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Math:
Babe completed her subtraction chapter and this past week alone we fit in a two-week lesson into one week. I knew I'd be able to do this with confidence because the chapter was on money. Babe has been counting and playing with money since she could talk. haha. So yeah, we finished up that chapter pretty quickly, ending the week with taking real money to the local fruit stand and buying apples with exact change.
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Reading:
Babe is averaging about one chapter book per week, and completes one story web and mini report about every book she reads. It's awesome. Her comprehension is off the charts and I'm just so proud of her. She just finished up a Scooby Doo chapter book and picked another one up from the library. They'd scare me at six years old but she seems OK with them! Every time we go to the library, though, she asks if she can check out Harry Potter yet. I really don't think she's ready, but maybe the first book will be a good 7th birthday gift... :)
We have also been immersed in learning the differences between contractions, possessive nouns, and plural nouns. She is struggling a bit every day with this, but she is getting there. When she finished her Scooby Doo book, I made a chart for her and had her look at the first page of every chapter. Then I had her find all the contractions, possessive nouns, and plural nouns on that page and sort them. She grew very frustrated, but when I stepped in to help, she finished strong. I asked her to do the last chapter by herself and she was able to. I think we will continue to do this with every book. It seems like good practice!
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Social Studies:
The past two weeks have been a more in-depth review of reading a globe and learning the names of each continent and ocean, and their locations on Earth. We've also been discussing the cultures of each continent. It was cool to learn that though no one actually lives in Antarctica, people can visit and others have extended stays for scientific research! They stay in igloos and/or brightly colored, one-room shelters.
When I had two Google searches on a split screen on my laptop, I looked up "South American food" and "North American food" for Babe to compare each.
"What do you see here that South Americans eat a lot of?"
"Whoa! Lots of vegetables! And all their food is colorful!"
"Good! What do you see that North Americans eat a lot of?"
"Meat. And desserts."
haaaahahaha. That's all she said. It was hilarious.
We discussed reasons for why there are such big differences between what we eat and it was cool to know that Babe is understanding that everyone in the world is different.
We finish this up next week and I will introduce her to Christopher Columbus the week after!
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Science:
The past two weeks have been all about animals in Science - what they need to live, how their body parts help them get what they need, and how there are all different kinds of animals. It stopped Babe's heart for about two minutes when she realized that humans are mammals.
"I'm an animal?!"
haha
So we've been doing various things to learn about how animals live. We made bird feeders to learn how birds can reach food if it's off the ground.
We discussed how birds can reach food high in the trees because of their wings, and when we went and checked on our feeders the next day, both had some peanut butter/seeds missing! Bubs's feeder location was prime, though. Check out her big hole in the feeder!
Pretty neato. We ended the week by heading to our local rookery, a hangout of sorts for birds to nest and mate! While it was still a little too early in the year to see the huge amount of birds that are usually there, we didn't leave without the pleasure of watching a mother white egret feed her two babies!
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As far as other activities, I've been keeping up with the Fall theme and we've been discussing/reading about scarecrows and apples.
One week, the girls even got to make their own scarecrows!
The next week we did some apple activities, including using their fingers to paint apples onto a big apple tree! :)
We read Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons and they learned that apples are ready to be picked from the tree when the leaves are very yelllow and ready to fall!
We then ended September by making our favorite Fall treat...BAKED APPLES! Babe remembers making them last year so I knew we had to do it again. They truly are delicious and it's a great food that both girls could easily helped with.
So I gathered up the apples that Babe bought at the local produce stand and halved them while the girls made the mix for the center of the apples.
Then they each helped me core out the apples!
"Tat2? I think you made these TOO good this time!"
hehe
So that's it! That's September! What a great month!
October will see lots of pumpkins, Christopher Columbus, and other spoooooooky things to ring in Halloween at the end of the month!
