So in the midst of getting ready for our vacation, I also have to continue to do school.
We are officially in our 3rd week of school it seems like that isn't possible, but it's true. I have been pleasantly surprised that school has been running as smooth as it has been. The first day I was a little worried, but after making a couple of changes and getting my schedules up where I can see them, things have been running smoothly.
On Thursday of last week we had a field trip to the zoo, we worked it into Science for both girls. In Science Liberty is learning about Vertebrates and Invertebrates, so while at the zoo she had to identify 3 different types of vertebrates one from each group of amphibians, reptiles, and fish. I had pictures of her choices, but sadly I erased them while trying to make space for Toy Story on Ice pictures. I thought I had them protected, but I was mistaken. I do have some pictures that I took at the zoo with my phone that I will share.
Teyla is studying her 5 senses in science, so while we were at the petting zoo she had to tell me how she was using her senses and she had to give me an example of the senses she could use and then explain to me what senses she couldn't use and why. Touching of course was when she pet the sheep and goats. Seeing was looking at all the animals and all the surroundings. Hearing she identified sounds before she saw them, such as a peacock calling out. Smell she said she could smell all the stinky little piggies. Of course she didn't use her sense of taste. I asked her why and she said because it would be just nasty to taste the animals food.
In mathLiberty is reviewing but learning all at the same time. We are working on Identity property of addition, Subtraction strategies and zero property and the Associative and commutative property of addition. We are also working on fact families. Now I myself am not fond of math, but I am enjoying this curriculum and I am learning new things too. This is just a basic thing but we are learning fact families. I have never heard of fact families like these. An example 6, 7, 13 are a family because 6+7 =13, 7+6 =13, 13-6 =7, and 13-7=6. I can't tell you how much this would have helped me in math if I would have learned this way. I might have even enjoyed math. We and I really mean we are learning how to count without using our fingers by learning different little tricks. One example is adding 9 when you are adding 9 to another number such as 7 instead of counting 9 you round 9 up to 10 and then add 7 which of course gives you 17 and then you subtract 1 and get 16. Let me tell you I have never enjoyed math because I just couldn't get it, this I get and Liberty does too. Don't get me wrong I scraped by in math and did enough to get by, but I think if I started out with these basics I would have done so much more than scrape by.
Teyla in math is working on numbers to 10 identifying and writing them. This is a review and she is doing awesome with it and in fact will be taking her first ever math test tomorrow. When she found out she was going to take a test she freaked out a little, but I reassured her that it wasn't a big deal and that she knew everything that was going to be on the test so she had nothing to worry about.
In English Liberty is reviewing. We have been talking about the parts of sentences and also the 4 types of sentences. Telling, Question, Command and exclamation. Tomorrow we will be moving on to combining subjects and predicates.
Teyla's reading, English and phonics are all linked together, right now she is learning the word families it and in. She also has two sight words here and I. Tomorrow Teyla will read her first story. I am really amazed how she just picks things up so quickly.
Liberty in reading is already on her 2nd or 3rd story and is doing awesome, this year on Fridays instead of doing her reading curriculum she will read in a chapter book and when she is finished with the book she will have a quiz over the book to see how well she retained all that she read. This will not happen until after our trip to Disney.
Teyla is super excited about the fact that she gets to do Heritage Studies, so excited in fact that Heritage Studies is all she could talk about when talking to Grammy who had been gone for a week. Right now she is learning about the earth and sea. She has learned that large and small bodies of water are held in low places on earth and that oceans and continents are the largest bodies of water and masses on earth. We talked about the different continents and which continent she lived on and then she got to put continent puzzles together. We will be discussing maps and directions in our next lesson.
Liberty has yet to start Heritage Studies, I forgot to order a workbook that is pretty important for her class, so we are on hold until it gets here, hopefully it gets here before we leave for Florida, but if it doesn't it isn't a big deal.
Landon is really surprising me on how much he wants to do school. Last year he really had nothing to do with it, and this year he is a little eager beaver. He is working on writing his letters and numbers on his own and of course knowing them by sight. He really enjoys working on his fine motor skills with his cutting and pasting book. He is also quite the drawer.
So right now we haven't had a lot of picture taking experiences, but the kids are enjoying school and learning and that's all that counts.
Check back later this week we will have our first Botanical class and I'm sure lots of pictures to go along with it.
