Tired...

Well, this is the first week that is turning out to be a bit of a flop. Usually, we may have one day each week that doesn't quite go as expected, but this week, it has been about every day! I believe I may have officially met my third trimester. That is definitely affecting my energy level and ability to engage with the children. Don't I look tired?

Excellent picture of me

We are reading this great book, and there is so much cool stuff to do (which we have done some of it), but since I have not been sleeping well recently, that's the story. I can only hope that my children's brains won't suffer from it! :)

"Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" by Virginia Lee Burton (c) 1939

Zoe has really liked this story, which I am glad about! I was thinking she might turn her nose up to it since it looks "boyish." I have been surprised by her excitement to read it every day. That has made me happy, even though I'm tired. Here's some of the things we've done thus far...

So, this is not my finest week. There are bound to be some, right?

It happens to have been written the same

year as "Madeline"

Cameron's corner (notice, she did her

own rendition of a tree on art day)

Examples of different ways to draw trees

Zoe - Tree 1

Example 2

Zoe - Tree 2

Example 3

Zoe - Tree 3

The Rag Coat

"The Rag Coat" by Lauren Mills (c)1991

So last week, we read this great book called, "The Rag Coat," by Lauren Mills. Though the story had a lot more abstract stuff going on (dealing with some internal struggles and feelings), we had a lot of fun discussing those things and learning about the setting and such. Below are some things that we did...

Takes place in the Appalachian Region

Made a paper quilting square out of triangles
Pattern is known as Josephs Coat of Many Colors

Zoe also thought our patio tiles looked
a lot like the patches of our character's
rag coat, so I made an outline and
she made her own patchwork coat!

One of the really fun things we did was make what's called a geo-board. It's just a board that you can make different geometrical shapes on for learning. It also has other fun uses, such as making mazes, pictures with rubber bands, shooting things...

One of the other things we went over came from a question that arose from the book. The dad in the book works in the coal mines and ends up getting miner's cough. So, aside from our theological talks about life and death, we also did a little science and talked about our lungs, what they do for us and what miner's cough is...

We've added more organs!

On a side note, I've been "concerned" about Cameron as she still seems to not be interested in her alphabet letters and such. Now, I was assured by many, that she is fine (only 3) and will learn them, but I did take the initiative last week to start her on some letter recognition. I'm glad to say, she was pointing out the letter "A" to me all week (she would earn a sticker every time she showed me one), and seems to be a little upset that we are moving on to "B" this week! :)

The letter "A"

Backlog

Trying to catch you up is the most difficult, so this post will be mostly pictures (but that's probably what you want to see anyhow). I will give a brief explanation of what we are doing together, though, so the pictures make sense.

Having a Kindergartener and and Pre-kindergartener, you would think it wouldn't be very difficult to come up with something for both of them... but you would be wrong! Zoe and Cameron are like night and day, so I had to get a lot of help from some NEACH members on what might be the best route to go for school this year. I did receive plenty of good advice, and the things that stuck are as follows:

1. Enjoy my kids - they're only young once! This is the best time to go out together on little trips, explore nature and find anything and everything we can do, not excluding PLAYING! :)
2. Try a curriculum called Five in a Row - written by Jane Claire Lambert, this is a great start to school for my little ones! The principle is to read a book (there is a booklist provided) five days in a row. Each day, after you read the book through, you cover a different subject as related to the book (Social Studies, Literature, Art, Math and Science). Lambert does give recommendations for each subject, but the sky's the limit (you will see in the pictures)!
3. Enjoy my kids - I know I said this already, but it was emphasized to me, so I thought I'd mention it again.

So, with that said (though, there's probably more I could say) on with the pictures!

"Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans (c) 1939

In an old house in Paris, covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines...

Some Geography...

Locate France on our map

Eiffel Tower

Some Vocabulary...

Country flag

Finding the appendix

"What comes out of the large intestine?"
Cameron says, "Heeheehee..."

Some Applied Math...

Symmetry (Zoe's natural bent)

versus

Asymmetry (Cameron's natural bent)

And, yes, they did build these themselves without any prompting from me!

We talked about the art and science, so no pictures for that. It's definitely hard to keep photographic records everyday!

"The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Weise (c) 1933
Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping... Their home was a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze River.

Social Studies (Geography and Culture)...

Locate China and the Yangtze River on the map

Country flag made from tissue paper and cut-out stars

We talked about the chinese culture a bit by looking through the pictures and noticing things that were different. We went out for sushi that week for lunch as well as made a chinese dish at home!

Literature...

We talked about what makes a story a classic and then made a timeline (100+ years) to start talking about history.

Classic stories

Family birthdays

Our wall timeline from 1900 thru 2011

Art...

Using colored pencils, we made reflections and learned about blending more than one color together for a more interesting illustration

Math...

Ping lived with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins.
For counting. It seemed like a good idea at the time... sheesh!

Science...
Matthew and my dad brought them out to observe ducks and how they eat. I'm not sure if they got any pictures or not!

"Lentil" by Robert McCloskey (c) 1940
A fictional story about a young boy who lives in a small town in Ohio

Social Studies...

Locate Ohio on the map

Ohio state flag

Literature...

Elements of a good story

Zoe wrote her own story!

Art...

Learning about charcoal

Math and Science (day with dad)... 

Did more body parts and learned about fractions