week two ~ citizenship

Citizenship. Hmmm...how do I teach such a big word to my not quite 4 year old. Well...here was my attempt...

Read Alouds: For our read alouds we used many of the titles from last week's theme, Rules and Consequences, such as, What If Everybody Did That? and The Berenstein Bears and The Golden Rule. Then I added this very concise and simple book that I found at Lakeshore Learning.

 Thematic Poem: Here is a link to download your own copy! Be sure to have your kiddo highlight all of the sight words they already know, then use it as a guide to teach the ones they don't know. Then read it over and over and over again!

Word/Phonic Hands On Activity: Pocket Chart Sort: I snagged this pocket chart at Target for a $1 a couple of years ago and have seen them pop up around the start of school each year, so be looking for them and grab one if you see it. It's a great deal and pocket charts can host many activities! 

This particular activity was a word sort that I downloaded from teacherspayteachers.com. Here is the exact link and it was only a buck! Addie worked on sorting her short a families. She read the word on the eraser and then put it under the matching chalkboard. Next she wrote down the words on a coordinated sheet. I cut it down a bit and only had her do about three words per chalkboard. 

My intentions are to spend two weeks on each of the short vowels. So next week we'll be working on short e. Here are some other great pocket chart activities you can download for each of the short vowels. 

short e     short i     short o      short u

Fieldtrip Idea: We didn't make it, but if time were on my side I would've taken the kids to BOPA, which stands for Batteries, Oil, Paint, Antifreeze. It is a collection facility located at 2901 Industrial Court in Fairfield. We have quite a collection of batteries from all of the kids' toys and some auto oil. I thought it would be important to teach Addie that being a good citizen means we must recycle these items properly and then discuss the consequences of what would happen if everyone threw them in the garbage. We'll have to make a trip there sooner than later, so we can remain in good citizen status!

poor baby

Our baby boy has officially had his second broken bone and he's not even two. Liam broke his left wrist this last week. (The first was his clavicle during birth.)

What happened? He was playing on the couch and fell off, catching himself with his left arm. Kevin was right there folding clothes and is such a careful dad. He usually takes the pillows off the couch and lays them on the floor when Liam uses the couch for a jungle gym. Liam's gotten very good at maneuvering around on the couch and knows to put his feet down first to get off but on this day the cards fell differently.

How did we know it was broken? We didn't. Liam had no swelling, used his left hand/arm as usual and was his normal happy self, except when he would fall and stick his arms out to catch himself. He would cry so hard. It was terrible. We started carrying him as much as possible and watching his every move trying to break his falls and when it didn't get any better I took him in.
The pediatrician sent me straight over to radiology and when we went back over to get the results from her she said, "I'm sorry." I thought, what for? And then she said, "it's broken." As my smiley little boy sat in my lap the tears started flowing. I felt so awful that I had not figured it out sooner. She and the orthopedic doctor both told me repeatedly this happens all the time and there are kids who come walking in with broken legs. I was told that babies' bones are different than adults and don't snap but get smooshed and bent when they break.

Will it affect his growth plate? No. The orthopedic doctor said Liam will heal very easily and he will not be affected later in life. 

The cast. They had to put a full arm cast on him because a partial cast comes right off little baby arms. He will have to be in a hard cast for four weeks.

How's he adjusting? So far he is such a trooper and is adjusting very well. For example, on his first night, he was frustrated trying to learn how to pick up his sippy cup, when I went to help him, he got even more frustrated and was determined to learn on his own. Now on day 3 of having the cast, he can pick up his cup without any hesitation.
He is also enjoying using it as a hammer and banging it on tables, walls, books...such a boy!

safety first

Hee! Hee! Making a project at Lowes.

father's day camping

Our plan was to go to Shasta but after the realization that our family in Oregon wasn't able to meet us there, the long haul up the I-5 just didn't seem as enticing. So Kevin found a camp ground very close to home. (So close in fact, that we went home to pick up a few things we forgot and I took a shower!) I'm not gonna lie it was work. We had quite a list to pack and with Liam only walking for about a month now, it was hard watching him toddle around an un-baby-proofed, dirty campground. But overall the memories that were made, were all worth it. 

Here's our daddy completely in his element!

Liam helped Daddy set up our tent. So cute. I think I snapped a million pictures of this. 

Our pinkalicious girl with her pinkalicous camping chair.

Our sweet happy camper.

Hey where are they going?!

Kevin took Addie for a little river float.

Ducks! They hung out in our little cove for quite some time. They must've know we are Duck fans!

Liam was ecstatic about the ducks!

Oh yah and the fun part!

There were peacocks all though the campsite. It was really neat to see. 

The first morning one came through our site to say "hi!"

After going home to pick up Addie's swimsuit (and take a shower) we headed up the road to Lake Berryessa. 

Awe. Love.

That night we took a glow-in-the-dark walk along the river/lake to a playground. Then on the way back we saw (and heard) the peacocks had roosted up in the trees. It was pretty neat to see their silhouette perched on the branches. 

Then we got back to our campsite, we caught bullfrogs in our little cove!

Here Daddy is trying to convince Addie she needs to kiss him. She didn't buy it.

Then we said goodbye and Addie helped let him go!

happy father's day!

What an amazing daddy my babies have.

week one ~ rules and consequences

I decided to start off with the Kindergarten unit title/theme Rules and Consequences. Nothing too exciting but something I think is important to take time out and talk about. 

Here are some of the books we read for our read-a-louds...

And here is our poem of the week! You can sing it to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. This is great for memorization and when you have memorization your child can make the connection between spoken and written words. (I actually heard Addie singing it all by herself in the car today! So cute.) Addie also drew a picture of her sharing with her brother. Then we highlighted all of the sight words she knows. We made sure to read it/sing it each day and highlighted a couple more new learned sight words. Pretty simple but such good practice. It's fun to think of all the other words she might have learned or was exposed to in print by repeating this poem. 

Click here to download and print your very own copy!

For one of our hands-on phonics activities Addie rolled the dice! It was a hit! Even little brother had fun chasing around the dice! I found our set of dice here on Amazon. Then I took a large sharpie, cut out some cardstock to fit and put the word families we've been working on in one dice ("-an," "-at," "ack," etc.) Then I filled up the other dice with consonants and digraphs ("t," "th," "s," etc.) Addie rolled the dice and blended the sounds together then I wrote the words down on the easel. Nonsense words are completely okay too, just as long as they're working on blending the sounds together!

Last in my first post about our summer school I talked about a great little download from teacherspayteachers.com. Here it is. I love that at the end of each page she has to show the quantity of the number she's working on. Right now she's doing that by using stickers, but I intend to add stamps, googely eyes, finger prints, whatever else I can think of to keep it fun! Here's the link to purchase your own copy (only $3). 

I spruced it up a little by adding some left over scrapbooking paper and laminating the front and back. Laminating...it's true what they say! "You know you're a teacher if you get a secret thrill from laminating things."

Next week is Citizenship followed by American Symbols/Holidays, just in time for the 4th of July!

trying on the homeschool hat

I've been questioned quite a bit by my homeschooling families, friends and family about what are plans are for Addie in regards to education and the truth is I'm not quite sure. I feel very torn. Never thought I'd say that. On one hand I want Addie and Liam to have the mainly positive public school experience that I had and on the other I've been completely blown away by the amazing education my homeschooling parents are giving their children. I'm scared of the stigma though and even more scared of the enormous responsibility. Public school is familiar and I find comfort in that. I can picture my kids experiencing fun classroom activities, making friends at recess, having back-to-school night. And if something goes wrong, it won't necessarily be solely my fault. However, I'm also encouraged by the awesome people my homeschooled students are becoming! They get to bypass a level of negativity, insecurities, and peer-pressure that comes with public schools. They take field trips and are exposed to the arts. They're active in boy scouts, soccer, gymnastics, fencing, 4H, you name it, they're getting out there and socializing. Their parents get to provide them with a very individualized education and curtail every lesson to their child. Skipping over the easy parts and moving on to the more challenging lessons.  Why wouldn't we want this for our children? Hmmm...Kevin and I have lots of deliberating ahead of us.

For now we've started our summer school fun and I'm trying on this homeshooling hat in the process. A couple of my moms have asked me to post over the summer so I'll be writing this from more of a professional view but wanted to add the memories to our personal blog as well.

So here are some thoughts and plans...

Pacing:
Addie started reading back in February and has shown many signs of being ready for more. So I decided to start her off with the Kindergarten/1st grade curriculum, even though she's not technically eligible for Kindergarten until Fall of 2014. Although I think the state standards can be a great guide, I'm a firm believer in letting your child facilitate their own pace, not the public schools.
Setting the Stage:
I also believe it's important to create a good workable space. So we added a few things to our very small office/classroom. Such as a new bookshelf to organize all of my stuff, but I won't bore you with that. I added a Word Wall, I have a calendar down at her level, a place for our weekly poem, and we use the easel to do the week's phonics or word work. Then a lot of stuff went in baskets and up so little brother couldn't get his hands on them.
Here's a little peek into our "classroom."

Curriculum:
If money were no object, I would have purchased the whole kit and caboodle for Super Kids. I have been so impressed with this reading curriculum. But unfortunately, money is an object AND I've got boxes and boxes of great resources from when I was in the classroom. So I'm picking and pulling from those. Each day/week I have a checklist of what I'm covering and I'm taking the unit titles from Social Science and Science to guide my teaching in Language Arts.
For math, my plan was to do half with me and half on the computer. But when I tested Addie out on the 1st grade math in Adapted Mind, it was too difficult for her. Since Adapted Mind starts at 1st grade, we'll just have to save that for later and I'll find other ways to teach math.
Daily Plan/Checklist:

• Calendar - we talk/sing about the days of the week, talk about number patterns, how many days until, write the date, and count how many days we've been doing "school" (I'll talk about this one more later). There is so much to learn centered around the calendar. 
• Weekly Poem - this related to our unit title/topic for Social Science or Science. I choose simple poems full of sight words. Each week I let her draw a picture of the meaning of the poem and we highlight all of the sight words found in her poem. They are usually easy to memorize and are great repetitive practice for not only sight words but vocabulary words. 
• Daily Read Aloud - this is also centered around our thematic topic from Social Science/Science.We do lots of comprehension work around the book. I ask her questions such as, "What do you predict will happen next?" "What happened in the beginning/middle/end of that story?" 
• Word Work/Phonics - each day I do something hands on with her to teach phonics. I have several activities up my sleeve from working in the classroom such as, rolling word family dice, playing bingo, a memory game with rhyming words, pocket chart activities. All of these activities are interchangeable, so as long as I do the work up front to organize them all I have to do is change out the phonics. I just try to stay away from worksheets and want to designate this time for her play while learning! 
• Independent Reading- I have several books between BOB Books and many printable books, such as these. Everyday I have Addie read a book to me, sometimes repeating old ones. I think this piece is so crucial for many reasons. 
• Handwriting - because she is just starting out to form letters, I think it's important to teach her letter formation "the right way." I love Handwriting Without Tears' strategic approach to teaching letter formation. So I'm starting there. Each day we do a quick handwriting practice. Then I always star my favorite one. She loves this and I find it very motivating for her.
• Writing - each day I want her to practice writing and more importantly I want to practice it with her. I love that I can be one on one with her. What an advantage this is compared to teaching writing to 20+ students all at once! Each day I will give her a prompt, which will often include the sight word we are working on. For instance yesterday, we were working on "are" so the prompt was "We are..." Then Addie said, "We are astronauts!" So she drew me a fabulous picture of us in outerspace. Developmentally at this stage, they should always draw a picture first. Then she wrote "We are" and I helped her with the astronaut part. I wrote out _ _ _ronaut. Then she sounded out the first three letters.
• Number Sense - This won't always be number sense, but I'm starting there. I downloaded a great little book from teacherspayteachers.com for three bucks! Here's the link. It's simple and works with number formation, recognition and showing how many. 

I know it seems like a lot but we actually are done in about one to two hours! I also hope to add field trips, art, who knows maybe even a little foreign language! For now though, it's all about getting into our routine.
I'm shooting to post each week about our progress. I will post our poem of the week, the read-a-louds we are reading, some details about one of our hands-on phonics activities and each month I'll post a "Look At Me In (Month)" writing page. Stay tuned for more!

cock-a-doodle-doo!

During our bedtime story we turned to a rooster and Liam popped out his paci and made his rooster sound too! We are also getting some forms of "cracker," "doggie," and an occasional "Mama" still. And of course he's got "Dada" down. Little stinker. Love him.

weekly playdates

Each week, since preschool has been out, we've been alternating homes with friends and having playdates! This last week it was our turn! It was such a fun afternoon with all of the kids and the mamas! 

hungry boy

This boy can eat! I feel like I'm feeding him every hour of the day, in fact I probably am. He, hands-down, out eats his big sis! I think it's safe to say he's going to be a big boy!

Our patio was the perfect place to strip him down to his diaper and let him got to town on his spaghetti dinner. These days he really dislikes being spoon fed and prefers to shovel it in himself!

I know this is pitiful, but this our son, less than an hour after cleaning his plate and some of sisters and now wanting MORE food! Yikes! My grocery shopping budget might need to be adjusted.

rub-a-dub-dub

Rub-a-dub-dub... 

two sweet kids in the tub! 

They really are very sweet to each other. 

I'm not making it up. 

we got new wheels!

No, still no new car...but we did buy a modest little bike trailer! I've wanted one since Addie was Liam's age! So the kids and I have been taking it out for a few spins! We (meaning I) need a little practice before our upcoming trip to Sunriver! Whoo! My thighs were burning! 

Here's a few pics from our first bike ride down to the Baskin Robbins!

They are so sweet in there. I thought it might be trouble confining them in such close quarters. But while I'm pedaling I barely hear a peep out of them. 

Happy girl eating her "balilla" ice cream. 

Poor buddy has to have sister's hand-me-down helmet. Hey, it's mostly blue! Addie wore it maybe twice before she outgrew it, so we're going to put it to use before Liam outgrows it too! I promise I won't make him wear the princess helmet!

addie's first piggy bank purchase

Addelyn has had a piggy bank since before she was born. (I believe it was a shower gift from Gramma Jody.) Over the years, Kevin has given Addie his day's worth of spare change for her to put in her piggy bank and boy is it full! So we thought maybe it's time to teach her a little bit about the value of money and why we save. She had been talking about a Glow Pet for quite sometime now, so as a family we counted out enough money for her to purchase her very own unicorn Glow Pet. She was glowing herself!

Addie officially knows that four quarters make a dollar. (I just tested her to make sure.)

Our cutie-patootie with her purse full of quarters!

Addie was very excited, the Costco cashier not so excited. 

The Costco cashier really not so excited, but the people behind us were very gracious, as we laid out our four quarter stacks. 

Finally got her unicorn Glow Pet with her OWN money!

memorial day stay-cation

We had a great Memorial Day weekend hanging around town. Here's a few pics of our long weekend!

Lots of relaxing in the backyard. Life is so good.

A little boating...

Some much needed adult time with our friends the Gapol's!

Some gratitude for a night out with my babe. 

And some Kiwi Crate and lots of hard work cleaning out our garage!

But most importantly we put out our humble American flag to show our appreciation for our country, our freedom and the people who have fought for us. We especially thought of my cousin Kyle, who is currently deployed and serving in the middle-east. The words "thank you" don't do it justice. We love you Kyle!