October 1-5

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on adding and subtracting multiple digits.  He is also working reviewing skills like time and temperature. 

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her math book this week.  She is working on adding and has had fun starting to create her own right brain addition flash cards.  They are taking awhile, but she loves them! 

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on numbers and counting.  He also has a book of games that he plays and practices adding quickly with dice.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is almost finished with a whole section of spelling words and can't wait to complete that.  He has been reading more and more out loud to his siblings and his speed is improving every day.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five lessons in her language arts book this week.  She loves it!  She got to work on sight words with a leap frog game.  She practiced over and over and then got Caleb in on the action as well.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is reviewing letters and their sounds.  He enjoys learning with his brother and sister and sometimes prefers to "help" them with their learning instead of start his own.  We're not telling him that means he's actually doing more difficult schoolwork.  ;) 

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

For our class this week, we traveled to Australia.  We learned about aborigines and read portions from a book called "Exploration Into Australia."  We then completed our own aboriginal art.  It was a favorite of all the kids!

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston completed his Tinker Crate this week.  It was called "Walking Robot" and was so cool.  We all had so much fun playing with it after he put it together.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed the first portion of Her Kiwi Crate this week.  It was called "Muscle Magic."  She built a soccer player that can really kick the ball.  She loved it!  

Caleb:

Caleb completed the first portion of his Koala Crate this week.  His crate this month is all about farm animals.  He made animal finger puppets.  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his art and PE co-op class.  They worked on jump roping skills.  He also rode scooters.  We are still waiting on details about swim lessons.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended art and PE co-op class this week.  She learned to jump rope.  She also rode her bike and scooter and attended her tumbling class.  She is looking forward to swim lessons when we get more details from the school on class times.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his art and PE co-op class.  They worked on jump roping skills.  He worked on jumping into and out of a hoola hoop since jump roping was tricky.  He also rode his bike and scooter.  We are still waiting on details about swim lessons.  

September 24-28

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four lessons in his math book this week.  He is reviewing multiple digit addition and subtraction. 

Marissa:

Marissa completed four lessons in her math book this week.  She is working on addition and subtraction. 

Caleb:

Caleb worked on his math workbook this week.  He continues to work on number recognition, counting and skip counting. 

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is working on a little bit of spelling and grammar as well as phonics.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five lessons in her language arts book this week.  She is really enjoying a living education approach to language arts.    

Caleb:

Caleb completed lessons in his languages arts book this week.  He is reviewing letters and sounds.  He also works on sounding out words. 

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

This was our last week studying Africa.  We read a book called "One Hen."  It talked about a boy who got a loan to purchase a hen so he could sell the eggs and make money to go to school.  It was a good book about giving as well as being an entrepreneur. 

We also read a book called "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears" and another book called "Anasi and the Talking Melon."  We talked about legends and storytelling in Africa.   We ate African rice and beans from Nigeria for lunch. 

We visited the Tree House Museum to play with their Africa display for a field trip this week.  The elephants were the favorite, but Marissa loved setting up the huts and creating a village in Africa.

It's been so much fun learning about Africa!  The kids are so excited to see where our continent hopping takes us next!!

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston, Marissa and Caleb:

Preston, Marissa and Caleb all built with Lego's this week.  They made a city and also tried to copy patterns of flags from countries in Africa out of one of our books about Africa.

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his co-op class at the neighbor's house this week.  They are learning about art and participating in different physical education activities.  We are hoping to start swim lessons in two weeks.  It has been tricky to figure out the schedule due to remodeling at Weber State.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her co-op class at the neighbor's house this week.  They are learning about art and participating in different physical education activities as well.  She attended her tumbling class as well.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his co-op class at the neighbor's house this week.  They are learning about art and participating in different physical education activities.  We are hoping to start swim lessons in two weeks.  It has been tricky to figure out the schedule due to remodeling at Weber State.  

September 17-21

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four lessons in his math book this week.  He is reviewing multiple digit addition, subtraction and also learning skills like measurements on a thermometer.  We played a game that is similar to Chutes and Ladders to review adding, subtracting and counting skills.  It was fun for the whole family!  

Marissa:

Marissa completed four lessons in her math book this week.  She is learning a lot about telling time.  She also is working on the calendar and reviewing basic addition and subtraction.  We played a game that is similar to Chutes and Ladders to review adding, subtracting and counting skills.  It was fun for the whole family!

Caleb:

Caleb worked on his math workbook this week.  He continues to work on number recognition, counting and skip counting.  We played a game that is similar to Chutes and Ladders to review adding, subtracting and counting skills.  It was fun for the whole family!

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is working on a little bit of spelling and grammar as well as phonics.  He reads to himself as well as reading out loud every day.  He is currently reading Ready Freddy books.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five lessons in her language arts book this week.  She does not love the dictation portions and spelling, but works on it a little bit at a time.  She loves the readers and continues to practice reading out loud every day as well.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed lessons in his languages arts book this week.  He is reviewing letters and sounds.  He also works on sounding out words.  We play a lot of games to teach reading.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We read an awesome book called "Africa is Not a Country" that talked about many countries in Africa and how different each one is from the next.  It was very good to help the kids understand that not all countries look alike even though there are some general things we know and understand about the continent of Africa.

We also talked about tribal music and how important the drum is in many cultures in different African countries.  We watched a YouTube video that showed the differences between the congo drum and the djembe drum.  It was really interesting.  Then we made our own music with a kid-sized djembe drum and other instruments that soon came out of the music room.  We wrapped up our awesome class by making djembe drum crafts and eating African doughnuts.  It was a fun week with lots of learning!  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston built his Tinker Crate this week.  It was a moving screen machine and it was so much fun!  

Marissa:

Marissa built part of her Kiwi Crate from last week.  She finished learning about flight by building her own kite.  She loved coloring it!  

Caleb:

Caleb was a helper this week for Preston and Marissa during their building projects.  He got his instruments from his Koala Crate back out during our jam session with the drums during geography class and added to our impromptu band.  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his co-op class at the neighbor's house this week.  They are learning about art and participating in different physical education activities.  He also worked on learning to climb a tree at the park.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her co-op class at the neighbor's house this week.  They are learning about art and participating in different physical education activities as well.  She attended her tumbling class and climbed a tree with the boys at the park.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his co-op class at our neighbor's house this week.  He participated in different physical education activities with the other kids.  He also learned to climb a tree without any help.  I could not believe how high he got so quickly.  We decided he is part monkey.  He now answers to Curious George.  ;)  

September 10-14

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed one lesson per day in his math book.  He is working on drilling addition and subtraction facts and skip counting to prepare for multiplication.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed one lesson per day in her math book.  She is really enjoying the new book.  She loves how it incorporates stories and math concepts all together.  

Caleb:

Caleb worked in his math book.  He is working on writing numbers and counting.  He also did some skip counting with his older brother.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:
Preston completed one lesson per day in his language arts book.  He has readers, is working on spelling words from spelling lists and completing small grammar assignments that are all included in the daily lessons.  He is also working on reading out loud.  His current book is Ready Freddy.

Marissa:

Marissa completed one lesson per day in her language arts book.  She loves the readers and is working on incorporating spelling into her phonics studies this year.  She is practicing reading out loud every day.  This week she read Dick and Jane to her little brother.

Caleb:

Caleb is working on letters, sounds and sounding out short phonic words.  We play lots of games to keep him excited about sounding out words.  He also completes lessons in his language arts book 2-3 times a week.

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We are still learning about Africa.  This week we read a book called "A is for Africa."  We also read a book called "The Spider Weaver."  It was such a cute book.  It is the legend behind kente cloth.  We watched a YouTube video about weaving kente cloth that was so cool.  We made our own kente cloth by weaving colorful paper.  The book "The Spider Weaver" was a lengend that originated in Ghana so we talked a little bit about the country of Ghana.  We are going to make stamps for our passports for Kenya and Ghana since they are two countries our books have focused on during our studies.

We also learned a song about the seven continents that we are going to sing every week at the beginning of class.  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:
Preston decided to build a robot this week for building and engineering.  His robot was awesome and could stretch to become large or shrink to become a smaller version of itself.  Caleb wanted a robot as well so Preston helped him build a miniature version of the robot he had built.  

Marissa:
Marissa built her kiwi crate this week.  It was about flight.  She built a rocket launcher and rockets and practiced sending them into space in the backyard.  

Caleb:
Caleb built his koala crate this week.  It was all about music.  He built a xylophone and tambourine and also made a ribbon to dance to the music.  We talked about how xylophone starts with the letter x and that there aren't very many words that start with the letter x.  He thought that was awesome! 

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:
We are incorporating PE at home until swim lessons for all three kids start next month.  Every morning, we do yoga poses after breakfast before we start our morning basket books.  Preston is also working on running and doing pushups and sit-ups every day.  His older brother is going to the Utah Military Academy and gets a lot of physical activity.  Dylan is helping train Preston to increase his level of physical fitness.  

Marissa:
Marissa participates in yoga every morning with the family.  She also attends her tumbling class once a week and practices tumbling in the backyard every day.  

Caleb:
Caleb participates in yoga every morning with the family.  He loves riding his bike and is trying to learn to balance better so he can ride a bike without training wheels.  

August-September 7, 2018

MATH

Preston:

Preston started a new math book through his Living Education Connection class.  He has been completing one lesson per day.  He learned about perimeter and was so excited to catch onto the concept and be able to figure it out in his head.  

Marissa:

Preston started a new math book through her Living Education Connection class.  She has been completing one lesson per day in her new book.  We are reviewing addition, subtraction and some geometry concepts right now.  

Caleb:

Caleb is working on counting.  He uses math counters to practice counting to 20.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston started a new language arts curriculum through his Living Education Connection class.  He loves it!  It incorporates spelling, grammar and phonics.  Preston has also been working on creative writing in his journal every day.  He is writing a chapter book about a pencil with arms and legs who goes to the moon to find the cap-liens (baseball caps who live in space).  They are going to try to take over the world.  He's really enjoying creative writing and has decided he wants to publish his book when he finishes it.  

Marissa:

Marissa started a new language arts curriculum through her Living Education Connection class.  The mini book readers are her favorite.  She completes a lesson every day.  She also has a creative writing journal where she writes and illustrates stories.  

Caleb:

Caleb is working on phonics through his Living Education Connection class.  He also completes lessons on Upstart a few days a week to work on his phonics and reading skills.  

HISTORY (World Geography)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We are studying world geography this year.  Continents, countries and cultures.  We started out our class by making suitcases and passports and then began our travels in Africa.  We read several books including one called Mama Panya's Pancakes.  Of course we had to make pancakes for lunch that day!  We are loving every minute studying geography together in our class.  

TECH (Building & Engineering)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We read a story called "Galimoto" by during our study of Africa.  We decided to try to build our own Galimoto out of wire (pipe cleaners).  We learned so much.  It is so much more difficult than we thought to build a car out of wire.  It took us so long and ours isn't very functional.  We learned that we probably need stronger wire, some instructions and a whole lot of patience! 

We also worked on building structures.  Preston and Marissa worked on building a book tower while Caleb practiced building a cup tower.  

Preston's Galimoto

Marissa's Galimoto

 Caleb's cup tower

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended swim lessons as part of their physical education class.  Their summer classes finish this week and they will start lessons again in October.  

Caleb:

Caleb's swimming class starts in October.  For P.E. this week, he rode his bike and scooter.