Week Four

We are really settling into a good routine.  We start around 9:30 each morning and Eleanor likes to do math first.  She's cruising along in her math book.  It's still working on counting to ten and ordering numbers to ten.  I have to write most of the numbers for her, but she enjoys the rest.  We did have one EPIC meltdown the day I told her she had to trace the number 10 by herself.  She cried, yelled, and stormed off.  After a break to reflect on having to spend a whole lot of time alone in her room, she came back and not only traced but wrote several beautiful tens!

After math we move on to phonics.  I really pleased with Get Ready for the Code.  She's doing really well with them and is remember letter sounds better than I thought she would.  Every week we start a learn a new letter sound and we make a page with that letter and some pictures beginning with that sound.  This week we took the four pages we've made so far and played a game.  I would name a sound or a word and she would have to throw a bean bag on the correct page. 

She broke the bag twice because she threw so hard!

After phonics we do handwriting and copy work.  What an improvement from the first few weeks!  She does them now without complaint and is tracing letters and words much quicker now.  And some of it is starting to look like letters!

Once a week we do a writing assignment.  We have a type of writing to do and she dictates to me while I write.  This has not gone well the last two weeks.  Last week was like pulling teeth and this week was only a little better.  The assignment this week was writing about a memory.  With a lot of questioning I was able to get this:

Better than last week, but we still need to work on this.

After all of that is done with move to the couch and I read to her.  Sometimes we have little activities to that go with our reading. Our favorites have involved arts and crafts.  This week we read "Old King Cole" and Eleanor made herself a crown:

I think she's starting to like modeling for the camera!

Week Three

It was a pretty quiet week this week.  Matt was off on Tuesday and wanted to work with her that day.  He really enjoyed it and I know Eleanor enjoyed working with someone different.  She even did handwriting with him without putting up a fight!  

We read a story about a farmer and a cow and Sonlight suggested discussing where milk came from and then pouring the milk into different size containers to see that the same amount could look different in each, but was still the same.  I really would have liked to take Eleanor to dairy farm, but I couldn't find one around here.  Then I thought that just going to farm would be nice, but all the ones that do field trips around here don't open until next month, so that was nixed.  I really wanted to do something, though, since the rest of the week was pretty much just workbooks and read alouds, so I decided we would make butter.

"Don't take my picture, Mommy!"

"Where's the butter?"

We made just enough for a taste on crackers.

Math is still going very well.  We are still reviewing things she already knows, but I don't want to skip ahead, just to make sure we don't miss any gaps.  Phonics is going well, too  and handwriting is getting better.  She still hates writing her numbers, but she will write a few letters on her own without having a fit.  Creative expression, however, did not go well this week.  I gave her a picture and asked her to tell me a story about the picture.  The first day I introduced it she wouldn't even try.  The second day was the same.  So, on Friday, I was able to get this from her:

She comes up with much more creative stories to "read" to herself before bed.  We'll have to keep working on it.

On to week 4!

Vacation

After two weeks of school it was time for a vacation!  My parents rented a cabin in the Texas hill country and we spent four days in the area.  This turned out to be a great "field trip" for Eleanor.

Our trip actually started out on a the wrong foot.  We left on Monday, Labor Day, and had plans to stop in Shiner so my dad could see the Shiner Bock brewery and then in Gonzales to see the cannon there.  But, alas, both were closed, so we headed to a wonderful barbecue place we had heard about but it was closed, too!  Then the place we wanted to eat dinner at was closed, too!

The next day went much better.  We headed to Natural Bridge Caverns, the largest cave in Texas.  Eleanor was in love!  She didn't mind the dark, the moisture, or the long walk down and then up.  She listened well to the guide and then asked us when she would be old enough to go caving. 

Tonight we read this book I checked out for her from the library:

She informed me after reading it that it was okay to go caving in a dress!

After the cave we went to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch next door. She was really tired from cave and didn't want to go at first.  But as soon as the first animal came up the truck she was hooked.

The ranch has antelope, deer, goats, bison, donkeys, ostriches, emus and zebras that you can feed from your car.  By far the hit of the trip was the zebras.

As you entered the area with the zebras there were signs on each side showing huge zebra teeth and proclaiming that the zebras could bite.  So Daddy was really (unpleasantly) surprised when one zebra came to his window and showed it's teeth!  He had to keep throwing food in it's mouth to keep it happy.  Eleanor still thinks this is the funniest thing ever and will find pictures of zebras to "scare" her daddy.

We were also able to feed and brush goats.  One tried to eat Granddad's phone and one chewed on my jeans!

The cabin we stayed in was very nice and Eleanor collected many rocks to take home with us. 

Next week we'll be back to our schoolwork!

Week Two

Whew!  We made it through week two.  I think the novelty of "doing school" everyday with new school books has worn off already!  Once again she has loved math (except for writing numbers), loved being read to and hasn't minded the phonics work.  Handwriting has been like pulling teeth, though.  Our letter this week is b and she can write them pretty well.  But don't tell her that!  I complimented her a few times and she got upset and tried to hide them.  I don't know what that was all about.  She'd only try to write numbers if I was helping her. 

Highlights of our week:

After reading the nursery rhyme "One, Two" we lined up craft sticks like they do in the rhyme.  We counted them and then I grabbed them all and asked her how many were in my hand.  She counted again and got the same number.  I threw them in a pile and asked her how many there were.  She counted again and got the same number.  After a few times of doing this she realized that it didn't matter what shape or group they were in; the number of sticks always stayed the same.  She thought this was a great "trick" and showed everyone else when they got home from work.

Another nursery rhyme we read this week was "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater".  Sonlight suggested making pumpkin pancakes, but Eleanor doesn't eat pancakes.  Instead we made pumpkin cookies:

Measuring

Dancing?

Dancing!

Waiting

Enjoying!

Yum!  They turned out great.

After reading about Noah's ark and God's rainbow, Eleanor painted a rainbow for her daddy:

And finally this week's writing assignment was to write an invitation.  Eleanor dictiated an invitation for me to write the her friends to invite them over:

We mailed it and the girls were going to come over today (instead of the day in the invite), but one of them got sick and they couldn't come, so we'll have to try another day.