Ch-Ch-Chant and Greater Than / Less Than

Devotional: This week's devotional was the simple motto "Chant and be happy!" We read all of our stories with Lord Chaitanya and discussed the instructions to be 'as humble as a blade of grass and as tolerant as a tree".

Language Arts: This week was focused on the 'ch' sound and completed all 8 pages of lesson 7 in ETC3. He definitely gets the hang of 'ch' now. We retold the Hopeful H (digraphs with h) story and practiced how Tired T holds the short vowel rod so Clever C will smile and Hopeful H can say 'ch-ch-cheese' for the picture. We also thought of all the words that have this sound and ended up drawing a big picture of chickens with chicks eating cheese and more.

Math: This week in math, we started with Righstart lesson 15 about partioning 10, but the worksheet was a little confusing and I decided to not have him finish it to avoid frustration. For the rest of the week, we went back to Math Mammoth and completed two pages on greater than and less than, which was very easy review for Govinda, but it really helped him feel more confident about math. MM is so much easier for me, and Govinda actually likes to work independently with me checking each equation after he does it. So, now I'm leaning more towards MM full time since it is so easy to use and very well made to keep him thinking!

Geography: We read many new stories about the southeast USA and the east coast states. I didn't want to push any history stuff since it can be disturbing, but G was really interested in Red, White, And Blue, a simple story of how the American flag came about. We will be coloring the flag next week after reviewing the story. I can't believe it's been almost a year of our world geography tour, and we're almost home!

And that's another week at the Soul Adventure School!

The Plan

I've added a new introduction to every new day. We mark the day on the calendar, say the whole date together. Then we think of everything we need and want to do and write it on the board so we don't forget. Govinda started copying it from the board onto paper...by his own will! He carried it around all day and referred back to it throughout the day. Here's the plan he wrote, it's a basic summary of our weekdays. Play, school, stories, clean, play. That's the plan, man!

USA, Volcanoes, 'Th' and 'Wh', and Partioning To 10, Oh My!

Geography/Geology/Art: We read stories from the Southeast USA. So far, the favorites are Rabbit Goes To Kansas, Chicken Joy On Redbean Road, and The Great Pig Search. We also read a National Geographic magazine with pictures of Mt. St. Helens. This lead to a reading of The Magic School Bus Blows It's Top. Then, the boys wanted to explode our clay volcano with baking soda, vinegar, dish soap and paint. So, we did! Then, we painted volcanoes with watercolors. Govinda made Mt. St. Helens, a cinder cone volcano. Navin and I painted Mauna Loa, a shield volcano. We had read about volcanoes a few weeks ago in Mexico with the story Hill Of FIre, where a farmer's field became a volcano. "He was a volcano farmer, and what a crop he grew!"









Fun: We made a new batch of homemade play dough. The boys really enjoy kneading it and then playing with it for many weeks until we make a new, fresh batch.



Language Arts: This week was continuing with the Hopeful H photo story. The focus was on 'wh' and 'th'. Govinda did all 8 pages of ETC3 lesson 6. Wonderful W blows out the candle with all of his questions "Who? What? Where? When? Why?". We also brought out the whistle and recorder flute for fun.

Math: This week we worked on finding the missing part with sums of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 when one part is 5. G did 4 pages of whole/part partioning with 12 problems on each page. He seems to know them now, but we will review it again soon so that it's not forgotten. The song is helping to remember, and since he seems to be an auditory learner, that will be our review also. We didn't do any MM and he seemed happy about that...it has a lot of problems on a page. Doing 12 of all the same thing was more enjoyable for him. One day this week, I said that he only has to do 6 of the problems, and he insisted on doing all 12. So we will be sticking with RS as much as possible since he is liking it a lot.

Well, that wraps up another busy week in our Soul Adventure School! Thanks to all our supporters and well wishers! I'm also happy to announce that I finally figured out how to center the pictures on the blog. Take care and God Bless!

Photo Time With Hopeful H!

Devotional: In Bhagavad Gita 10.38, Krishna says "Of secret things I am silence, and of the wise I am the wisdom." This goes along with our phonics theme of "sh". We also discussed the saying "knowledge speaks but wisdom listens".

Language Arts: We read the Alphabet Island story about Hopeful H setting up his photo booth to take pictures. The flash on his camera doesn't work, so he lights a candle. This story is about digraphs with h (sh, wh, ch, th, and ph). We will be reviewing it for a few weeks while we practice with Explode The Code. This week we focused on 'sh' and did all 8 pages of ETC3 lesson 5. Sloppy S won't stop talking, so Hopeful H says "sh".

Math: We did Addition Practice on pages 14 and 15 from Math Mammoth. We did several activities from Rightstart Math and one page on counting pennies and nickels. This is all review and practice as we are working on getting a solid understanding of sums up to 5. Govinda has expressed his preference of RS over MM, as we've been trying out both to see which is best for us. RS is harder for me, but the method is so great that I'm going to try my best to do it. Playing card games with a three year old around isn't always easy!

Geography: We read many stories from the Southwest USA. So far, our favorites are Humphrey The Lost Whale and Armadillo Rodeo. We're going to the Southeast USA next week!

And that wraps up another busy week for our Soul Adventure School.

Watercolor Wednesday Rainbow

The boys really got into Watercolor Wednesday today. I look forward to it every week as they progress with their artistic expressions.

0 + 0 = 0

Here he is laughing hard about a math problem! After lots of thinking through several math problems, 0 + 0 seemed like a joke. Too funny!

Thank You Again And Again

It was a fun birthday weekend! Here's a picture of them making thank you cards. Govinda practiced writing 'Thank You' and drawing pictures.

Adios, Mexico!

Language Arts: We finished all 8 pages of lesson 4 from ETC3, which was focused on 'silent e' words with initial blends. Govinda has taken more toward writing than reading lately, so we're going with that since his handwriting is getting better all the time with more practice.



Math: We did the first 4 pages of Math Mammoth, each with 15+ addition practice problems with sums under 5. He did great with it and had fun turning circles around dots into tracks of excavators and bulldozers!

Geography: We read more stories about and from Mexico and we never got around to making a pinata. We're keeping on moving, though, and started reading stories about the Southwest USA.

We have a big 6-year-old birthday this week, so we are taking it easy with school and having fun with birthday bliss!