar" words right now.  She also reads every day out loud for 20 minutes.  She is excited to be reading Junie B. Jones books now and has several on hold at the library to pick up.   

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended "Sing, Read and Write" and "Storytelling" at ZigArts this week.  In Sing, Read and Write they learned what nouns and verbs are  through discussion, song and a game and wrote a poem together as a class.  In Storytelling they looked at folk tales and how the same basic story can be told throughout the world with different cultural nuances.  They explored Cinderella and took turns relating it to their own lives.   

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their "Let's Rock American Government" class this week. They learned about the three branches of government.  They sand the song and talked about how they are all equal and are set up to be checks and balances.   

Caleb:

Caleb attended his "I Love America" class this week.  They talked bout flag etiquette and started to learn "Take Your Hat Off."  They also learned about the leadership habit of being proactive.  They read about a squirrel who was bored, bored, bored, and followed his journey through visiting others who weren't.  Then they learned that it was in his control if he was bored or not and watched him turn and incredible idea into a service for someone else.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

Preston and Marissa attended their "Art of Business" class this week.  They did shading with lamps and passed out art tools to use.  They drew cups with foam blocks and foam balls.  I can't wait to see what they are creating to sell! 

Caleb:

Caleb attended his "Art of Business" class this week.  They painted with sponges this week and talked about how everything around us is basically made of sales.  They used shapes to create their own picture.  Next week, they will practice some more and make a picture to sell.   

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class twice last week (after that they had belt testing that he did not participate in) 

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class and also had a private tumbling lesson.  She is improving so much!   

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  He loves it!  They made paintings of flowers in nature and talked about leaves in autumn.   

OTHER

Marissa:

Marissa attended World of Dance at BYU and got to meet one of the cloggers.  She was so excited since she is taking clogging at ZigArts this year!!  

Sep 16 - 20

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on multiplication tables, specifically on his 3's while reviewing 2, 5 and 10.   He practiced reviewing multiplication using gems to see what it actually looked like to multiply by bigger numbers.  It really helps Preston to learn visually and kinesthetically so we rely on manipulatives quite a bit in math.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She is working on double digit subtraction and trying to work on multiplication alongside Preston (she loves math and wants to catch up to her brother).  She also loves to randomly review things like adding doubles, which is what I found her doing on our white board one day.  

  

Caleb:

Caleb completed two assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on counting and adding up to 10.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book.  He's also finished with his level and we will need to purchase a new one soon.  He's learning so much!  He completed 10 modules in Touch Type Read and Spell (TTRS), which is helping so much with his spelling.   He also completed six pages in his handwriting book.  He is learning cursive this year and doing great!

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book.  She completed 10 modules in TTRS, which is so exciting.  She's decided it's not her favorite because it's getting more difficult now that it's words and not just letters, but that is the part I love.  It is teaching her reading and spelling while she learns to type.  She also completed four pages in her handwriting book.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book.  He was having a difficult time remembering all the sounds the letters make (I'm not sure why) so he also watched Letter Factory as a review.  The older kids have taken Caleb under their wing (since they are both feeling much more confident at reading).  I walked down the stairs one day to see Marissa and Preston "teaching" Caleb to read different words using the white board.  It was so sweet!   

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston, Marissa & Caleb

We attended Freedom's Light Festival in Bountiful this week for American History.  It was so much fun to see characters in costume teaching us about their lives through story.  Benjamin Franklin was my kids' favorite!  He had such a gift for storytelling!!  We were there quite awhile and the kids were captivated by every word.  They were surprised to learn he was originally on the side of the King and that over time he became a supporter of freedom, but in the process his relationship with his son suffered.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

Preston and Marissa did not have class this week because of the field trip, but they both worked on some art to practice for class.  We also discussed business plans for other businesses they may want to have this year.  Preston, in particular, is eager to sell cookies again.  As the head baker, we're currently discussing it.  

Preston practicing drawing a neighbor's house

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended karate class four times last week.  He got to spar for the first time.  It was tough and he didn't love it, but he talked about how much he learned even though he got hurt and doesn't like the fighting part of karate.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class last week.  Her ankle was feeling much better and she was able to practice at full capacity.   

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class.  They painted with items from nature and talked about fall.  He loves it!  

Sep 9 - 13

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on multiplying and dividing 3's.   

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She is learning double digit subtraction. 

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He got some extra geometry practice with Osmo Tangrams.  He also attended his "Math through Music and Movement" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy.  In Math through Music and Movement they read a story called "The Lemonade Stand" that introduced students to some Living Math applications and principles.  They also continued working on rhythms in counts of 4.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also completed three modules in Touch, Type, Read and Spell (TTRS) four days this week.  It is helping so much with spelling, reading AND typing.  I'm loving it!  Preston also attended his storytelling class at ZigArts.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book this week.  She also completed three modules in TTRS four days this week.  It is awesome and helping so much with her reading, spelling and early emerging typing skills.  Marissa also attended storytelling class at ZigArts and read a book called "The Little Boy Who Didn't Speak."  All the kids LOVED the book and kept telling me the different sounds the boy made on our drive home.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended his "Sing, Read and Write class at ZigArts Academy.  They discussed some storytelling elements: Characters, Place, Action and Conflict.  Then they practiced those principles by creating their own story.  They also did a rhyming words scavenger hunt and read aloud from "An Introduction to Children's Poetry."   

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their "Let's Rock American Governments" class at ZigArts.  They talked about the 13 Colonies and how King George kept increasing the taxes every day so they Colonists decided to stand up for themselves and separate from England.  They also talked about the process of deciding how they wanted their Governments to be set up and why they decided to not have a king.

Caleb:

Caleb attended his "I Love America" class.  They reviewed the song "America" and introduced the Pledge of Allegiance.  They talked about what some of the words mean and proper etiquette when saying the Pledge.  They also started to lear the song "Yankee Doodle Dandee" and talked about the history behind it.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

This week Preston and Marissa worked on their first project to sell: still-motion drawings.  They brought an item from home and then drew it on their papers.

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Art of Business class this week.  He made his own finger painting creation.

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class three times this week.  He got to break his first board EVER during class this week and was THRILLED that he did it so easily.  It was so cute how excited he was about his accomplishment!  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She landed her whip and I finally caught it on film (not her best one, but at least it's filmed now)

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  They brought items from nature to turn into a paint brush and use nature to paint.   

OTHER

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We went to a farm of a friend of ours and picked peaches and blackberries this week.  Caleb was adorable climbing through the blackberry bushes to fill his bag!  We've been dehydrating fruit leather and making smoothies all week!

Marissa:

Marissa attended her hair class at Paul Mitchell Beauty school.  They learned about braids and got to practice on a mannequin.  She LOVES her class so much!

Aug 19 - Sep 6

MATH

Preston:

We spent time working with money to review a little bit this week.  Preston is saving money for a big Lego set he wants.  He counted all his money and then completed problems in a book called "Money Math" for extra practice.  

Marissa:

Marissa also spent time practicing with money.  She read "Money Math" with the family and practiced solving problems in the book.  It was a fun one.  We also got our workbooks out and completed a few assignments.  We plan on using Life of Fred as a family and working through the books in addition to our regular math textbooks this year.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his "Math through Music and Movement" class last week.  They practiced singing and counting rhythms in 4/4 time.  They also read a story from India about a smart monkey who problem-solved his way out of a crocodile's grans and sang the Five Little Monkeys song.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston has been reading daily for language arts.  He is finishing his creative writing story (which he wants to publish).  He also attended his storytelling class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  

Marissa: 

Marissa has been reading daily for language arts.  She wrote two entries in her creative writing journal.  She also attended her storytelling class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  

Caleb:

Caleb has been practicing his alphabet.  He also attended his "Sing, Read, and Write" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  In class, they did an assessment of what students already know with alphabet and sounds, sight words and basic writing and shape drawing.    

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa

Preston and Marissa attended the "Let's Rock American Government" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  They did the Pledge of Allegiance and listened to the first School House Rock song - King George - and discussed the overview of the war of independence.  They discussed terms in the Preamble song and sung it through a few times.   

Caleb

Caleb attended his "I Love America" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  They learned the song "America" and talked about the words and what they mean individually and in relation to America and Freedom.  They learned the history of the song, "America the Beautiful" and sang the first verse.  Then they looked for rhymes in the other verses.   

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa

Preston and Marissa attended their "Art of Business" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  They talked about still-motion drawing and were given an assignment to come to class next week with something they love that they can learn to draw.   

Caleb:

Caleb attended his "Art of Business" class at Ziegfield Arts Academy last week.  They practiced and created a piece of artwork to sell using finger painting.   

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston: 

Preston will be starting his karate class next week.  He has been practicing soccer and volleyball with his older brother, Dylan, the past few weeks.  He has also spent a lot of time jumping on the trampoline and riding his bike and scooter.

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She loves it and has landed her whip a few times (never on camera yet).   

Caleb:

Caleb's optional class this year is Musikgarten: Cycles and Seasons.  His class starts next week, but we have been practicing his old songs and collecting leaves from nature for his first project the first day of class.