January 13-17, 2014

Of course, Little Miss E. snapshots.... 

 

I always take close ups so decided to snap that picture on the right to show her true size.  :-)  She was 6 weeks this week and weighed around 8 lbs.  She was 6 lbs 3 oz. when she was born.  

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 We drive quite a ways to our piano teacher....but it's so worth it!

Each year they do a Keyboard Fest!  Last year was A's first year and this year was C.'s.  I hope they are able to continue this each year....such an opportunity!

"This annual event features almost 300 Midland County (inaccurate statement because we aren't a Midland County family) piano students of various ages and skill levels performing selected pieces alongside their teachers.  Under the direction of James Hohmeyer, students will perform four-handed duets.  Pianos are tuned and provided by Steinway Piano Gallery of Detroit."'--- mcfta.org

Quick snapshot afterwards since we got there too late to do a group pic with their teacher.

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 Math

Math2: Multiplication by 2

Freebie from GreatSchools

L.'s turn to practice those sums from 5-12.  He did quite well with speed and accuracy!  I was pleased!

We are actually doing something a little different this year.  Last year we did timed tests as a group...those with addition did addition and those with multiplication did that.  However, timed tests do NOT go well with this student.  He "freezes".  I think we really caused more of a problem by keeping it up so this year I'm doing something different because I want him to see his progress and work on speed and accuracy.

I came across this freebie at Bright Concepts  Teachers and we are going to use 3 colors vs. the red and green.  We are inserting yellow represent "almost there!"  

Our goal is to get down to 1 minute.  If he completely flops that number we'll color it red.  If he does relatively well but does not get it under a minute, we'll color it yellow.  When he "masters" that set of facts, he'll get a green.  Each time we'll write the time down also.  We use an online stopwatch and stop it when he completes the page to see how long it took for him to complete.  :-)

Division

Most children must be actively taught how to organize their math problems.  I have also found that K12's math pages have some pretty small problems.  Hard to see clearly what you are doing.  Anyway, flipping line paper sideways works very well for math problems.  One number per line.  :-)  Here C. is working on division of decimals...I see I snapped a picture with him using his multiplication of 9s hand technique.  :-)

Math Problem of the Day

Last year I downloaded these Math Problems of the Day for grades 1st through 4th.  I went searching for it for their 5th grade one and they've taken it off the site.  :-(  So sad!  These are great little problems....perfect for a few moment work every morning.  

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 Morning Group

This is the first time I did something like this.  I was interested in how they would handle it...but they loved it!  So, what were we learning?  Actually, I was reading History1: Trojan War.  :-)  They love me to read each others books out loud . 

I came across a game created by a child called MADS.  :-)

This was a great whole group activity because they could play at their level.  MADS stands for x, +, /, -.  They first created a set of lids with numbers 0-9.  Then they rolled their dice and they could use any of the operations to come up with an answer and remove it from the line up.  Of course, by about halfway through it's a bit more difficult to roll a pair of numbers that work for the answers you have on the lids in front of you.  :-)  We'll play this again!

Dictionary Skills

Please excuse my very poor penmanship.  I've so wanted the ability to have a program where I can type and project it up on the wall because 1) we use the dry erase board but then have to erase it...can' really be "saved" 2) I have poor penmanship to begin with because I'm always in a hurry and then couple that with writing at a vertical surface....heaven help us.  Ha!  Anyway, we explored the dictionary a bit and reminded ourselves about what it can do to help us.  Then next week the 3 older students will be working with

Digging Through The Dictionary.

This is a free printable that can be found at Teachers Pay Teachers. They are going to do it about 3 times a week and at snack or lunch, share with us their "interesting word".  Then we'll vote on which of the three is the most interesting.

Geometry

We had such an awesome whole group geometry lesson covering angles (right, acute, obtuse and reviewing/learning about the vertex), polygons and solids!

How we started the morning :-)

 A. helped at the dry-erase board as this was a bit easy for him but necessary for the other kiddos.

K. definitely earning a marble for the kindness jar! 

T. thought this was grand...awesome for him!  A. got the other kids on board to create a larger structure during free time.  :-) 

 They actually build these other creations after creating a "n-gon".  Ha!  They loved that little tidbit.

The word "polygon" derives from the Greek πολύς (polús) "much", "many" and γωνία (gōnía) "corner", "angle", or γόνυ (gónu) "knee".

They also loved learning where the word polygon came from!  Wikipedia is always helpful to us here!
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Misc. Pictures

It warmed up enough to make it good packing snow.  :-D

Cup Stacking :-D

  

Science1: Animal Classification

I really wanted to do more "hands-on" with this science unit.  So, we did go through the online lessons but most of our time was spent on doing a little "writing" and a craft of some sort.  That being said, we only got to 2 of the animal groups this week.  Ha!  

These are really hard to see.  This is the format we are using for her writing.  You can get this free Animal Groups book from the TPT store.

 

You can see her fins, gills and scales which were the three main characteristics the lesson covered with fish.  :-)

 We have an awesome "picture encyclopedia" from the library that fit right into her science.  

She loved browsing through the section of the animal group and choosing her favorite.  When she chose her favorite "locust", I went on a search for a craft that she could do the next day.

We were actually able to slip in some reinforcement of the idea of shades and tints from her art lesson!  

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PhonicsWorks1

 

Sight word practice

Contractions!  She had a lot of smiles while she was doing this.

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Preschool

He cut that bear out!  I found the pattern for a stuffed bear at Crafts For Kids.  We just chose to not stuff it.  :-D

This is really a hard picture to see....all of his drawings are but I'm posting it anyway to help me to remember not to ever "underestimate" a preschooler.

 

He does all morning groups with us.  Today he was drawing a landscape.  He even had a horizon line!  Amazing what he gets out of a lesson!

You can find these printables at Making Learning Fun.  He uses the pattern blocks to create the the letter, traces them with his finger using correct formation.  Then he pushes it up and uses HWT's tools to practice building and writing the letters then after a bit of practice he writes 5 letters on this pages at the bottom.  Amazing how well he does!  Learn those habits early!

Rhyming

 

In my plans for T., we touch on a phonological awareness skill each day.  This day was rhyming.  He does it very well.  :-)  You can find this printable at Teachers Pay Teachers.  Unfortuantely, this week his work didn't get prepped very well.  :-(  We kind of fell back to doing "other" stuff.  Need to get back in gear for next week!

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Snacks/Lunches Worth Mentioning

 

A. made us pumpkin dip one morning!  Definitely went over well.  We'll do it again.  You can find the recipe at Baked Bree.  We enjoyed them with apples and Nilla wafers :-D

We also had PB and J on a stick.  Which, of course, they absolutely loved!

Happy 2014!

2014   Happy New Year!  2014

We had an extended winter break because of this little gal.  :-) 

Little Miss E. was born December 5th.

We are onto our 2nd week back to school and so far...so good.  Only real issue is that mom and learning coach is functioning on minimal sleep and though we make it through the day okay...I feel like I'm always foggy and I can't seem to "get ahead".  Planned on using the extended break to get some lesson planning done and it just didn't get done...mainly for the above stated reason.  :-)

Spiral Snakes

First day back into the school routine, 8AM, 

this is what you would of saw.  :-D

Art is always a favorite around here.  I love starting the day off with a whole group art project.  Unfortunately, they usually end up taking around an hour to get to a stopping point.  That's quite a chunk out of the most profitable part of the morning.  :-)

So, these spiral snakes.  I was wanting a project to correspond with one of our K12 lessons.  No, this is not a K12 project.  See, the thing is...we did a lot of group art last year also.  The easiest projects to do as a group project are the 1st and 2nd graders.  If I attempt to do a 3rd grade+ project, then the younger children can't really do them well.  And since my older boys love doing the younger kiddos lessons....win-win situation!  

Anyway, I was looking for a project to review patterns and cover the objectives but not be the exact art project from last year.  I found one that they enjoyed!  First we discussed what a pattern was and brainstormed different types of patterns.  Then they used black crayon to add patterns into each section of the snake.  After that they painted over top of the snake with watercolors.  

You can get the spiral snake printable at Art Projects for Kids.

2nd art project of the week.  :-D

Starting off on the right foot!  Still working with patterns, this time more realistic animal patterns.  These turned out great!  Another well-loved project!

1st grader worked with the "magic e".  Though she hadn't done a whole lot with it, this was a relatively easy concept for her.  These silent e worksheets were used for a quick intro regarding cvc words and their short vowels and what happens when we add e to the end of the words and can be found on the Teacher's Notebook site.

Preschool

For the time being, I'm just going to add T.'s preschool activities here.  I really don't have time for 2 blogs (www.preschoollearning.blogspot.com) and my focus really is school-age at this time.

The 3 younger students all have a calendar to start the new year.  :-)  T.'s job is to write the numeral in that day's box...so practicing numeral formation.  He also is working with tally marks for the first time. 

1st grader's calendar task for the month of January is to create a fact family triangle for each day.  We also are reinforcing days and months as she hasn't mastered them yet.  2nd grader's calendar task for the month of January is to create an addition or subtraction problem to equal the sum of ten.

Creating patterns with goldfish crackers.  So, one thing I did get done over break was to get a few weeks head start on lesson plans for T.  I was always putting his school work off because I had so many other things to be done.  But he will start Kindergarten this fall so we are trying to get into a more formal school routine.  I had a graphing activity planned for goldfish crackers but at the grocery store prior to school starting I had forgotten my reasoning of wanting colored goldfish and and when the 5th grader said he wanted the checkered colored ones, I thought...why not?  Well, I know why I shouldn't have now!  Ha!

Announcing Mr. Academic... 

Here he was playing a version of "Snap!".  :-)  He was snapping a stick of Unifix cubes and writing down the two addends to make the sum of ten (since each stick of cubes were in groups of ten).  

And while T. was doing the above activity,   C. was working on a genre drawing for art...

L. was working on multiplication (K. was at the computer in the background and A. was in his room working on his own school work)...

E. and I were dealing with an eat time right smack dab in the middle of the school morning.  Ha!

This only happened on a couple occasions.  I try my best to have her on a schedule where eat time is during break or free choice time.  Won't always work that way though.  :-)

Back to preschool....obviously we were focusing on the letter F this day.

After using do a dots, he cut them out (which was my main goal for this activity), and glued them onto a completed "ocean".

He created the ocean by using plastic wrap on fingerpaint.

Shape fish

This was a wonderful activity for him.  He drew that fish (with the exception of the mouth...he wanted one of mommy's fishy mouths. Ha!)  Then we drew lines together horizontally.  I had shape cards there and he flipped one over and practiced drawing that shape in the top section.  Then flipped another card over and drew that shape to fill the 2nd section, and so on.  Then more scissor practice!

A new dough we tried.... 2 parts cornstarch:1 part conditioner

This was actually the 5th grader's creation.  It was an interesting dough.  Very soft.  Not something that sticks around for long.  Tends to crumble when drying out.  Use it to create a sculpture perhaps but not any long term "playdough" explorations.  :-)

Attempting Paper Dolls

The paper I had for him was too thick for him to be successful.so we'll try it again sometime.  He loved the idea of it!  :-)

Sorting by various characteristics.

Word Lines

We had done quite a bit of reading during the summer but got off track in the fall....so this wasn't as easy as it would have been but he seemed to enjoy it.   He took the slid the rime part of the word down (or up) the onset line reading the words.  :-)

Painting with cars   and   Snow Explorations

 

Oh the simple things!  

Break time :-)

Multiplication!

     Multiplication Puzzles           Multiplication Strategies

Bridge Map to help organize those strategies in his brain.  :-)

Addition Practice

Sums from 5-12.  

0+5, 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1, 5+0 on craft sticks

the same pattern all the way up to 12.

An easy to make activity to give them a bit more practice with that single digit addition.

Magic Squares

Obviously an afternoon picture...she looks tired!  Anyway...these squares are harder than one would think!

Roll a Rule

A freebie sheet where child rolls the dice and that's his starting place or the rule, depending on how you want to go about doing it.  Great addition practice to go right along with our intro to multiplication...repeated addition/skip counting!

Back to the grindstone, dear L.  Penmanship is one of his least favorite subjects.  :-)

Here he is working on a Draw Write Now task.  I loved that he was on one page and then asked, " I can go back and find that teepee page to help me draw it in the background, can't I?"  Of course you can!  

Snacks/Meals worth mentioning :-)

Grands! Baked Sugar "Doughnuts"

They absolutely loved!  Relatively easy process for children to do.

Icecream Snowmen

Ha!  Definitely didn't turn out like the one that came across Pinterest...but the kids had a great time with it!

Mini Chicken Pot Pies

Great use of left over chicken.  We used frozen mixed veggies.

Here's pics of L. and K. getting their baby "fix".  They are grand helpers!

Kids really missed each other I think.  Those first couple of days ... they worked and played together so well!  I love snapshots like the ones below.

Having a mixed age group is such a plus!  Conversations are so much more in-depth.  5th grader will naturally say something that will extend the thinking of the younger children, and etc.

 

C. is having a bit of a struggle since baby E. arrived.  He's doing much better with the baby than I expected but it seems the progress we made regarding our school routine and attitudes went down the drain during the 4 weeks that we were home here on our own without the typical school routine.  So, yes, he has had more than his fair share of technology time because we all needed a break from his behaviors and attitudes.  Mom needs to get more rest so she has a bit more patience...it's probably half the problem.

We got a little bit of snow during the big "snow/ice" storm than went through MI.  Kids loved it!  Getting outside is so important for them.  Physical activity, fresh air, good nutrition and Melaleuca's Activate :-) keeps us healthy!

Well, that ended up being long, as usual.  :-D  Gives you a very small glimpse of things we do around here during the school week.  :-)