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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Diagramming a sentence from the last chapter in FLL Level 2. 

We added the "Direct Object" piece to Sentence analysis this week.

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.

We are working Cards and Counters here.

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...

Weekly wrap-up

We had an "illness" week here.  Now, when I look at the pictures I took this week, seems like we still had a good school week!

 Here are two pictures of my nearly 3 year old in action!

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.

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!!!

Oil Pastels. Crumpled and stomped on for the texture!

Weekly Wrap-up

This is one really long post with many pictures of our work week since we stayed home mostly except for a few classes.

In Language we basically worked through FLL and WWE.  We are almost done with Level 2 of FLL, 10 more lessons to go.  I am right now contemplating between buying Level 3 or just use the Montessori Sequence.  So far FLL has helped us tremendously in keeping up with constant Language work with zero preparation on my part, but we have always done Montessori first and used FLL as only re-inforcement.  Level 3 introduces diagramming work and the reviews on amazon mention a lot of repetition.  It is not a very expensive buy, so may be I will have it on hand just in case!

The constructive triangles made an appearance this week after a long time.  D worked with the Triangle and Large Hexagon boxes.

We also used the Geo-board to make Triangles that were acute, obtuse and right angled.  I really need to get moving on the geometry presentations as she seems very interested in this.

D is done with the subtraction memorization sequence now and she worked with the last chart in the set.

So, this week I looked through Karen Tyler's materials and made this little booklet that has some subtraction equations with missing parts.  She worked through the 8 sets in a couple of days.

We were reviewing the strategies to add 8 and 9 (RightStart) one day and D wanted to see how fast she could do them!

We also introduced the DOT board addition this week.  She worked on it almost everyday and now does not need to be reminded to carry-over every time she crosses-out a 10!

We also worked with the subtraction snake game one day, though I don't have a picture of it.

I printed off the Six Kingdom information cards from MPS and presented it to her.  I was worried that we jumped into the study of fungi without doing the sequence in the Zoology albums, so I gave her this lesson.  She liked it, did it once and then went right back to continuing to research about fungi!

Here she is reading a booklet from MPS on the parts of a mushroom.

Here is her drawing of the mushroom.  She dictated and I wrote what she wanted me to write about mushrooms in her journal.

In SOTW this week she worked on the pending maps and coloring pages.

Once again, here are a couple of pieces of art by D.  This time I caught her in action and took pictures while she was at it!

This week was also my Wedding Anniversary.  D wanted to do something special and asked for a piece of big cardboard from our project pile.  She made a background and did a magic show for us!  We loved it!

The backdrop, painted.

Her setup before the show!

I don't have pictures of the actual show, but she did three tricks for us and also a little dance performance!  

While all this work was going on, my little one did her own trays was walking in and out of the school room all week!  Here are just a couple of shots from her week!