Russia, Grizzly Bears,' Long O', Adding Zero

Art: Here's G's beautiful grizzly bear. There's also an owl in the conifers (pine trees). He did the bear all on his own without my help (he usually asks for help), so this was a breakthrough with drawing animals!

Literature/Geography/Science: We read more stories from and about Russia and grizzly bears.

Language Arts: We did McRuffy 1 lessons 16-20. The focus was on the 'long o' sound spelled with 'silent e' and 'oa'. The reader was called No Toast, and this one was quite funny. I even laughed out loud to my self while pre-reading it. It had a lot of things that G loves...a fire engine, putting out a fire, a bulldozer, mud, oats, and more. What an adventure Ruff and Violet go on to get some toast! He is reading so well and fluently now, I am impressed! The ten spelling words were hard because memorization is the only way of knowing if a 'long o' word is spelled with a 'silent e' or 'oa'. After writing it wrong, he realized it and changed it, on three of the words on the spelling test. He's doing great with McRuffy 1 so far.

Math: We did CLE 1 lessons 16-20. We introduced identifying a point, practiced greater than and less than, and G's favorite...adding zero. We did the first speed drills, where he has 2 minutes to answer as many math facts as possible out of 15. (We started with 1 minute, but we decided 2 minutes is better for now.) On the first one, he got 9 out of 15 correct, and 10 out of 15 correct on the second one. The timing aspect kind of threw him off, but this will become a daily practice that will get easier with time, I think. He went back afterwards to correct the wrong ones and finish the ones he didn't get to, and he does much better when not timed. I might do it differently later where we time how long it takes to do them all, and then he tries to beat his own best time. We'll see how it goes. We also finished the first light unit (magazine-like workbooks that last one month, or 20 lessons), and finished with a light unit test, and he got all but one right. He really likes this math program and I'm glad we got it. Next week, we start light unit 102, which goes into subtraction!

Earth Day Fair

We joined our local homeschool group to go to the Earth Day Fair at the University of Hawaii. There were lots of kid activities and we had a lot of fun. Their favorite was coloring a sea turtle and having it made into a big badge/button. They woke up the next day ready to pick up all the trash and save all the sea turtles. We also got some really nice posters for the school/play room. Their favorite is the Marine Mammals of Hawaii, with pictures of whales, dolphins, and seals. Govinda drew a whale from looking at the poster. Happy Earth Day!

Russia, Long A, Adding With 0

Our magic carpet ride continued to Russia this week.

Geography: We colored the map and flag of Russia and checked out books about this biggest country in the world.

Literature: We read several Russian and Ukrainian folk tales and stories. I was surprised how much they liked The Nutcracker. The Mitten is a great story that we own that was revisited. Rechenka's Eggs and Clever Katya were some other favorites. More stories just came in for next week, too.

Language Arts: This week we did McRuffy LA lessons 11-15. The focus was reviewing the 'long a' sound, spelled with 'silent e' and 'ay'. The reader, Ruff and The Ape, was fun and amusing as usual. The ten spelling words made him have to think about whether to use a silent e or y, but he got them all down by the end of the week. Handwriting has greatly improved since our extra time focused on it, and he forms all of his letters correctly now. Everyday he is writing a sentence that reinforces the phonics lessons. The sight word 'are' was introduced and then some grammar practice followed, reinforcing 'is' for singular and 'are' for plural. Each story ends with five questions to read and answer about the reader and then a sentence hunt to fill in the missing word and find the page number it is on. After five times now, he's got the research abilities to do the sentence hunts without my help.

Math: We did CLE 1 lessons 10-15. All of the new facts were adding with 0, and 0 is very popular here because it is such a funny number because it 'adds nothing!' We practiced counting by 10s and with dimes, acknowledged the differences between circles and squares, and found the numbers before and after a number. We started doing place value with tens and ones and also acknowledged 'twin' math facts that have the same numbers in different order. The Just For Fun activities at the end of the lessons were connect the dots, and he really liked it. The flash cards are working well and he's memorizing his math facts well. These lessons will have up to 20 addition problems reviewing the math facts, and he's not having any problems with it being too much, which is a relief for me because it looks like a lot, but it's the same simple facts again and again.

Russia Book List

A Piece of Home, Levitin
Another celebrated dancing bear by Scheffrin-Falk, Gladys
Apple Pie and Onions, Caseley
Babushka Baba Yaga by Polacco, Patricia
Clever Katya : a fairy tale from old Russia by Hoffman, Mary
Dream Jar, Pryor
FAVORITE FAIRY TALES TOLD IN RUSSIA, RETOLD FROM RUSSIAN STORYTELLERS ILLUSTRATED BY HERBERT DANSKA. 1ST ED. by Haviland, Virginia
The fool of the world and the flying ship; a Russian tale, by Ransome, Arthur
The gossipy wife : adapted from a Russian folk tale by Hall, Amanda
How much land does a man need? by Tolstoy, Leo
Little Kim's doll by Yaroshevskaya, Kim
The littlest matryoshka by Demas, Corinne
The magic babushka : an original Russian tale by Tildes, Phyllis Limbacher
The Mitten by Brett, Jan
MY MOTHER IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD A RUSSIAN FOLKTALE RETOLD BY BECKY REYHER; PICTURES BY RUTH GANNETT. by REYHER, REBECCA.
Nikolai, the only bear by Joosse, Barbara M.
The Nutcracker doll by DePalma, Mary Newell
The nutcracker. by Chappell, Warren
The nutcracker by Dumas, Alexandre
Peter the Great by Stanley, Diane
Philipok, Tolstoy
Rechenka's eggs by Polacco, Patricia.
Russia by Murrell, Kathleen Berton
Russia by Russell, Henry
The Thanksgiving door by Atwell, Debby
Trees of the Dancing Goats, Polacco
Twenty-two Russian Tales for Young Children, Tolstoy
The Tzar's bird by Tompert, Ann
Uncle Vova's Tree, Polacco

DVD: Families of Russia by Finnegan, Jordan
DVD: Russia by Wright, Ian.

Grizzly bear : habitats, life cycles, food chains, threats by Leach, Michael.
Grizzly bears by Gibbons, Gail
Grizzly bear by Freschet, Berniece
Searching for grizzlies by Hirschi, Ron
Adventures of Little Bear by Minarik, Else Holmelund
Little Bear by Minarik, Else Holmelund.
Look to the north : a wolf pup diary by George, Jean Craighead, 1919-
Wolves by Gibbons, Gail.
The Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

Palestine, Middle East and Asia Review

Geography: This week we colored the map and flag of Palestine. I was disappointed that my pack of passport flag stickers didn't have Palestine, our encyclopedia had only one sentence about it on the Israel page, and it was hard to even find a children's printable map. The only information I could find was not kid friendly, so we sent prayers for the people in Gaza and the West Bank, and now we are taking a carpet ride out of the middle east to the mountains in the north. Russia is in both Asia and Europe, and will be our transition into a new continent!

Literature: We read our favorite books from the list over and over again...Seasons of the Sandstorms, Little Humpty, Mrs. Katz and Tush, Twist and Ernest, and Ernest and the Big Itch.

Language Arts: We did lessons 9-12, splitting each lesson into two days as we were transitioning from a very busy weekend with family visiting. The reader was The Bug Bus, a cute story about bugs building a bus out of a jug. The focus was on the 'short u' sound. The Bug Bus Game was a big hit. Words with the 'ed' suffix were practiced more with this reader. I was surprised how quickly he caught on. The ten spelling words were pretty easy, many three letter words, so that so many words isn't too much. We started the next lessons on the 'long a' sound spelled with 'silent e' and 'ay', but we will wait to start the reader, Ruff and Ape, next week. We introduced nouns and verbs, and practiced finding them in simple sentences.

Math: We are really liking CLE 1. We did lessons 6-10. He has ten math facts memorized now! The flashcards are actually fun for his mathy mind, and the workbook pages are fun because they change concepts often. The topics this week were writing numbers, practicing math facts, ordinal numbers, longer and shorter, over and under, more and less, counting pennies, understanding zero, and place value with counting tens and ones. This new program is working well, and I am so pleased that he has memorized all of the simple addition problems like 1+1=2, up to a sum of 5.

Israel, Easter, and Jesus

We have family visiting, so we took it easy in school this week to make gifts for them. Here is a picture of our world map with pictures of animals that we have added as we learned about each place. From left to right, it's a camel, tiger, panda, duck, and an funny looking snow monkey.



Geography/Literature: We read more Bible stories and Israel stories this week, focusing on Jesus rising again. We listened to a few Christian songs about it, one favorite is 'Might To Save', which sings about Jesus conquering the grave. The grand finale was celebrating Easter with family.

Language Arts: We did lessons 5-8. We reread The Green Fig and answered questions about it and got all of the spelling words right on the test. We played the game that goes with The Green Fig, and it was a big hit because it's about a pig, and a wild pig has been visiting us lately and the kids love to watch him eat our compost. Then we read Jed and Bess, a cute story about a hen who rescues someone, then answered questions about the story and did the sentence hunt, to fill in the blank for sentences in the reader. These readers are always so action packed, funny, and entertaining. We love them!

Math: We started CLE Math 1, lessons 1-5. We really like it so far, and my concern about too many pages per lesson was no problem at all since they are spaced out, fun and entertaining, and they keep changing to keep attention. We started flashcards to drill the new facts learned everyday, this week it was 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+1=3, and 1+3=4, and he quickly memorized them after seeing it with legos. We learned about adding one more is the next number, ordinal numbers, and practiced drawing circles. We like this new math program and I think it is going to be a great fit for this year.