School with Grandmom

We read Night of the Moonjellies again today. Today, we discussed New England. We looked at a map of New England, guessed where Mark & his Gram might live (close to the ocean, since Mark walked to the hot dog stand), and colored in the different stated in New England. We'll put this map into our lapbook on Thursday.

Math today was calendar review, then counting using teddy bear counters, pattern blocks, and work mats. The work mats are just sheets of construction paper. The bears are lined up on one side of the mat. To count, we slide the bears to the other side. Then we have to get pattern blocks for each teddy bear (remembering how many we counted, then counting the same number of pattern blocks). The teddy bears "sit" on the pattern blocks, and we count them all over again. As always, this was Caleb's favorite part of the lessons.

For Letter of the Week, Jimmy reviewed his memory verse. He almost has is down - he's just struggling with "Blessed are the peacemakers for..." I'm still impressed! Then we wrote 4 big B's and 4 little b's. His big B's are very nice, but we'll need to work a little on the little b's.

We finished up with our sight word flash cards. He hasn't memorized them yet, but I think that's a good thing. We're getting plenty of opportunity to practice phonics.

The boys were a little distracted with Grandmom here (she noticed that Jimmy didn't sit still very well), but we still managed to do everything on the lesson plan without me struggling to keep their attention. This is a HUGE improvement over last year, where we wouldn't have been able to do squat if our routine varied in the slightest. Caleb really enjoyed having someone to talk with while I worked one-on-one with Jimmy.

Now it's time to head out to Raptor Trust. Raptor Trust is a sanctuary/medical aid facility for birds, particularly raptors (like eagles & hawks). I've been there once before, and I'm excited to see how the boys react. We might still head over to the zoo afterward. It all depends on how things go today. The word of the day is "flexible!"