Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Grades 3 and 4 Story Problems:
Here is an awesome collection -> Real Life Arithmetic, 1943, Grades 3 and 4 Story Problems:
Grades 3 and 4 Story Problems:
Here is an awesome collection -> Real Life Arithmetic, 1943, Grades 3 and 4 Story Problems:
Thursday, January 30, 2014
History of Geometry - Revisited
Last academic year while we were going through our great lessons, I had presented to Disha, the Story of Geometry. While she listened to the story it did not spark any new interests in her. A new opportunity presented itself again this time.
As far as Math goes we do not strictly only do Montessori. You would have seen various blog posts where we combine Singapore and RightStart Math with Montessori. This is partly because of D's learning style. While she likes the concrete aspect of learning things, she finds it cumbersome to use the manipulatives to gain mastery of the facts. So while I present the initial concepts the Montessori way, repetition of the works does not happen here. She prefers the pencil and paper workbook style for that. We don't do only workbook/teacher's manual style here, since scripted lessons and strict lesson plans are not our style here. Hence we mix things up quite a bit here.
Lately Disha has mastered most of the concepts needed to complete RightStart Level C. I had been eyeing the Beast Academy books since September. In anticipation of the completion of the RS Level, I ordered the first set of books available. We are in love! The concepts we've covered so far are about angles, which we had already covered in Montessori. The comic book style format is new for us plus the workbook is not just mundane, repetitive stuff. The work book contains puzzles and mazes that can be solved only using Mathematical concepts which works well with her.
Not totally wanting to give up the wholesome view to subjects that Montessori provides instead of compartmentalizing them into their own discrete boxes, I wanted to integrate a little bit of history with the Geometry lessons.
We started off talking about the Egyptian use of Geometry and how the Greek Mathematicians studied that as a Science. My sources are from Montessori for Everyone and the Cultivating Dharma Albums.
We also did a small exercise with the knotted rope like the harpenodapta - the Egyptian rope strechers. Montessori for Everyone suggests using a rope 3 feet long, I did not have it on hand, so we used a small piece of yarn and knotted it at 3, 4 and 5 inches respectively. D got the idea so thats good!
Disha then decided to note all of this down on paper.
Then it was time for some creativity with the yarn and the pin board!
Anyway this time the lesson and Disha's interest in it was way different than before. She is older and more into Geometry now.
As far as Math goes we do not strictly only do Montessori. You would have seen various blog posts where we combine Singapore and RightStart Math with Montessori. This is partly because of D's learning style. While she likes the concrete aspect of learning things, she finds it cumbersome to use the manipulatives to gain mastery of the facts. So while I present the initial concepts the Montessori way, repetition of the works does not happen here. She prefers the pencil and paper workbook style for that. We don't do only workbook/teacher's manual style here, since scripted lessons and strict lesson plans are not our style here. Hence we mix things up quite a bit here.
Lately Disha has mastered most of the concepts needed to complete RightStart Level C. I had been eyeing the Beast Academy books since September. In anticipation of the completion of the RS Level, I ordered the first set of books available. We are in love! The concepts we've covered so far are about angles, which we had already covered in Montessori. The comic book style format is new for us plus the workbook is not just mundane, repetitive stuff. The work book contains puzzles and mazes that can be solved only using Mathematical concepts which works well with her.
Not totally wanting to give up the wholesome view to subjects that Montessori provides instead of compartmentalizing them into their own discrete boxes, I wanted to integrate a little bit of history with the Geometry lessons.
We started off talking about the Egyptian use of Geometry and how the Greek Mathematicians studied that as a Science. My sources are from Montessori for Everyone and the Cultivating Dharma Albums.
We also did a small exercise with the knotted rope like the harpenodapta - the Egyptian rope strechers. Montessori for Everyone suggests using a rope 3 feet long, I did not have it on hand, so we used a small piece of yarn and knotted it at 3, 4 and 5 inches respectively. D got the idea so thats good!
Disha then decided to note all of this down on paper.
Then it was time for some creativity with the yarn and the pin board!
Anyway this time the lesson and Disha's interest in it was way different than before. She is older and more into Geometry now.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
A day in the life
We keep reading different blog posts about "A Day in the Life" of various homeschool bloggers. Some of us friends, decided to track every thing we do and post and compare notes. So here is our day, on Monday of this week.
Monday, Jan 27th, 2014.
I wake up when it is still dark. No space to sleep! All four of us are crowded in a king bed. I wake up to find Disha's hand on my face and Megha lying down on my legs. I carefully move them as to not wake them and move over to the foot of the bed, where there is literally only a foot of space left! I don't sleep well. I hear the alarm and DH waking up and using the bathroom down the hall. I put a pillow over my head. Megha wakes up because her nose is blocked. I make her lay down on my tummy so her head is raised. It is still dark outside and I calculate the time to be sometime after 6 since DH is awake. Disha wakes up in the noise and complaints that she does not get to sleep next to me. I ask her to move closer. Meanwhile DH comes in to enquire what the commotion is all about. At this point I am fully awake, I just don't want to move and wake sleeping Megha. I wait for her to fall into deeper sleep while entertaining and planning the day with Disha. I look at my phone and the time is 7 AM.
7.15 After checking FB and mails in bed, Disha and I leave Meg sleeping and get out of the bedroom. I go into the bathroom for my morning routine while Disha heads to the couch to read.
7.45 DH leaves after I give him some cereal. I make coffee and start to look for the laptop and can't find it! I call DH and he gives me some leads, but none useful! I finally find it in the hall closet. Meanwhile D reads another book. She has no plans to brush her teeth or eat anything before the chess class!
8 AM Chess class starts. They are doing different openings. Disha is not there yet, so I should probably attend the classes and take notes for later. She does answer a few questions.
8.15 Meg wakes up and finds us. The three of us cuddle before the laptop. I finish my coffee. Meg gets hungry and wants to eat the cup cake we bought last night. I try to negotiate some fruit with it and finally give up and just give her the cup cake.
8.30 Disha gets lured by cup cake and quits class half way through. She brushes her teeth finally and makes herself a breakfast of cup cake, cereal and fruit. She eats it while reading Peter Pan and Vaccinations. I continue the class and also watch the archived spanish opening video.
9.30. Checked email and replied to piano teacher's new schedule. I get hungry and want to go have breakfast, but D wants to do some SOTW. She finds the review cards and we go thru the chapters we've done. We talk about timelines and how she could do one and add on to it. She wants to do some activities and starts to search for our activity book in the school room. The school room is a mess and she cant find it. While she is there she happens to take a look at the maps and has an idea for a new project. She wants to create a pin map with the flight symbols on a world map, but the puzzle pieces were all scattered. She comes upstairs to inform me about the mess in the school room.
10:00 I have a breakfast of coffee and bread while D talks to me about her ideas. Meg wants no breakfast but just a glass of milk. We plan an afternoon of cleaning. I finish up and check whats for lunch. We have left overs from last night, so I don't have to make anything. Meanwhile D starts to draw a united airlines plane while meg watches intently. this drawing session continues till 10.45.
10.45 We start math at my suggestion and she works on clock, money and subtraction. She sees the next lesson on geometry and wants one more lesson. We do some perimeter math and are done. While our Math lesson is going on, Meg does some drawing in her journal right next to me.
11:30 D found her FLL books during her visit to the school room in the morning and gets it upstairs. She writes one thank you letter to her new friends. This takes 45 mins as she is obsessed with making it look her best. I get bored, check FB, email and play with Meg.
12:00 The kids get hungry and I leave to get their lunch heated up. I hear shouts from the living room and had to break them up apart from hurting each other! This happens twice more in the next 10 mins.
12:15: Give the kids lunch and I have mine while watching a talk show that I wanted to catch up on.
12.45: The kids eat some and waste some. But they are done and wander back into the living room. D starts to draw in her dry erase board, while Megha watches and simultaneously sorts the dry erase markers by color. I am still watching TV.
1:00: I finally go clean up the table. Disha draws a picture of a family of dad, mom and herself. Megha gets upset that she is not in the picture! Disha explains that this was before Megha was born. Meg doesn't like the explanation, so Disha finally draws a picture of Meg. She also changes the dad to wearing shorts instead of pants and the kids laugh about how he looks! I snap a few pictures.
1:30: I type up our day till now and watch some previous episodes. The kids continue to draw and lucky me aren't fighting!
2:00: We go downstairs. The kids decide to play instead of helping me clean. I take some before-pictures before attempting the clean. The kids play some, fight some, I intervene, redirect, then clean, they play and this goes on.
5:00: I hear things getting really bad and realize the kids are hungry. I finish up, snap a few pics and check up on them. Their play room is a mess and we put things away before heading upstairs.
5:10: I make myself a coffee and the kids eat fruit. Meg has a banana and a glass of milk. Dish has a kiwi and some straw berries. I start the rice and finish up the peas dish and start cutting the long beans.
5:30: The kids want to watch Little travelers on TV and I switch it on for them while I finish up dinner. While I am at it I also get black channa ready in the crock pot for tomorrow.
6:30: I msg DH to see if I need to pick him up from the bus stop and give the kids some cashew nuts. I realize I never had the coffee that I made and heat it up and join the kids to watch TV.
6:45: I get a call from DH that he had a late meeting and is just boarding. I switch on the laptop and continue to update this while watching TV. We finish watching British Isles and are now onto Japan
7:15: Another round of nuts and DH calls that he is going to the ATT store on the way. Have to pick him from there when he calls.
7:45: DH calls, the store is closed. Get the kids changed and go pick him up.
8:00: We all have dinner while talking about the day.
9:00: Relaxing on the couch having some family time. I finish typing up and we head to bed by 9.30.
Monday, Jan 27th, 2014.
I wake up when it is still dark. No space to sleep! All four of us are crowded in a king bed. I wake up to find Disha's hand on my face and Megha lying down on my legs. I carefully move them as to not wake them and move over to the foot of the bed, where there is literally only a foot of space left! I don't sleep well. I hear the alarm and DH waking up and using the bathroom down the hall. I put a pillow over my head. Megha wakes up because her nose is blocked. I make her lay down on my tummy so her head is raised. It is still dark outside and I calculate the time to be sometime after 6 since DH is awake. Disha wakes up in the noise and complaints that she does not get to sleep next to me. I ask her to move closer. Meanwhile DH comes in to enquire what the commotion is all about. At this point I am fully awake, I just don't want to move and wake sleeping Megha. I wait for her to fall into deeper sleep while entertaining and planning the day with Disha. I look at my phone and the time is 7 AM.
7.15 After checking FB and mails in bed, Disha and I leave Meg sleeping and get out of the bedroom. I go into the bathroom for my morning routine while Disha heads to the couch to read.
7.45 DH leaves after I give him some cereal. I make coffee and start to look for the laptop and can't find it! I call DH and he gives me some leads, but none useful! I finally find it in the hall closet. Meanwhile D reads another book. She has no plans to brush her teeth or eat anything before the chess class!
8 AM Chess class starts. They are doing different openings. Disha is not there yet, so I should probably attend the classes and take notes for later. She does answer a few questions.
8.15 Meg wakes up and finds us. The three of us cuddle before the laptop. I finish my coffee. Meg gets hungry and wants to eat the cup cake we bought last night. I try to negotiate some fruit with it and finally give up and just give her the cup cake.
8.30 Disha gets lured by cup cake and quits class half way through. She brushes her teeth finally and makes herself a breakfast of cup cake, cereal and fruit. She eats it while reading Peter Pan and Vaccinations. I continue the class and also watch the archived spanish opening video.
9.30. Checked email and replied to piano teacher's new schedule. I get hungry and want to go have breakfast, but D wants to do some SOTW. She finds the review cards and we go thru the chapters we've done. We talk about timelines and how she could do one and add on to it. She wants to do some activities and starts to search for our activity book in the school room. The school room is a mess and she cant find it. While she is there she happens to take a look at the maps and has an idea for a new project. She wants to create a pin map with the flight symbols on a world map, but the puzzle pieces were all scattered. She comes upstairs to inform me about the mess in the school room.
10:00 I have a breakfast of coffee and bread while D talks to me about her ideas. Meg wants no breakfast but just a glass of milk. We plan an afternoon of cleaning. I finish up and check whats for lunch. We have left overs from last night, so I don't have to make anything. Meanwhile D starts to draw a united airlines plane while meg watches intently. this drawing session continues till 10.45.
10.45 We start math at my suggestion and she works on clock, money and subtraction. She sees the next lesson on geometry and wants one more lesson. We do some perimeter math and are done. While our Math lesson is going on, Meg does some drawing in her journal right next to me.
11:30 D found her FLL books during her visit to the school room in the morning and gets it upstairs. She writes one thank you letter to her new friends. This takes 45 mins as she is obsessed with making it look her best. I get bored, check FB, email and play with Meg.
12:00 The kids get hungry and I leave to get their lunch heated up. I hear shouts from the living room and had to break them up apart from hurting each other! This happens twice more in the next 10 mins.
12:15: Give the kids lunch and I have mine while watching a talk show that I wanted to catch up on.
12.45: The kids eat some and waste some. But they are done and wander back into the living room. D starts to draw in her dry erase board, while Megha watches and simultaneously sorts the dry erase markers by color. I am still watching TV.
1:00: I finally go clean up the table. Disha draws a picture of a family of dad, mom and herself. Megha gets upset that she is not in the picture! Disha explains that this was before Megha was born. Meg doesn't like the explanation, so Disha finally draws a picture of Meg. She also changes the dad to wearing shorts instead of pants and the kids laugh about how he looks! I snap a few pictures.
1:30: I type up our day till now and watch some previous episodes. The kids continue to draw and lucky me aren't fighting!
2:00: We go downstairs. The kids decide to play instead of helping me clean. I take some before-pictures before attempting the clean. The kids play some, fight some, I intervene, redirect, then clean, they play and this goes on.
5:00: I hear things getting really bad and realize the kids are hungry. I finish up, snap a few pics and check up on them. Their play room is a mess and we put things away before heading upstairs.
5:10: I make myself a coffee and the kids eat fruit. Meg has a banana and a glass of milk. Dish has a kiwi and some straw berries. I start the rice and finish up the peas dish and start cutting the long beans.
5:30: The kids want to watch Little travelers on TV and I switch it on for them while I finish up dinner. While I am at it I also get black channa ready in the crock pot for tomorrow.
6:30: I msg DH to see if I need to pick him up from the bus stop and give the kids some cashew nuts. I realize I never had the coffee that I made and heat it up and join the kids to watch TV.
6:45: I get a call from DH that he had a late meeting and is just boarding. I switch on the laptop and continue to update this while watching TV. We finish watching British Isles and are now onto Japan
7:15: Another round of nuts and DH calls that he is going to the ATT store on the way. Have to pick him from there when he calls.
7:45: DH calls, the store is closed. Get the kids changed and go pick him up.
8:00: We all have dinner while talking about the day.
9:00: Relaxing on the couch having some family time. I finish typing up and we head to bed by 9.30.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
School Week 1-13-2014
Here is a summary of what my 7 year old did this week. We have not planned or scheduled anything. All of this was initiated by her, of course I encourage some by careful strewing!
We started of the week by watching "Big Bang: Universe Story" on Amazon. We had a discussion after this by recalling what we did during our First Great Lesson last year and reading the Jennifer Morgan book.
Then she wanted to work on Math, so she picked up the RS Level C Math workbook and worked on Multiplication Arrays, Addition with Carry over, clocks and word problems. We had stopped half way through Level C some time during the middle of last year. She was working on the first part of the workbook and this was general review.
She did some pages on Mad libs for language practice. She been reviewing books for San Francisco Book Reviews and this week she reviewed one of the two that she received. This is a great way to read new books!
We were discussing something and one thing led to another and we started talking about air pressure and started recalling what we did and learnt while doing BFSU Air Pressure lessons. That was for science.
We are yet to finish the book 1 of SOTW. Disha (known as D in this blog, my 7 year old) wanted to start from the beginning of book and read through it again! She has started it on her own now.
She has also been watching lots of brain pop and reading her other book that she received for review.
We started of the week by watching "Big Bang: Universe Story" on Amazon. We had a discussion after this by recalling what we did during our First Great Lesson last year and reading the Jennifer Morgan book.
Then she wanted to work on Math, so she picked up the RS Level C Math workbook and worked on Multiplication Arrays, Addition with Carry over, clocks and word problems. We had stopped half way through Level C some time during the middle of last year. She was working on the first part of the workbook and this was general review.
She did some pages on Mad libs for language practice. She been reviewing books for San Francisco Book Reviews and this week she reviewed one of the two that she received. This is a great way to read new books!
We were discussing something and one thing led to another and we started talking about air pressure and started recalling what we did and learnt while doing BFSU Air Pressure lessons. That was for science.
We are yet to finish the book 1 of SOTW. Disha (known as D in this blog, my 7 year old) wanted to start from the beginning of book and read through it again! She has started it on her own now.
She has also been watching lots of brain pop and reading her other book that she received for review.
We also started Art Journaling this week.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Happy New Year!
Hello! Hope you are doing fine. Happy new year!
We've been missing in action here since the middle of last year. We had to make a couple of unexpected out of country trips to visit sick family members. Then we came back to my husband accepting a new job in another state, so relocation! We had to put our house on sale and then move to the new state! So all of last year went crazy fast. Earlier this month we moved into our new place in the new state of Washington!
So finally we are going to get back into blogging as our lives are taking on a new rhythm. Over the break from blogging and regular homeschooling we have had a lot of time to think and see what works for us best in terms of homeschooling and schedule. Though we were off from official homeschooling a lot of learning was still happening with the kids. Tons of books were being read and a lot of spontaneous writing was also happening. I remember my older one (who is now 7!) doing Math, inventing her own problems, just because she wanted to. My younger one (3) can count perfectly now and knows most of the letter sounds! They were watching a lot of documentaries on Amazon and videos on BrainPop.
We tried some Elementary Montessori last year with task cards and some schedule to the day. Though my older daughter went along with it, I don't think it fit her learning personality well. She loves more freedom, I like more freedom! So this week we've gone back to freedom schooling and we are much happier! We use Montessori, Classical and Unschooling principles and are doing what is kind of working for us. I will be posting about how are days are going subsequently.
For my 3 year old, we would still continue with Montessori since it is the best free learning method out there for pre-schoolers!
I want to end this post with a brag! So, when we were in India during the middle of last year with my dad who was sick, we were visiting a clinic to get my dad tested for diabetes. I was with him with my kids. My older daughter, who was six then, was talking to my dad about diabetes. She went on to educate him about the different types of diabetes, what happens in your body with each type and the different treatment options! The doctors and the medical staff there were amazed at her knowledge and understanding! She even went on to invent her own new type of diabetes and how she would treat it! I was surprised too since I did not know that she knew all this. Apparently she had read about this in a Discover Kids magazine that she receives monthly! The doctor there told me that her explanation was by far the simplest and best he had heard about diabetes through out his career!
We've been missing in action here since the middle of last year. We had to make a couple of unexpected out of country trips to visit sick family members. Then we came back to my husband accepting a new job in another state, so relocation! We had to put our house on sale and then move to the new state! So all of last year went crazy fast. Earlier this month we moved into our new place in the new state of Washington!
So finally we are going to get back into blogging as our lives are taking on a new rhythm. Over the break from blogging and regular homeschooling we have had a lot of time to think and see what works for us best in terms of homeschooling and schedule. Though we were off from official homeschooling a lot of learning was still happening with the kids. Tons of books were being read and a lot of spontaneous writing was also happening. I remember my older one (who is now 7!) doing Math, inventing her own problems, just because she wanted to. My younger one (3) can count perfectly now and knows most of the letter sounds! They were watching a lot of documentaries on Amazon and videos on BrainPop.
We tried some Elementary Montessori last year with task cards and some schedule to the day. Though my older daughter went along with it, I don't think it fit her learning personality well. She loves more freedom, I like more freedom! So this week we've gone back to freedom schooling and we are much happier! We use Montessori, Classical and Unschooling principles and are doing what is kind of working for us. I will be posting about how are days are going subsequently.
For my 3 year old, we would still continue with Montessori since it is the best free learning method out there for pre-schoolers!
I want to end this post with a brag! So, when we were in India during the middle of last year with my dad who was sick, we were visiting a clinic to get my dad tested for diabetes. I was with him with my kids. My older daughter, who was six then, was talking to my dad about diabetes. She went on to educate him about the different types of diabetes, what happens in your body with each type and the different treatment options! The doctors and the medical staff there were amazed at her knowledge and understanding! She even went on to invent her own new type of diabetes and how she would treat it! I was surprised too since I did not know that she knew all this. Apparently she had read about this in a Discover Kids magazine that she receives monthly! The doctor there told me that her explanation was by far the simplest and best he had heard about diabetes through out his career!
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
We're alive and well!
We are alive and well! With the weather getting better we've been out a lot and doing less structured schooling. We will be back eventually with school day posts. Till then, you all have a wonderful spring!
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Our Morning Routine
We've been trying a new routine every morning for a few weeks now. Until this we did not have routine, the kids and I walked into the School room and well, just started on with work. I thought it would be nice to have a morning routine to change things up and plus get in some daily practice and inspiration for the rest of the day.
I have this big non-magnetic white board in the school room that we never used. After changing the date on our calendar every morning, D writes the date in two formats on the board. Under that, I write a saying or a proverb and we talk about it. Under that is a sentence for D to proof read. You can read more about these ideas here at Montessori for Everyone.
Another thing I wanted to do was to start reading the enormous collection of books that we have. We have a ton of books and many favorites get read again and again, but a few good ones are ignored. So I wanted to make it a habit to start reading intentionally these ignored books. We started of by reading a book of heroes.
This is a very nice book with short stories on various historical figures as well as common heroes. We read one story a week and discuss it. The kids love the stories and we re-read some many times!
We also own quite a few poetry books. We've been reading from this one now. We often end up reading more than a couple every morning!
D has added a "Spelling Test" to our morning routine! Completely her idea. She read in one of her books about it and wanted to do it. It always starts with 5 words but ends up filling the whole white board! She dictates her own word and spells it. I only check it for her!
There you have it. We are loving our new routine. To this currently we are also adding reading about some of the books related to the Third Great Lesson which inspires a lot of work. Presently we have a crush on Simple Machines and mommy is trying to put together a learning unit now!
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| Sorry for the bad shot, this board is against a window! |
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| After D's corrections! |
We also own quite a few poetry books. We've been reading from this one now. We often end up reading more than a couple every morning!
One good thing about this intentional reading is that it has opened up a lot of interesting discussions. I've also introduced the dictionary since we've encountered some new words while reading poems. We own a couple, but this one is D's favorite. I could not find an amazon link for this one. Most of our books, dictionaries or encyclopedias were bought in our local library's used book sale.
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| D reading a poem |
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| She looked up the meaning of "stile" by herself! |
D has added a "Spelling Test" to our morning routine! Completely her idea. She read in one of her books about it and wanted to do it. It always starts with 5 words but ends up filling the whole white board! She dictates her own word and spells it. I only check it for her!
There you have it. We are loving our new routine. To this currently we are also adding reading about some of the books related to the Third Great Lesson which inspires a lot of work. Presently we have a crush on Simple Machines and mommy is trying to put together a learning unit now!
Friday, March 8, 2013
Weekly Wrap up
Below was the plan for the week. The tasks for Tuesdays and Thursdays are shorter because we are out on both days for music and dance lessons. This week on Tuesday, it was their spring concert too!
Some pictures of Math work from the week.
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| We started off with Static Addition, but D caught on quickly and stopped using the bead frame for this. Then we moved on to dynamic addition on the frame towards the end of the week. Though I had some problems printed out from when we worked on the golden beads, D likes to create her own problems. |
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| D did Addition Dot Board only because it was on the task list. She quickly realized that she liked the bead frame better and moved onto to doing problems on that. |
We are working on the Multiplication board to fill in the tables. We are done with the first 6 for now.
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| Sorry for the blurry picture, in Geometry we again worked on identifying the kind on angles, this time using the quadrilateral drawer. While working with the protractor to determine that, D started getting interested in measuring the angles. So we worked on that and I showed her how to write it down and she marked it on her figures. |
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| D loves to think that she is giving me really difficult problems. So these were for me. Once I write the answers down, D has to verify my answers. So we got some additional practice done this way! |
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| I finally gave in and bought the Life of Fred books. D loved them and worked on 9 chapters straight! I had to stop her since we had to leave for dance class! |
Here are some shots of the Language work from the week. We completed the Level 2 book from First Language lessons this week. I am not planning on purchasing the Level 3 book for now.
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| Diagramming a sentence from the last chapter in FLL Level 2. |
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| We added the "Direct Object" piece to Sentence analysis this week. |
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| As usual D loves to make up her own sentences. |
One purpose of the work plan is to include some works that are often ignored. Maps were one in our house. This week I put it on the plan and D worked with the South America map. She knows a few capitals too! We read some South America books too.
This week we moved on with our Great Lessons. I do it a bit differently than what is suggested in many albums. For example we don't do the timelines till D has developed an interest in the subject. So we start by reading books on the topic, I tell her a lot of stories and then we do the sequence in the albums. Our Second Great Lesson studies have kind of come to halt after our Fungi and Bacteria studies. I also presented the Six Kingdom Chart and we went over the time line again to see how things evolved. So this week we have started to read books on the coming of humans. We started with the Jennifer Morgan book and have now proceeded to read a few others in this topic.
Here is how our work plan looked at the end of the week.
As you can see D got done with most of her tasks from the plan and then some more. I like how the plan is structuring our School Days. I think this plan is helping me keep up as much as helping D! We were doing this kind of work even before, but it is nice to have it up there and see how and where we need a little tweaking!
Next week our plan should be a little different, since we would not have FLL on there. I am planning on having a few grammar presentations and continuing the Third Great Lesson. Our focus would be to practice Addition with Exchange and Multiplication mainly, with may be some Subtraction thrown in, depending on D's interest.
Here are some shots of Little M from the school room.
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| We are working Cards and Counters here. |
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| She loves to make triangles, squares and rectangles on her geo board. |
We also love working on the first two drawers of the Geo Cabinet.
I am linking this up to...
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Science Journal entries
I thought I should share our recent Science Journal entries, in case some one is interested. We try to do something in the journal for all the science we do. D decides between drawing or writing or sometimes both and I do the rest for her. She is only 6 and there is no requirement that she do the work all by herself. In a Montessori classroom she might have chosen to do these with a group and might not have done all the writing and drawing by herself. I always keep this in mind and share the journaling with her. You might have seen in our Mushroom studies that she did the drawing and I did the writing. Here are the journal entries from our recent experiments.
We love journaling Science and many times I've caught D going through all the previous entries and recall interesting things from our experiments! As you can see we use a regular lined notebook. When I was in school, back in India, we had what we called "Observation" notebooks for science that had a blank page to the left and ruled page to the right, where we recorded all the Science entries. Is there something like that I could find here? I would love that format as almost all our entries have some drawing and some writing.
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| She choose to use a green check mark for seeds that germinated and a red X for no change. |
We love journaling Science and many times I've caught D going through all the previous entries and recall interesting things from our experiments! As you can see we use a regular lined notebook. When I was in school, back in India, we had what we called "Observation" notebooks for science that had a blank page to the left and ruled page to the right, where we recorded all the Science entries. Is there something like that I could find here? I would love that format as almost all our entries have some drawing and some writing.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Geometry bundle giveaway
Be sure to enter this awesome giveaway hosted by MyBoysTeacher! Here is the Link.
Art - The dot
Since we were sick for a few days last week, we did more of what we usually do on weekends, which is to read. We read the following book. It is an amazing book and a must read for kids!
Here is some artwork inspired by the book. The first two are by D, next is mine and the last one is M.
Here is some artwork inspired by the book. The first two are by D, next is mine and the last one is M.
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| If you look closely you will see tiny little dots made by M! |
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Weekly wrap-up
I introduced Sentence Analysis for D this week. After my introduction she worked on it on her own creating her own two word sentences, cutting and placing it under the right label.
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| The chart I made looks really bad, doesn't it?! |
D prefers making her own sentences to diagram. Here is one she dictated to me and then diagrammed! Can you see that we are big Magic School Bus fans here!
She got to the next box in Grammar. This was Singular and Plural: adding "s". She did this in one go and told me it was too easy for her. I think this is because we did cover this topic during our primary language sequence.
Metal Insets are a favorite here. I am glad I purchased this plastic set from eBay for $20. Worth the money!
She worked on subtraction story problems this week. I also introduced the small bead frame (done on the Large Bead Frame at our place!).
Here D is labeling each angle in the triangles of the geometric cabinet to be either right, acute or obtuse. This was a followup of the angles presentation we did last week.
We are also trying out this brilliant idea of work plans. Anytime D did something other than what was there on the plan, she wanted me to add it. So I have a bunch of blank cards on there for her to use as she pleases. This is still a work in progress and we are finding out what works and what does not. Will post more as we discover more.
Of course, M needs to have her own too. I had only one more pocket chart in green, so we used this pencil holder as her second one!
To finish off, here is a piece of art from D. One day this week, I found this crumpled piece of paper on the floor and found D stomping it over and over. When questioned she told me that she wanted to create texture just like how it is in the cave walls and that was her technique!!!
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| Oil Pastels. Crumpled and stomped on for the texture! |
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