4.2.5.

Christmas. That's pretty much all we talked about today. No Math at all!

I planned on having the kids make cinnamon ornaments using Calvert's recipe and had them help with the ingredients and everything. I sat them at the table to get ready to cookie-cut their dough and boy, that was a mess! I was getting so frustrated because the dough was so crumbly and even with the smallest cookie cutter, the dough fell apart when I tried t

o trim the excess off. I had the kids throw their mess away and apologized for it. I told them I would try to find a different recipe online to try again next week. I had a fallback though. I brought out the craft we started to prepare a few days ago and they painted their...Christmas magnets!

We used the air dry puffy

dough for that a few days ago and they were dry enough today to paint them. They were extremely happy with the fallback plan.

After lunch, I read Babe a kid-version of The Nutcracker and she was mesmerized. She hadn't heard the full story before, and after I had her recall what the story was about, I surprised her with the fact that tomorrow night I will be taking her and her cousin to the real ballet. Her eyes got so wide and she flipped out. She asked if she'd see the "mean mouse king." How adorable is that?! So yeah, she's excited. As am I. It's been a while since I've seen the show myself.

Babe finished the rest of the day by making more homemade Christmas cards for our special trip next Friday.

And with that, Friday was done! One more week before Christmas!

4.2.4.

More Math and Christmas today! Babe finished up Chapter 7 in Math. I can't believe it! We are flying through it. That's about two chapters a month! We will finish up 2011 with some subtraction, which she is definitely ready for.

For Math, I just had her review creating addition sentences to match a picture. But instead of using the dog manipulatives or connecting cubes, I surprised her with Christmas pencils and erasers. She was very excited.

After her chapter review worksheet to complete Math for the day, I read her "Silver Packages: An Appalachian Christmas Story" by Cynthia Rylant. Today I wanted to introduce Babe to the giving attitude of the Christmas season, and this was the perfect book to do it with. The book was about the Christmas Train in the Appalachian Mountains that started in the 40s. A man who felt indebted to the rural town that saved his life wanted to give back somehow, but when the citizens turned down his money, he decided to start the Christmas Train. It stops in the town every Christmas and gives toys to all the kids. The book is really a very good book, and when I was done reading it, I think it got Babe in the giving mood.

So I revealed to her what we were going to do next Friday, and that we needed the whole week to prepare. I will not reveal it on the blog yet, but today, to prepare, she started hand-making Christmas cards. All I'll say is that she can't stop talking about it and she is so excited.

"Don't you wish it was next Friday now?!"

Ha. Cute.

After lunch, she added another book to the reading log - "Hello, Snow!" by Hope Vestergaard. I again thought she'd have a bit of a tough time with this one but she breezed through it. Too awesome.

And with that, she got back to working on her handmade cards for next Friday and finished the day with a couple more!

4.2.3.

As promised, today we concentrated on Math and Christmas. We started with Math, where I introduced a new activity to get Babe's mind thinking deeper into addition. I put out three piles of dog manipulatives and gave her the number and sign cards. Then had her put the cards in the correct place to make a number sentence. She did this so easily.

Math was a breeze today. We kept up with this activity until she mastered it and hardly had to look at the manipulatives for long, so tomorrow we finish up addition!

After Math, I gathered the kids on the couch and pulled out my Bible. Babe knew right away what it was, without me opening it! I told them I was going to read about the very first Christmas.

"When Jesus was born!"

Babe knew it right away. It was so cute. After I finished the NIV version, Babe ran and got her Children's Illustrated Bible, so I read the story from that version, too. Then we went over to their Nativity scene and Babe was able to label each person. It was really cool to watch and listen.

After I read the story and when Babe had a good understanding of the birth of Jesus, it was time for a craft! I found this idea, yet again, on Pinterest and I thought it was the cutest thing in the world.

Footprint mangers! I can't get over how cute they are. All the kids did really well with this craft. They each glued some grass to their mangers and then glued a swaddled baby Jesus onto the manger. Then I poured out the markers for free design of their craft.

This is Z's finished product. He is scribbling well!

Here's Bubs'! Look at her cute little smile she drew all by herself! I was very impressed. She was proud of it after she saw my reaction to it.

And here is Babe's. Complete with the signaling angel, Three Wise Men, and a camel. Oh, and fireworks. I love this so much!

After lunch, I gave Babe and book and told her that I knew it was going to be a tough book to read. I had her read the author.

"King James Bible?"

Yes, it was a newly illustrated book, but using the words direct from the King James Bible. Babe did a lot better at this then I thought she would! She struggled over the words I thought she would - abiding, swaddling, etc., but she did so good, especially her second run through it. After her near flawless second-read, she was able to add it to her reading log.

After Bubs and Z woke up from their naps, we did one last Christmas craft that will be revealed, I believe, on Friday. Today was the prep day for them.

And with that, Wednesday ended.

4.2.2.

Today, and for the next week and a half, will be mostly about Math. And Christmas. Math and Christmas. We are pretty much right on track with Calvert's lessons, a little ahead actually, so I'm slowing that down and will start with Lesson 72 after the New Year (when new discussions start on Community Helpers).

So today, we concentrated on a solid understanding of addition. I brought out the number cards and had Babe draw the plus sign and the equals sign on two sheets of paper. Then I used the pictures on the Calvert worksheets to help her visualize the addition sentence before she wrote the numbers down.

We did a ton of work like this. Almost until she got bored, which I was fine with because I now know she fully understands the basics of addition.

I also know she's ready for the next step - subtraction - because during one of her number stories I had her create, she said:

"Here are two dogs, and then three more come, but the one of them leaves!"

I told Babe to leave the dog that wants to go away with the group, because next week we will learn about that, subtraction. She obliged.

So yes, we are cruising right along in Math, and she seems to be OK with it. So I'm not stopping!

After lunch, I gave her a book to add to her reading log, and she read this one so amazingly well that I want her to read it every day for the rest of December. It was so cute and Babe fluctuated the tone of her voice exactly how the story intended. She is becoming such a great reader. After every page I couldn't stop telling her "Good job!"

After she read it, I picked random pages and had her point out the nouns, verbs, and adjectives. She's also getting good at this. I'm so proud of her.

Yeah, today was a good day.

On to Wednesday! Where our discussions on Christmas begin!

4.2.1.

NO SCHOOL TODAY.

(Monday, December 12, 2011)

4.1.5.

Yep! We learned about Hanukkah today! But first, we did a bit of Math and kept on practicing number stories and addition. Babe is getting really good at this, so next week we take the next step and I make it a bit harder for her. She's definitely ready.

After Math, I had Babe try to recall the details of the history of Hanukkah. She did pretty well, remembering that the oil lasted eight days instead of one. I showed her how to put her hands together so they looked like nine candles, like on the menorah, and then had all the kids sit at the table to do their craft. These turned out oh so cute and I have Pinterest to thank, again!

After the craft and clean-up time, I read them "The Chanukah Guest" by Eric Kimmel. It was so so cute and Babe loved it. Especially because the main character was "Bubba", which means grandmother in Yiddish. And the younger kids call Babe Bubba. Ha!

After the story, it was time to prepare lunch - homemade latkes! Babe has been watching various holiday movies where, when featuring Hanukkah, latkes were a main to-do thing. So we used the Calvert recipe and gathered in the kitchen.

They each helped me dry the grated potatoes.

Then they stirred all the ingredients together.

Then I had them stand clear of the oven while I dunked spoonful after spoonful of latke yumminess into bubbling oil!

Look how good they turned out! They turned out delicious, and Babe brought out every topping she could think of and put them on the table. Jelly, ranch dressing, ketchup, applesauce, etc. Everyone ate them all. I enjoyed doing this activity. It was really cool to go deeper into the culture by doing something like cooking.

After lunch, I brought out the book "My Dad and I" again and had Babe point of various verbs on different pages. She's doing amazingly at that!

Then it was time to participate in another Hanukkah tradition, the dreidel. Babe traced the Calvert-given dreidel and copied the Hebrew symbols while I got out some mini M&Ms for our money/pot. I went over the rules and Babe picked this up so quick! I only had to tell her what each symbol meant once! We had so much fun and at the same time it included a Math lesson! One of the symbols means "half", where you take half the pot. Every time that was rolled, I had Babe figure out half the pot. She did it right every time! So awesome. So fun.

After the game, I handed her "Here Comes Jack Frost" by Kazuno Kohara for her reading log. I was convinced that this book might be a bit tough for her, but she read it smoothly and flawlessly! I couldn't believe it. Her comprehension was perfect too. I was amazed.

When Z and Bubs woke up from their naps, I put in Elmo's Happy Holidays for them to watch, where he discusses all holidays in December. It was a great overall review. I totally forgot he mentions Kwanzaa for a bit! Bubs even recognized the menorah he showed as the craft she did with her hands.

What a fun day! A perfect way to end a great week.

4.1.4.

Yep, I am loving how things are going. Fourth month in and I finally found a comfortable pace for Babe and I. Love it.

Today in Math, we again practiced number stories with the cute little pictures that Calvert provides. We practiced with teddy bears at tea and apples on a tree. She is really starting to get the hang of it, but I have three-ish more days of review on it. I'm slowing up the pace so as not to frustrate her, which has been working really well lately. When we were done with the pictures, I brought out the dog manipulatives and started with small numbers, for for the last one I did a really big number (13+13=36). She had fun with that, and we ended Math on a high note.

After Math I gathered everyone on the couch and brought out the world map. I tried to get Bubs to point out the country that matched the country I was holding in my hand, but she wasn't really getting it. So I had Babe point out Africa. Then I read them "My First Kwanzaa Book" by Deborah Chocolate. When I got to the page with a picture of Africa on it, Bubs ran over to the map in front of me and pointed it out. Very cool.

At the end of the book, I asked Babe to recall what colors were on the African flag.

"Red, black and green."

"Do you remember the colors we dyed the noodles yesterday?"

"Red, black and green!"

Haha. She made the connection quick but still wasn't sure what we were doing with the noodles, so I had everyone sit at the table. I told them we were going to make Kwanzaa necklackes and they shrieked. With delight. So I set up a piece of yarn with some tape for a makeshift needle and I asked Babe to make her necklaces with an ABC pattern with the colors. Everyone with the exception of Z sat there for a full hour making jewelry. They weren't done when they finished their necklaces. They wanted to make bracelets, anklets, and Babe even asked if she could make another necklace and bracelet for her cousin! They made jewelry until all the noodles were gone!

What a fun morning!

After lunch, I brought out the book "Aaron and Gayla's Alphabet Book" again and had Babe explain to me how this book was organized. She didn't even think and told me in her own words that it was in alphabetical order. I read the book again and asked her to remember what Aaron and Gayla were doing on particular letter pages. Then I asked her what her favorite page was.

She did a corresponding worksheet and I left the room for a few minutes. When I came back, I found her coloring the letters of the alphabet.

"Look! I'm coloring the letters with a color of something I think about that starts with that letter!"

WHAT THE!?!?!?!?!

How does she do that!? How does she think like that!?

So she did. She finished the whole alphabet, coloring each letter a specific color.

Amazing.

We played the game the went along with the worksheet, where I hid a letter and had her guess which one was missing. She did a few but had to sing the alphabet each time. She wanted to try it with me. Obviously I said the answer a lot quicker than she did, so after a few more times (and a lot of convincing that I wasn't peeking), she wanted to try again. And guess what!? She was quicker with her responses! She didn't sing the alphabet at all during her second round. Pretty cool how that all works.

The last thing of the day was adding a book to her reading log. She breezed through it ("Winter is Here!" by Kimbery Weinberger), and after her Checkpoints were completed, the day was done.

Thursday. Complete!

4.1.3.

Today we jumped back into the Lesson Manual since we are all caught up and reviewed. We are currently on Lesson 66 and trucking along. We will not start Lesson 72 until January, since that is when the new discussions begin on community helpers. So the next couple weeks will be a time for crafts, cooking, etc. on the holidays of December. Woohoo!

In Math today I finally remembered to bring a weather thermometer, so Babe had fun with that. I dunked it in ice after asking her which way the red line was going to go down. Again, she has a really good handle on thermometers so this was more or less for her to see the actual thermometer in action.

After the ice dropped the temperature down to 40, I replaced the ice with some hot water. I asked Babe which way the line was going to go, and when she said up, I dunked it in the water. The line shot up to 100 and even Bubs saw how fast it raised! I was shocked!

So with the visual in mind, I got out her ongoing seasons project and asked her to put the seasons in order, then draw a thermometer for Summer. She knew that was going to be the tallest red line, so I asked her what season had the shortest red line. When she drew one on Winter, I asked her to do one for Spring and Fall. She even got out her ruler to make sure Spring was taller than Fall. How cool is that!?

After a brief introduction to Chapter 7 in Math, where we told some basic number stories, we moved on to Reading Comprehension with one of my favorite stories, "Stone Soup."

I prepared an interactive activity by getting some of their play food out and handing each kid a piece of food that was in the story. I read the story outloud and as I read each ingredient to the soup, Bubs, Z, or Babe came running to the pot to put their particular ingredient in. They had a lot of fun with that. I also had a craft prepared for after I read that they all had fun with too!

I led them outside and had them each pick a stone. When they glued that to their pot, I had Babe recall which ingredients were added to the soup, in order. As she did so, I handed out the ingredients.

When they were finished gluing the ingredients, I gave them each some flour, salt, pepper, and bay leaves to add to their soup. They loved shaking and sprinkling!

When the final pot was shaken of unglued ingredients, VOILA! Stone Soup!

After lunch (no, we did not eat Stone Soup), I brought out the story again and highlighted the sentences that featured each ingredient. I had Babe read those sentences, then point out the verbs, adjectives, and nouns of each one. I had her tell me the verbs, then write and circle the adjectives, and write and underline the nouns. She did amazingly well at this!

Our last item on the agenda was briefly introducing the three holidays in December. I told her about the miracle of Hanakkuh.

"You mean a miracle like when the Pilgrims came over to America to talk about God and it was a miracle because they got here after being on that boat for so long?"

Why yes, yes I do mean a miracle like that.

Wow.

So after discussing Hanakkuh a bit, I went into Kwanzaa, which I admitted to Babe was a little confusing for me to understand. But I ran over the ideals and celebrations they do, had her point out Africa on her map, and told her we would learn more about Kwanzaa tomorrow. She got excited because she saw the preparations being made all day today.

Ten points if you can guess of what we are making tomorrow!

4.1.2.

Today was another relaxed day, and I’m kind of liking the look and feel of my new plan, so I might stick with it a while. However, we might be able to breeze through the lessons lately because of Babe’s prior knowledge of phonemics. I don’t have to teach her the sounds of letters because she knows them already. So in the near future, I may be changing around my week plans again. But for now, this is good.

We started with Math, where Babe reviewed weight, length, equal parts, and holds more/less. I brought out some cups as I did in a previous lesson and had her pour water into both cups, then telling me which holds more and less. I also had her cut out some shapes into two equal parts, then four equal parts.

“Except for the heart, because that can’t be cut into fourths.”

Amazing.

We briefly reviewed temperature again, which she has a pretty good handle on. So after her worksheets, we were done with Math. Again, it rolled nicely into Science.

I asked all the kids to go dress as if it were snowing outside. About 15 minutes later, they came out in beanies, mittens, boots, two jackets each, and long pants. It was so great. I had them sit on the couch, where I read them a cute little Winter book called "One Winter's Day" by M. Christine Butler. Such an adorable story. After I read, they wanted to go outside to see if what they were wearing was appropriate for today’s weather. Seeing as how we live in Florida, it of course wasn’t appropriate, so they all came in and changed. I then sat Babe down and explained that our body has to stay a specific temperature to stay healthy, so wearing winter clothes when it’s cold helps our body stay warm. Otherwise we get sick. She learned a little poem from Calvert about things to do to stay healthy in the Winter. Then she cut out some winter scenes, glued them on her Winter sheet, and Science was over.

I then brought out a book for her to add to her reading log - her first book of December! “Let it Snow” by Maryann Cocca-Leffler. She somewhat struggled through this one, but after lunch, I had her read it again where she remembered the words she had trouble with, and it became a legit book to add. She was excited to start her new reading log!

After she read her book for the second time, we went over the short ‘a’ sound for a little bit. She told me some words that had the short ‘a’ in them, then I had her pick out some picture cards as well. When she did that with ease, it was time for a quick cat nap before dance.

And Tuesday was done.

4.1.1.

Can you believe it? We are already into the fourth month of home schooling. Crazy. Time is flying by. I mean, it's already December!

Today we did things a bit differently, and depending on how tomorrow goes, I might make it a regular thing. This week, I have Monday and Tuesday - dance days - as complete review days. As in, very little new things will be learned. Since we've been out of sorts the past few days, today she learned a bit of new stuff, but the whole day wasn't completely filling her head with new knowledge.

I still feel the most comfortable with starting the day off with Math, so that's what we did. I first had her cut a sheet of construction paper in half, then asked her how many pieces there were. Then I asked her to cut the paper into fourths, which she did. With ease. I asked her how many pieces of the rectangle there were all together, and she was correct with four. Then I had her take one of the four pieces and cut it in half, just so she could see that halves and fourths come in all sizes. She did so, and then she cut it in fourths.

Next we did some measuring and weighing so Babe could review the different tools used to measure different things like length, height, and weight. She did good with this and kept asking to measure how long different things were. I let her have at it!

Then we went into the bathroom to weigh everyone. I had her guess who would weigh the most and least (Z and I) and then after we weighed everyone, she lined us up heaviest to lightest. Pretty cool!

After that I introduced her to temperature and reading a thermometer. I forgot my real thermometer at home, but I showed her the ones Calvert worksheet and asked her which one showed a cold temperature. She knew! She knew that a high red line meant it was hot, and a low red line meant it was cold. Brilliant!

"It looks like the thermometer in our pool! And do you say it 'fermometer', or 'thermometer', with a th?"

What the?!

After her Math lesson in reading a THermometer, it ran nicely into a Science lesson on the Winter season and wearing appropriate clothing for keeping your body warm. I brought out her season project from when we learned about Fall and I had her put the seasons in order, starting with Spring. She did!

Then she cut out the appropriate Winter clothing from her Calvert worksheet and glued it onto her Winter page. And that was that for Science!

We had just enough time before lunch for her to catch up on her online lesson from last week that we never got to. A lesson on printers. When she was done with that lesson, I let her use Paint to draw a Winter scene and print it. She even changed the settings to three copies! Something she learned in the lesson. Amazing. I reminded her, though, that she was not to print anything out without me, mom, or dad. That should save Babe's parents about a hundred dollars in paper...a day.

After lunch, I asked her what two sounds the 'a' makes. When she told me, I told her that one of the sounds was called a 'short a' sound. We read some Calvert-assigned books featuring all words with that specific sound. She picked that up really quick, and when both books were read, she told me some more words with the 'short a' sound.

"What kind of sound is the other 'a' sound?"

I didn't want to tell her. I really wanted to wait for another day, but I buckled and told her that it was called a 'long a' sound, but that I didn't want her to think about that yet.

"OK, so I'll learn that when I'm 10?"

Ha! Ten is always her age to go to when I tell her she's too young to learn or do something.

After her quick pick-up with that, she sat in front of the computer for the next 30 minutes and caught up on all her Checkpoints. Woo!

And that was Monday. And now that I look back, it wasn't really a review day! But it was way less stressful because there was no reading comprehension. Tomorrow is really the full review day, so we will see how that goes.

Three. Five. Three.

Today was another rough day, and with the addition of a doctor appointment, I had Babe do only one exercise today.

I brought out the book "My Dad and I" from yesterday and I had her pick out all the verbs and write them down.

She did great at it! She picked out verbs that were even kind of tricky.

And with that, we ended the day. I also made a decision that today is the last day of Kindergarten for the week. So until Monday night, have a great weekend!

Three. Five. Two.

It finally happened. Today, Babe actually struggled with something. Struggled hard, too. To the point where I nearly stopped all work for today. But since I know that the end of this week will be hectic, I had to carry on and forced myself to stay calm amidst her frustrations with...

...Math.

Today I introduced her to the idea of cutting numbers into fourths. Now, her frustrations may have been my fault all along, as I may have made it way too hard by making her use numbers in addition to shapes and towers, but she was pretty unfocused all morning so I figured with plenty of repetition she'd get the hang of it.

I started off by making her build a tower four blocks high. I asked her if she could tell me if four is an even number. She cut the tower into two equal parts and told me yes, four is an even number. Then I asked her to cut the two equal parts into half again. She did. I separated the blocks so there were four equal parts, and told her that she just cut 4 into four equal parts.

"How many blocks are in each equal part?"

"Four."

This was her answer two more times, and then when she started guessing, I had to quickly think of a new route (especially since I was repeating the words "fourths" and "four"). So I tried using the number eight, since I could say "How many blocks are in each fourth of eight?" without her getting completely confused.

She built a tower eight blocks tall, then cut it in half, then in half again.

"Four equal parts!"

"Good! How many in each part? In each fourth?"

"Two!"

Awesome! We were finally getting somewhere. I pushed my luck a little bit and asked her to do the same exact thing with a tower 12 blocks high. She cut it in half, told me that 12 is an even number, and cut each half into half again.

"OK, how many are in each fourth?"

"12?"

Dang. Back to square one. I asked her to look at the blocks that were sitting in front of her and tell me how tall each tower was.

"3."

"Yes! So that means 3 is one-fourth of...?"

"3?"

OK...not so awesome. I asked her to take a little brain-break and told her that we'd start all over with the Math lesson in 10 minutes. She hated that idea, but I was adamant about her clearing her mind, so she went and played until the timer went off.

While she was taking a break, I reviewed the Calvert Math Manual with a different perspective. I think the point of this lesson was to get the Kindergartner comfortable with the basic idea of splitting things into four equal parts, not necessarily knowing what one-fourth of a specific number is. So I went with that and drew four shapes onto a sheet of paper - a heart, circle, square, and diamond.

I called her back to the table, had her cut out each shape, and we started with the square. I asked her to cut it in half, which she did, and then asked her to cut each half into half again, which she did. I pointed out that she just cut the square into four equal parts.

"Yeah! They are the same size!"

I then had her do the same thing with the diamond, without my help. She did.

Then I asked her to cut the heart in half. When she did that, I asked her if she thinks she could cut the heart into four equal parts. She cut.

"These aren't the same shape."

"Right! So can a heart be cut into four equal parts?"

"No."

Awesome. Then I had her cut the circle into four equal parts, without my help. She did!

Alrighty, that was successful. I had her do the worksheets, and just to end on a challenge, I had her build a tower eight blocks tall. I asked her if she could remember how many is half of eight.

"I know this one. Four."

"Yes! Good job! Do you remember what one-fourth of eight is?"

She cut the tower in half, then half again.

"Two!"

"Awesome job!"

We ended Math with a smile, which is the complete opposite of how we started it, so that felt good. But by now it was nearly lunch time, so we didn't have time for much else. I got out "My Dad and I" by Julio Ricardo Baerga for her to read and add to her reading log. We didn't have time to name the nouns in the book, but she was able to read it easy.

I then had her draw a picture of something she likes to do with her dad.

I recognized the couch immediately and asked her what she likes doing with her dad.

"I love snuggling with dad on the couch while we watch TV. And we play feetsies."

Ha! Adorable!

Lately, I've noticed that the way she writes some of her letters is a little lax, so for the last 15 minutes before lunch, I had her practice writing the alphabet on manuscript paper in her very best handwriting.

And with that, it was the end of the day.

On to Wednesday!