Week Seven

After last week I was really determined to put some more fun activities into our school time. 
We worked more with the letter a this week, which I think Eleanor liked, mostly because we had already done the handwriting sheets for a last week.  She was able to read more short a words (But is it just me or do "am" words not really work as short a words because they don't say the traditional short a sound?  I run into this at work all the time and Eleanor was having trouble with it, too.). 

This week's writing was the retell a fable we had read.  I read her the story about the Little Red Hen and the sky falling, but she kept confusing it with the fable she had just seen told on Super Why!  that morning.  So I just had her retell me that one.  It came out okay.  I'm just glad we were able to get it done.

This week we also read "Old Mother Hubbard" and made puppy chow to snack on.  The puppy chow was a huge hit with everyone around here, so we'll have to make some more soon. 

We also experimented with ice cubes, melting three in different locations and predicting which would melt first.  She correctly guessed the one outside and was able to tell us why (because it was hotter outside).  And we (gently) caught a butterfly in the backyard to observe for a little while before letting it fly free.

The big hit this week was our trip to the Natural History Museum.  Last week we had read about dinosaurs in her science book and we had talked about them being extinct, with only their bones left for us to see.  On Wednesday, when Matt was off of work, the three of us went to see some of those bones.

She liked the dinosaurs and loved the hall of gems and rocks.  But I think her favorite part was scaring her daddy with the stuffed zebras!

Week Six

Last week was quiet and this week we had our first sick day!  Matt was off on Wednesday and we decided to take Eleanor to the book store and then to the playground.  We packed a picnic lunch and off we went.  She always loves the bookstore and begs to have picnics, so we knew she wasn't feeling well when she didn't want to pick a book and wouldn't play on the playground.  We took her home and, sure enough, she had a fever.  Unfortunately medicine wouldn't bring it down so later that night we took her to an urgent care place down the road.  An hour and one throw-up on Daddy later, she was on antibiotics. 

We had rushed through her work on Wednesday so we could go out and on Thursday she was too tired to do much more than watch cartoons.  Friday was spent catching up on work pages, so we really didn't do anything fun this week.  And we skipped the dreaded writing lesson all together. 

But, even with all of that, she learned a lot this week!  She learned about her first vowel (a) and read 4 words (at, rat, mat, fat).  I  made a game using Popsicle sticks to help her practice reading those words and she has them down-pat (and so do all of the rest of us since she's wanted to play it over and over)!

She also mastered counting backwards from ten and filling in missing numbers in sequences.  I'm really thrilled that she can tell me what number comes before another (ex: __ 5, 6) since this is a skill I've seen many older kids struggle with when I'm tutoring them.

So there are no pictures this week and no writing or drawings to look at, but it was still a very productive school week.  Next week I hope to get back to doing lots of fun things!

Week Five

Well, week five has come and gone!

It was a pretty quiet week.  I had neck pain a lot this week, so we pretty much kept it simple.  In math we've worked on numbers 5-10.  Eleanor is still doing great with math.  I was worried she might be getting bored, but apparently not.  She asks to do math first everyday. 

In phonics we added the letter r to our repertoire.  She's got the sounds we've done so far down pat.  This week we played a memory game with the letters we've learned so far, which she loves.  I'll have to incorporate more games into our work, since she loves them so much.

Making A Leaf Rubbing

We continued to read in the read a louds we've started and we started another one.  We were actually supposed to start it at the beginning of the year, but I hadn't bought it yet.  I finally discovered the library had it and checked it out.  She loved it!  It's called Things People Do and it's about a fictional island named Banila and all of the people who live and work there.  We also started a collection of stories called Uncle Wiggly's Story Book.  This one, she loves a lot less.  It's very old fashioned, with words and phrases she doesn't really get, and it has very few pictures.  We're soldiering on through it, but it's not being well received.

Finally, her writing assignment went really well this week.  Mostly, I think, because she didn't know what we were doing.  She was supposed to explain how to do something.  Earlier that day she had drawn a self-portrait on the chalkboard and she was very proud. 

So I asked her to tell me how to draw one like it.  I wrote down what she said then read it back as I drew.  It was quick, easy, and I'm pleased with how well she did:

Like I said, a pretty quiet week.