December 16 - January 3

MATH

Preston, Marissa & Caleb: 

Preston and Marissa have been working on memorizing multiplication facts.  They are using the "Musical Multiplication" curriculum.  They listened to the songs and worked through the workbooks.

Preston, Marissa and Caleb all helped me with math in the kitchen making lots of recipes and treats over the break.  We made sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies for family and neighbors. 

We also read Sir Cumference books when we started studying knights and castles (after Caleb made a castle and catapult that came in his Koala Crate this month). 

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston continues to read 30 minutes a day.  He is reading the Box Car Children series right now and really enjoying it.  He also wrote several Christmas cards to practice his writing skills.    

Marissa: 

Marissa read 20 minutes every day.  She received the Mercy Watson series for Christmas and is enjoying reading her new books.  She also wrote Christmas cards to friends and family to practice writing skills.  

Caleb:

Caleb and I read lots of Christmas books the past few weeks.  He also practiced writing his name for cards for family.  

HISTORY

Preston, Marissa & Caleb

We talked a lot about cultures and traditions over the break.  The kids watched Brain Pop videos about Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza and learned a lot about different cultures and religions and the way people celebrate different holidays.

After Christmas, Caleb made his Koala crate.  It was all about Medieval times so we took the opportunity to read a couple books about knights and castles while playing with his castle and dragon.  We had a great time studying a random moment in history JUST FOR FUN!!

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

Preston, Marissa and Caleb all got to learn more about the business side of things selling art at the Christmas recital.  Each of them earned between $20 and $35 selling art.  They decided they want to make more art to try to sell outside of the classroom.

Preston and Caleb also used the break to get in a lot of building and engineering, which they miss from their class last year.  Both of them received Lego sets for Christmas and put them together without any help.

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class.  He also rode his scooter, jumped on the trampoline, rode his new penny board and played laser tag.   

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class.  She also rode her scooter, jumped on the trampoline and played laser tag during the break.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class.  He also listened to his music CDs during the break and practiced his forte and piano sounds.  

December 9 - 13

MATH

Preston, Marissa, Caleb: 

We are working on math facts right now.  All three kids worked with fraction magnets, math wrap-ups (Caleb worked on addition and Marissa and Preston worked on addition and subtraction).  We have also been working on memorizing multiplication tables using "Musical Multiplication."  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed three modules in TTRS each day.  He also read for 30 minutes and went to a reading tutor once.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed two modules in TTRS each day.  She also read for 20 minutes and went to a reading tutor once.  

Caleb:

Caleb read with me every day.  He also went to the dress rehearsal at ZigArts and practiced his skit for the recital next week.  He is a magical talking can and helped write the skit they will perform, learning about nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives while preparing to perform.  

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week where they practiced for the recital next week.  They are both part of skits that demonstrate one of the amendments.  Marissa is part of the group that is teaching the 3rd amendment, which says that she doesn't have to quarter soldiers. She is one of the soldiers who tries to tell a citizen that they have to feed them dinner.  Preston is teaching the 8th amendment, which states that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.  They also both practiced the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the Preamble to the Constitution.    

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week, where they worked on their songs for the recital.  They are singing a song called "I Love America" and "America the Beautiful."  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston, Marissa, & Caleb:

Preston, Marissa and Caleb prepared their art pieces for the recital next week.  They will be selling them to those in attendance.  After that, they will take the money they earn and learn about putting it back into the business to multiply it.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended three karate classes this week.  He also received his kamas and is excited to use a different weapon as a blue belt.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  They made cute Christmas tree ornaments.  

Dec 2 - 6

MATH

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa worked on memorizing multiplication facts using The Good and the Beautiful Musical Multiplication curriculum.  They are working on Set A.  We also did some work on fractions using our new magnets.  All three kids LOVED THEM!

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Math through Music and Movement” class at ZigArts.  They talked about tallies and timelines.  Then they played "What Time is it, Mr. Fox?" 

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed three modules in TTRS every day.  He also completed 30 minutes of reading each day, reading tutor once and his Storytelling class at ZigArts.  The most exciting thing that happened was Preston started reading "The Boxcar Children" and enjoyed it enough, he read all day.  He finished it in just over a day (finished up around breakfast time in the morning).  He was SO EXCITED!! This is the biggest chapter book he has read alone.  It was such a major milestone for this awesome kid!!  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed two modules in TTRS every day.  She also completed 20 minutes of reading each day.  She also attended her Storytelling class.  She told the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" for her audition for the Storytelling Festival.  She has also been working on handwriting, but decided she was ready to learn cursive.  She's been practicing the letters in her name and is getting pretty good at writing her name in cursive!

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Sing, Read and Write” and “Storytelling” class at ZigArts.  They practiced their skit for the recital, focusing on expression and remembering their blocking/lines.  They also talked about kindness and treating each other well.    

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week.  They practiced songs and parts for the recital on December 18.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week.  They practiced their songs for the recital.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Art of Business” class at ZigArts this week.  They made cards and watercolor pictures to sell at the recital.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Art of Business class at ZigArts this week.  They made salt clay ornaments.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class this week.  He is so excited to be a blue belt now!!  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She landed what they call a "2 tuck" meaning a roundoff, two back handsprings and a tuck.  It was so exciting!  Hopefully I'll get it on film soon.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  They sang songs and read a book about snowflakes and then made a snowflake ornament for the Christmas tree!  

Nov 18 - 29

MATH

Preston and Marissa:

Preston and Marissa completed two assignments in their math books.  We are taking a break from our math books to practice drilling and get quicker at math facts.  Preston and Marissa both completed math wrap-ups for addition and subtraction.  They also began working on multiplication memorization using the "Musical Multiplication" curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He also attended his “Math through Music and Movement” class at ZigArts.  They read a book "How Much is a Million" and learned what it actually means to have a million, a billion, or a trillion of something.  They practiced rhythms with introductions.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed two assignments in his language arts book.  He also read for 30 minutes each day and completed three modules in TTRS three times.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book.  She also read for 20 minutes each day and completed two modules in TTRS two times.    

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended his “Sing, Read and Write” and “Storytelling” class at ZigArts.  In "Sing, Read and Write" they reviewed and practiced suing nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.  They also rehearsed their skit.  In "Storytelling" they made a story out of play dough and shared it with the class.  

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week.  They reviewed the words to the Preamble song and finished discussion about the remaining amendments.  Then they decided on a presentation for the recital.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week.  They reviewed the flags they've learned so far and then talked about the next flags, finishing with Utah joining the nation as the 45th Star/State.  They also read about the habit of working together as a team and how that makes 1+1=3.  They also read the Legend of Paul Bunyan and learned a fun hiking echo song about him.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

Preston and Marissa attended their “Art of Business” class at ZigArts this week.  They put their logos on their bags.  They had a great time and now have some bags for all o their supplies.  They learned some new techniques for that style of art/projects.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Art of Business class at ZigArts this week.  They continued their salt dough creations.  The students got to paint their creations from last week.  Caleb made a snake he was so excited to show when he got home.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class several times.  He had his belt test and belt ceremony.  He was so awesome pushing through even though he was starting to catch something.  He is now a blue belt and so excited to one day become a black belt in karate.    

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class.  She also attended a private lesson.    

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class.  He painted a wooden turkey necklace.  

OTHER

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

The kids have been building A LOT lately.  Even though they don't have a building and engineering class this year, we spend a lot of time creating and building all sorts of different things!  

Nov 11 - 15

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He also watched two episodes of Odd Squad to learn more about math in the real world. 

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She also watched two episodes of Odd Squad to learn more about math in the real world.  She also practiced real world math with cooking and patterns in nature.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He also attended his “Math through Music and Movement” class at ZigArts.  They read "Alexander Who Used to Be Rich Last Week" and worked some more with rhythm and clapping out in 4/4 time with occasional 1/8 and 1/16 beats and practiced the song "Annie" for the performance.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  We are really focusing on spelling right now so Preston completed 3-6 modules in Type, Touch, Read and Spell each day.  He is getting really good at typing and his spelling has improved so much!  He also completed at least 30 minutes of reading each day.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book this week.  She is also working on spelling through TTRS.  She completed 2 modules per day.  She also completed 20 minutes of reading each day.  In addition to her regular language arts work, she is preparing for a storytelling audition and hopes to be able to attend the Storytelling Festival at Weber State University this year.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended his “Sing, Read and Write” and “Storytelling” class at ZigArts.  They learned five parts of sentences.  They looked at sentences from their skit and evaluated why they chose specific words and punctuation for certain situations.  They introduced adjectives and rehearsed their skit or the recital.  They also used word blocks to create sentences.  They practiced creative collaboration by helping each other create sentences and worked on reading skills with sounding out words.  

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week.  They reviewed amendments 1-4 of the Bill of Rights and learned about the 5-7 and the Miranda Warning.  

We also watched a video on Brain Pop about Veteran's Day and attended an assembly at the Utah Military Academy honoring veterans.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week.  They reviewed the Betsy Ross Flag and Star Spangled Banner Flag and then introduced them to the next flag and talked about Congress passing a bill that all future flags would only have 13 stripes.  They reviewed America, Yankee Doodle, and Star Spangled Banner.  They also read about the habit of listening with your heart and your eyes and your ears.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

Preston and Marissa attended their “Art of Business” class at ZigArts this week.  They learned literal inspiration verses non-literal inspiration.  They drew out and cut out letter shapes to be used as stencils for vinyl cutouts that will be pressed on tote bags for art supplies.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Art of Business class at ZigArts this week.  They made salt dough.  Each of the students took turns stirring the ingredients together.  Then they all made their own salt dough creations.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended six karate classes this week.  He is hoping to be ready for his belt test next weekend.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She also attended a private lesson working on her tucks and whips.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  They made an adorable fall garland and sang more songs about autumn, leaves, nuts and squirrels.  

Nov 4 - 8

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He also practiced multiplication using wrap-ups. 

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She also practiced addition and subtraction using wrap-ups.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He also attended his “Math through Music and Movement” class at ZigArts.  They read "Measure for Penny" about various measurements/ways to measure things.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also completed 30 minutes of reading and 3 modules in TTRS every day to practice extra spelling skills.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book this week.  She also completed 20 minutes of reading and 2 modules in TTRS every to give her extra practice with spelling.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended his “Sing, Read and Write” and “Storytelling” class at ZigArts.  

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week.  They practiced the Preamble and did the Pledge of Allegiance.  Then they learned more about the Bill of Rights.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week.  They talked about a few of the early presidents of the United States and read through the Preamble to the Constitution.  They reviewed the Star Spangled Banner, America, Yankee Doodle, and America the Beautiful.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

Preston and Marissa attended their “Art of Business” class at ZigArts this week.  They did another watercolor paint lesson.  They talked about how to create a stained-window effect with the tape and watercolor.  

They have been drawing more at home to get more practice with their arts skills and create pieces to sell.  They spent one evening drawing "Pokemon" characters.  They did a really good job with them! 

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Art of Business class at ZigArts this week.  They had another dot painting lesson, but this time clustered together several Q-tips and painted on trees to create a Fall leaf effect.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class this week.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  They made adorable snail drawings and sang a song about a snail.  

Oct 28 - Nov 1

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is practicing multiplication up through 7's.  Preston also attended Astro Camp this week, where he got to work on engineering and math skills to solve a real life problem.  His team took first place.  They were able to have 5 energy transfers, use 3 simple machines, complete a presentation about their invention and have it actually work.  It was so much fun for him to take first place in a field that really interests him. 

 

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  Marissa is reviewing time and money.  Marissa also attended Astro Camp this week.  Her team took second place.  I couldn't believe that out of 6 or 7 teams, my two kids were in the first and second place teams.  Her team did amazing, but their machine didn't work the final time they tried it (during the presentation).  However, they managed to have 5 energy transfers, use 3 simple machines and had an incredible presentation, landing them in second place for the day.  So much fun! 

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his math book this week.  He also attended his “Math through Music and Movement” class at ZigArts.  They practiced 1/2 beats, 1/4 beats, 1/8 beats, and rests through some Halloween words.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also completed 30 minutes of reading and three modules in TTRS each day.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed four assignments in her language arts book this week.  She also completed 20 minutes of reading each day and two modules in TTRS.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed three assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also attended his “Sing, Read and Write” and “Storytelling” class at ZigArts.  In "Sing, Read and Write," they reviewed nouns and verbs with their "Grammar Grooves" songs.  Then they read some limericks from "A Child's Introduction to Poetry" and reviewed the rhyming structure.  

AMERICAN HISTORY

Preston & Marissa:

Preston and Marissa attended their “Let’s Rock American Government” class at ZigArts this week.  They practiced the Preamble and did the pledge of Allegiance.  Then they did an overview of The Bill of Rights and watched a fun Disney video of different scenes from their shows that illustrate the Bill of Rights in the classroom.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “I Love America” class at ZigArts this week.  They talked about the habit of thinking Win-Win with he story of the skunk and the Garden and read a book about the importance of honesty.  They also read about the history of several Halloween traditions - costumes, trick-or-treating, pumpkins, witches, orange and black - and learned a lot about the mixture of cultures that makes America what it is.  

ENTREPRENUER (The Art of Business)

Preston & Marissa: 

Preston and Marissa attended their “Art of Business” class at ZigArts this week.  They worked with watercolors and tape.  They loved it and were so excited to show me their completed artwork when they got home.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his “Art of Business class at ZigArts this week.  They made handprint spiders and footprint ghosts for Halloween.  This is another project the kids can apply to various art themes to sell at the December recital.  

OPTIONAL (Karate, Tumbling, Musikgarten)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class three times this week.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  She also attended a private lesson where she was able to connect a whip, 5 back handsprings and a tuck on the trampoline.  It was a super exciting week for progress in tumbling!

Caleb:

Caleb attended his Musikgarten class this week.  He painted a pumpkin and sang lots of spooky songs.