Yesterday, as we expected, Randy lost his job. So we're going to have family school for a while. It's going to be a little challenging to keep the boys focused on lessons when Daddy is home. Too bad he's so much fun! =)
This week, we're reading some of the Before FIAR books. I think I mentioned before that we have more weeks to do school than we had FIAR volume 1 books to row. ("Rowing" is reading a book for a period of time & doing educational activities based on the book.) This week's choices are Yellow Ball by Molly Bang and My Blue Boat by Chris L. Demarest. Yellow Ball ties into last week's Storm in the Night (which is good, since I'm trying to help Jimmy overcome fear; the storms in those books really help start the conversation), and My Blue Boat goes nicely with Yellow Ball since they are both books about being on the water.
Yesterday, we discussed fear again using the storm scenes in Yellow Ball. I pretended to be lightning (a wiggle of the fingers) and thunder (a loud "BOOM!"). Jimmy & I counted between the lightning & thunder. The storm came closer, was right over us, and then moved away from us. Jimmy had a lot of fun.
Today, we looked at the page in Yellow Ball where the moon is shining full above the calm ocean, where the yellow ball is gently riding the waves. I asked which was the moon & which was the ball, and then asked how we could tell the difference. We looked at this very same topic last year, but it was fun to see how much more advanced he is this year. Last year, he knew that the moon was the moon because it was in the sky. This year, he pointed out the slight differences in the color of the round objects (the ball had some yellow while the moon was only white). We looked at the moonbeam reflected on the water as well. He noticed a lot more clues this year & was able to articulate them very well.
Math lessons are going very well. Jimmy is getting extra calendar re-enforcement during Advent Calendar (with chocolates, of course) with Daddy at bedtime. Randy reviews what day it is (day of the week, month, date, and year), the "event" at the end of the countdown, and the real meaning of Christmas. They really enjoy this, and I can see their understanding grow during the countdown. Yesterday's math lesson was pennies in cups. I put out 11 cups - 1 with no pennies, 1 with 1 penny, 1 with 2 pennies, etc, until 1 with 10 pennies. Jimmy was given the number cards from 0-10 & asked to match the cups to their number cards. He got them all right, and he worked completely on his own (as in I was in the laundry room) for a good bit of it. Today's lesson was an evaluation. He had a little trouble with this test. The first part went very well - I held up a number card & asked him to show me that number in linking cubes. He passed each one. The second part involved me laying out linking cubes & Jimmy finding the matching number card. He didn't know that he could touch the cubes to count them, so he got 2 of the 3 wrong (he added one more than was there each time). When I told him that he could move them to count them, he got them all correct. When I re-read the teacher instructions, I realized that I probably should have had the cubes more directly in front of him instead of across the table. Mommy is learning here, too.
LotW is going very well this week. Since we didn't spend much time on the letter J last week, we're still reviewing it pretty heavily this week. Jimmy recited the J verse & practiced his J & j's yesterday before we got into K. We read the K verse & accompanying story. This week's verse is "Keep your tongue from evil." Psalm 34:13. Jimmy memorized the verse right away but still struggles with the reference. Today, we reviewed the J & K verses, practiced writing J & j, and introduced writing K & k. They look like easy letters, but it's tough to aim the middle of the sideways "V" to end up in the right place. Still, Jimmy's letters are all read-able. It's been a while since we had any major review of all of the previous letters, though, so I think we should look at doing that sometime over next week.
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