April 30 - May 4

We went to a fun playdate Friday morning and came home to take a nap before going to a cookout with friends that evening. There was no time for homeschooling that day! We will either do the Friday stuff tonight or work it into next week sometime. Here is what we did Monday through Thursday....

Math: First we reviewed what we did last week. Suzi's pretty much got all of that. Then we talked about different measurements--length, weight, and temperature. It was a lot at once, but really we just started without going into too much depth. It was a natural choice to talk about temperature the same day as the sense of touch. I gave the girls glasses of warm, cool and ice water to feel and they told me which was coldest, warmest, etc. We ended up talking a little about ice and why it melts. I took their temperature with a digital oral thermometer, because we don't have a large outdoor one or any other kind, yet. For length, I showed Suzi how to use a ruler to measure some wool strips in inches. We didn't do much with weight--just talked about who out of the three siblings weighed most and least, and compared the weight of some household objects. We also decided it would be a good time to start learning about money, but I'll have to do a separate post on that later.

Science: We talked about the sense of hearing as we read "Curious George and the Puppies." To see our sense of hearing in action, we played a game of puppy hide-and-seek. The girls and I took turns playing the puppy and running off to hide. The other two of us counted to 10 before shouting "bark, little puppy!" and following the barking noises to find the puppy. Yep. I spent some of our homeschool time standing in a closet barking at my kids! And it was fun. The sense of touch was next. We read "The Seashore Book" (Zolotow), which is full of beautiful beach imagery and illustrations. We looked for all the things in the book that could be felt, such as "wet sand under our feet." Then I brought out our seashell collection and let the girls feel the smooth inside of the shells and the rough, ridgy outside, as well as smooth and hard stones. This led to open-ended pretend play with the shells.

Thursday morning during breakfast, Suzi asked me an interesting question about termites! It turns out she is pretty interested in them, and wanted to know how they knew something was wood. So I told her what little I knew about them and then we spent about 30 minutes watching educational videos about them on YouTube and discussing what we saw. Fascinating, actually!

Reading: We made a few flash cards for words Suzi sees frequently in her books. I never really envisioned myself making flash cards for homeschooling, but Suzi seems to enjoy being able to recognize the words as long as we don't overdo it. We are working on eight right now, and most of them are very short and easy. Since I think she is getting bored with her first two easy readers, I'll probably introduce a new book or two next week.

Writing: We made a word list to hang over her desk. Once she is able to recognize a word, she can refer to the list to see how to write it. We're also still encouraging her to try writing her first and last name. No pressure.

Health: We talked a little about what a body needs--food, water, rest, exercise. I was surprised by how much Suzi already seemed to know. Then we talked about items we use to protect our bodies: sunscreen, insect repellant, hats, gloves, helmets, knee pads.

Art: As usual, I didn't have to beg Suzi to make anything! One day the girls used our window markers on the sliding glass door. Suzi made me a rabbit "toy" that I am using as a bookmark, and also did the drawing at the top of this post. It's Suzi standing beside an apple under the sun coming out of the darkness. On her other side is a blueberry bush. The girls went to their drama class with Grandma, and our trip to see The Ugly Duckling also counts as art.

Physical activity: We tried to go to the park Wednesday, but by the time I got the kids rounded up and out the door, it was almost 2:00 and miserably hot. We only stayed about 15 minutes. Luckily we were invited to a fun outdoor playdate on Friday and the kids got to play outside for several hours with their friends. Then Friday night we got to go out and play again at a cookout. Now that our yard is mowed we're hopefully going to get it cleaned up for spring so the girls can go out and play every day. They can already jump on the trampoline anytime.

Ivey enjoying herself at the cookout

Things I'd like to try next:

1) I want a big thermometer, or preferably two. One big one for outside that we can look at to see how hot it is, and one to use for, say, measuring the temp of water.

2) I want to get a long jump rope and teach Suzi to jump while someone else turns. My mom has one but I want to get one for our house. Then we can do some jump rope rhymes. That would be fun!

3) At a yard sale Saturday, I bought a neat book of simple science experiments to do at home. It has an index, so I can look up demonstrations to go with whatever we're working on. I'm excited to use it.