Year-Round Educating...

While we will continue with Math, Religion, Reading and Preschool (and writing our Penpals) throughout the summer, I will be posting less frequently until August. We are getting ready to move (again) and I have started a new part-time job at the community college, so our "schedule" (term used loosely) will be a little crazy until the end of July!

Unicorn is progressing through Dreambox.com, Math Mammoth and has been reading books like crazy. She is almost finished with the "Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket, she only has one book left. She has also read "Ella Enchanted" and is starting "Hatchet" today for the "Beach Bag Book Club" that starts on Thursday. Tomorrow we will sign up for the library summer reading club. Also, tomorrow begins the summer movies at Harkins Theatres, the first show is "Charlotte's Web"! For Religion during the summer I am going to have her read "Book of Mormon Stories" and do the "Book of Mormon Workbook" from Discover the Scriptures. While the stories and the workbook are below her grade level in reading it will be a good introduction to studying the scriptures daily.

Ladybug is having a blast with the Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum. I have been supplementing it with extra letter and number pages to give her more practice with writing. 

Check out some pictures of what they have been doing!

Ladybug's Piggy Bank

Practicing "F" and "6"

Fun with Colors

Wow...can you believe she just turned 4!!

Ladybug's Pizza

Unicorn wanted to make Pizza too, so she found some scraps and made a Pizza!

Beary Scary Ladybug!

Our Bean Project!

Another way to Grow Beans!

Another angle on the planted Beans!

May 10-14

This week we discovered a math website: Dreambox.com. A blog I follow reviewed Dreambox and based on her experience I signed Unicorn up for the free trial. Since she started on May 7th, Unicorn has played for 7 hours and completed 24 lessons! Big bonus: She is LOVING it! This is a bonus because Unicorn HATES math. I don't have to ask her to play Dreambox...she "bugs" me to use the computer to play it!

Since we are near the end of our school year, we are transitioning to only the basics: Math, Reading and Religion. We will continue with this modified schedule until July, when Daddy goes back to work.

Unicorn working on math.

Unicorn using "Upwords" for spelling.

For Ladybug, I purchased a preschool curriculum: Mother Goose Time. This is mostly for my sanity. Ladybug LOVES doing projects and the preschool curriculums are full of fun projects as well as fun ways to learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. I was having trouble creating lessons for both children and decided that a "boxed" curriculum for preschool will work for Ladybug and Monkey. I researched many of these curriculums and for preschool the are all pretty similar...the biggest difference is the amount of materials you get for your money! Mother Goose Time, in my opinion, gives the most bang for your buck! Additionally, I will use this curriculum when I start up my preschool again. It is laid out very well and I can "tweak" whatever I need/want to "tweak"! I ordered the May, June and July curriculums and so far she is loving it! She asks to do school again! May's Theme is "Food, Fitness and Fun" and one of the first things we did is learn about fruits and vegetables and then "paint" with different fruits and vegetables! We used lemons, strawberries, carrots, celery and onions. It was so fun even Unicorn joined in!

Ladybug painting with a lemon,

a strawberry and

celery!

Unicorn painted with fruit and veggies too!

Ladybug's finished product.

Unicorn's finished product!

As a family we read the 5th Magic Tree House book: "Night of the Ninjas"!

I have always struggled with how to store/save all the papers that the children create. While reading another blog, I stumbled upon a cute way to store all the paperwork. Each crate has 14 file folders labeled from Preschool through 12th grade. Each day the children add their work to the appropriate folder and then each month we will go through their creations and decide which ones to keep, throw away or send to family. That way, at the end of each school year, the children will have saved their best work. Some of it will end up in scrapbooks, some of it on grandparents refrigerators and most of it recycled in various other ways.

Back on Schedule :)

Well, we are moved in (mostly) and were able to have a "typical" week of home educating.

Unicorn finished her unit on money and read the Constitution.  She continued to study nouns and illustrated one of her poems during art. She also used the "Scrabble" letters to spell her spelling words this week. Unicorn word of the week was bloviate!

3 of Unicorn's spelling words (she has 10 per week)

Ladybug continued to learn the numbers 1 and 2 and the letters A and C and their sounds (she's been sick all week so we have just been reviewing).

As a family we went to the park and pool for PE and read the third book in the Magic Tree House Series, "Mummies in the Morning" (we read the second one while we were moving). At the park we found rocks and painted them for art. The pool was very cold but the kids were insistent that we go!