Capitalization

It's good to use a capital letter for names because it makes the person feel special! If you don't give me a capital letter I feel small.

I liked the sledding picture you drew. Sledding is one of my favorite things to do, except I don't like the bumps as much as I used to!

Have you ever heard of a platypus?

How would you sort this crazy critter?

Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Week 15

MATH
Caleb took a Unit 1 test, which covered all the material he has learned in Lessons 1 - 10.  Then, Lesson 11 covered the shapes circles and triangles.  Caleb learned that triangles can be all different sizes as long as they have 3 points and 3 sides.  He practiced counting by 2's and also practiced the addition facts he has already learned.  He is going to take the Lesson 11 test tomorrow.

LANGUAGE ARTS
In addition to learning word endings, Caleb also practiced handwriting.  He is trying to remember to use uppercase letters for the first letter of names and lowercase for the rest.  The picture shows a sheet he did, practicing with the names of his family members.  He drew a winter picture: "It shows me and my brother sledding  down a big hill.  Smiley got buried in the snow and hopefully he's alright.  I'm glad it's just a picture!"  He wrote a sentence to go with it.  Caleb also practiced reading in his early-reader books.

SCIENCE
Caleb did more work sorting things.  He enjoyed an animal card game very much, discovering animals can be sorted many different ways and some fit into more than one group.  He sorted the cards into animals with feathers, spots, tails, wings, and various colors, mammals, insects, carnivores, and animals his little brother thinks are cute.  We also played a game that puts animals into their correct habitat.  This picture show Caleb after winning a round with woodland animals.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Caleb continued to work with Washington state maps, practicing finding directions, and reading and identifying the icons in the legends.

Preparing for Christmas has given us a chance to read about holiday traditions and Christmas stories.

ART
Caleb had a lot of fun this week doing different art projects.  With friends he made salt clay which they shaped into holiday ornaments, and then dried and painted.  At art class the kids learned how to make wreaths out of fresh evergreen branches and other natural decorations.  This is Caleb with his wreath he brought home.  It looks lovely on our wall!

P.E.
Mild winter weather gave Caleb a chance to play outdoors this week and go on a walk.

Great Map!

I really like your map of Washington! Isn't it funny how the Columbia River winds all over Eastern Washington, but then all of a sudden goes pretty much straight? The state looks pretty small on paper, but it sure takes a long time to drive across!

The lesson on how snow can change looked fun. Now, do you think you could turn it from a gas back into snow?! That would be a little bit harder, wouldn't it?

You sure do a good job on your drawings! They are very colorful!

I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Week 14

MATH
Caleb finished Lesson 10 and took his test.  He practiced addition with 8's and 9's.  Each page in the lesson also included story problems and solving for the unknown.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb worked on word endings EG, EN, ET, and EW, writing and reading words and stories with the word endings.  In his MLB he was to make-up sentences with words he learned.  He made one funny (The cat pushed the vet to get wet) and one to go with a picture (The cat was wet with dew) and he made them both about cats.

Caleb continues to practice reading aloud and sounding out words as best he can and enjoyed listening to stories too.  "50 Degrees below zero was the funniest story.  I love funny stories and scary stories"

SCIENCE
Caleb started learning about sorting and classifying.  He practiced sorting items throughout the house and also had fun discovering a variety of science sorting games online at http://science.pppst.com/sorting.html. 

SOCIAL STUDIES
Caleb continued to use maps to take pretend trips, this time using a map of Washington State.  He recognized airports, train tracks, and waterways, in addition to roads, and included them in the stories of his fun routes.  He drew his own map of Washington, trying to get the approximate shape and a few important features, like the forest mountain ranges, the Columbia River, and his own house and his grandparents house on the other side of the state.

ART
In art class, the students worked on holiday decorations.  Caleb also did some water coloring painting.

P.E.
Caleb enjoyed a few of the cold, cold, but sunny days outside this week, going on walks (and sliding on icing sidewalks) and playing with friends.

Week 13

MATH
Caleb took his test for Lesson 9.  He did really well understanding how to add 9.  We spent a day reviewing counting by 2's, forward and backward, to prepare him for the next lesson which teaches adding 8.  He did the first few pages of Lesson 10 this week.  He caught on to the concept that adding 8 is the same as adding 10, then taking away 2. 

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb worked on word endings, including AT, AY, AW, and ED.  He also took a spelling test reviewing previously learned words.  The picture shows his words for the AY story, where he drew a sun and wrote AY words on each sun ray, and his ED words.

Caleb enjoyed reading stories this week, and read a lot out of his Highlights magazines.  They are filled with short stories, funny poems, non-fiction articles, and jokes.  "'Dear Arizona' is the best; she is really funny."


SCIENCE
Caleb did some more work with the three phases of matter, making a wheel worksheet and listening to a book.  To wrap up the lessons he watched how snow can become all three things.
"I filled up a pot with snow, and it was solid.  I put it on the stove and let it melt.  It turned to steam which is gas, and it became liquid water too!"

SOCIAL STUDIES
Our lessons reading maps this week were with local county maps.  We started with the location of our house and would take imaginary trips down the roads to different spots we were familiar with.  Caleb had fun making up long out-of-the-way routes that traveled all over the county.  He learned about map legends, and how maps use symbols to show people where to find things.  He drew symbols in his book from the county map we were using.  They symbols included campsites, fishing spots, airports, hiking, and more.  He also made up an imaginary town with roads going all over the place, and then drew in symbols from his legend.  He likes to tell stories about his maps.

ART
Caleb started some seasonal art projects, including making candle decorations that we'll use for upcoming holiday events.  He also worked on making toy dolls, where he learned to stitch felt pieces together. 

P.E.
Caleb is taking time off from swimming for the winter, but he didn't lack in time to exercise outside.  He loves the snow and spent time playing outdoor games in the snow with friends.  He also did lots of sledding with his brother and hiking around our property to check out his bird feeders and see how different everything looks covered in white.

Pumpkin Pie!

The pie sure looks good!

I'm glad to hear you are getting your 9's down. Soon all addition will seem easy to you!

DAD is my favorite AD word!

The map you shared is really good! It is very important to make good maps or everyone will go to the wrong spot! One time when I was in ROTC we had to follow a map in the dark. The people who made the map gave bad directions. All of us ended up in the wrong spot!

My favorite aliens were the Spikes!

The water slide at the Camas Center looks like a blast!

I bet you're having fun with this snow!

Week 12

SUMMARY

This is a summary of our week, which was a little shorter than normal due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  It wasn't required that we blog this week, but I thought it would be better to not have a gap in the weekly updates.

Caleb started Lesson 9 in math, where he is learning to add 9's using mental math.  Adding 9 is the same as adding 10 and taking away 1; this is a short-cut of sorts once one understands the concept.  Caleb struggled a bit at first, but after seeing this done with blocks over and over, he began doing the problems on his own.  He continued to work on writing rhyming words and reading aloud.  We read about Thanksgiving and Caleb made Thanksgiving crafts, including seasonal table decorations.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" 

Week 11

MATH
Caleb did Lesson 8 and took his test.  The lesson taught Caleb how to solve for the unknown.  He often used his math blocks to help him solve these problems.  The lesson reinforced the basic addition facts he knows, while also providing a foundation for subtraction.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb finished his review of the letters of the alphabet, where he drew a picture and wrote words for each letter while also exploring the sounds it makes.  He started working with his Word Families book.  For each lesson he learns a letter combination, like AD, and we read a story that is filled with AD words.  He draws a picture and the AD words in his Main Lesson Book.  We play different games to make it fun, like seeing how quickly he can pick out the AD words while listening to the story.  The picture he drew was of the dog in the story that took a pad of paper and the sheets of paper ripped off.  He wrote the AD words on each piece of paper.  For AG, he drew bags that were mentioned in the AG story, and wrote AG words on each bag.

Caleb discovered Elephant & Piggie books, by Mo Willems.  He thinks they are hilarious, and practiced reading them aloud often.  He loved embellishing the funny parts and making his little brother laugh.  "Language Arts is my favorite subject this week!"

SCIENCE
We had some snow fall at our house last weekend.  It was a good time to observe how weather changes, how it effects nature, and what makes snowflakes.  It was also an intro into learning about the three states of matter: liquid, solid, and gas.  We spent time talking about examples of water freezing into solid.  We learned a fun song about matter.  We spent an afternoon outside burning brush, watching the fire, and talking about invisible gases. 

S.S.
We've been exploring maps of the inside of our house, and this week took them outside, mapping a large area around our house.  Caleb made up directions to our mailbox, pretending they were for someone who had never been there or couldn't see where it was.  He left out exact details, so when we followed his directions we ended up nowhere near the mailbox.  We did it again, this time saying things like, "take 3 steps East, turn North and take 10 steps" . . . etc.  When we made it exactly to our destination, we found a pretty piece of wasps nest, which Caleb considered to be the prize at the end of a treasure hunt!  Caleb mapped the area where we walked, drawing in all the trees and cars used as landmarks.  He wrote our address at the top.

All of this work with maps is eventually going to lead us to looking at larger and larger areas: first our house and bedrooms, then our property, then the town and county, then the state, country, etc.  The thoroughness is helping give Caleb a good foundation of why and how to use maps. 

ART
As I mentioned earlier, the art center changes it's art on exhibit regularly.  This week, there is an artist reception where the whole community is invited to view the art and meet the artists.  The homeschool kids will be involved with the reception.  They will all help to make the food being served, and then they will be dressed in handmade costumes while they serve it.  They started costumes last week, and continued working on them this week.  The different costumes include crowns, capes, and masks.  They are ready and excited for this Friday, the day of the big event!

P.E.
P.E. this week included exercising outside when the weather was good.  A blizzard on the Flowery Trail stopped us from attending swimming classes this week.  In between rain and snow bursts there were, fortunately, a few dry afternoons to hike outside!

Week 10

MATH
Caleb did Lesson 7 and took his test.  He can do addition with the number 2 and he is doing more work with word problems.  His math workbook also has "for fun" pages with activities like connect-the-dots and drawing pictures from math word problems, which he enjoyed. 

LANGUAGE ARTS

Caleb is almost done with his review of each of the letters of alphabet.  For the letter X he made a picture of two roads crossing and forming the letter X.  He also thought up some sentences to write.  Fox is boxing and Box is on the Red Sox were his own silly ideas to write. 

Caleb is getting more comfortable writing in everyday situations, like to illustrate a picture or make a list or note.  An example is his picture of aliens. "These are my alien creations!" Caleb said and made up names that match the alien characteristics.  ("Teams" is the name of two aliens that have to work together since they were joined together as one; "Cleans" likes to clean things that are dirty, etc.!)  This was just for fun; it wasn't part of a specific assignment, but I think it shows that he is getting used to writing as a valuable tool and not just as "school work."

We checked out more A-Z Mysteries from the library and Caleb continues to enjoying listening to the stories read aloud.  He also practiced reading from some phonics early-reader books.

SCIENCE
We read more books and reviewed material Caleb learned about the Solar System, moon, and constellations.  There was more of an emphasis this week on the fun map projects we were busy with in S.S.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Caleb is getting more comfortable reading maps.  He made a diorama of his room and made miniature versions of the furniture in it.  He had fun creating and decorating the furniture, but the project was really helpful in showing Caleb how a map's view is from the top.  "This looks just like my room, but it is a LOT cleaner!"  Through these activities and other games, Caleb is getting a lot of practice finding directions and discovering the meaning of symbols on maps.

ART
In art class, Caleb and the other students started creating costumes for an event they are preparing for at the art center next week.  They were busy making and decorating fun masks and crowns, using lots of glue, glitter, ribbons, and other decorations.  Caleb also did some painting.

P.E.
Caleb is doing well at swimming.  His instructor spoke with us this week and said Caleb is really making excellent progress; he listens well to directions during class and tries his hardest.  This week, when the lesson was over, Caleb was rewarded with an extended use of time on the big water slide!

 

What about Christmas?

You like the Halloween books Caleb? What about Christmas stories? Maybe you could stick with the Halloween stories for a couple more weeks and then switch over!
The constellations are a lot of fun to look at. It is especially fun in the summer when it's nice and warm!
You got some candy for Halloween? Hopefully you didn't get a tummy ache!

Week 9

MATH
Caleb finished Lesson 6 and took his test.  He did well and knows how to write numbers 0 - 100, but each page took him quite awhile.  He did not like the time it took as he much prefers being able to quickly cruise through his math pages.  Lesson 6 also covered counting by 10's and reviewed the addition facts he already learned.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb continued practicing writing letters, words, and sentences.  He made two tall tress and a turtle in this T picture.  He also drew a picture of trick-or-treating on Halloween.  The sentence is hard to read in pencil; it says "Dressing up on Halloween is fun.  Getting candy is best."  I usually write the sentence that he dictates, pointing out proper use of uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation and spacing.  He then copies, but often leaving out some of these details.  He IS getting in the habit of writing though, and he sees the accomplishment of writing something that is readable to others.

 
 Caleb practiced reading aloud from phonics readers and enjoyed hearing many books read to him.  "Lets keep reading Halloween books, even if Halloween is over!"

SCIENCE
We have started reading about stars and constellations, to go along with our study of the moon and solar system, and our observations of the sky.   Caleb enjoyed seeing how stars make up pictures ("like connect-the-dots") but discovered that identifying these pictures amongst other stars is difficult.  He used a fun website, and the real night sky, to try to find constellations.  He also enjoyed learning about the constellations of the Zodiak and learning all his family members' sun signs.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Caleb continued to work on learning the four directions and how these are used in maps.  We did a fun exercise that included drawing maps of the inside of our house and then using it to answer questions like: How many windows are on the North side of the house?  If you go South from the kitchen, which room are you in?
He also did some worksheets like this one:

ART
The art studio where Caleb attends classes each week changed their artwork on display.  The kids get a tour of the new artwork which includes an explanation of the medium used.  They learn about the differences in watercolors, pastels, and techniques like batik.  It is great to see the kids enjoying exposure to professional artwork.  Of course, they like creating art best.  This week Caleb did some drawing and gluing on collages.

P.E.
Some sunny days this week gave us the opportunity to play outside and go for walks.  Caleb also attended his swimming lesson.

Scary Snake!

Nice snake Caleb! It looks like your mom might not like snakes.
You picked a good time of the year to study clouds! It seems like it has been raining all the time.
The cider press looks like a lot of fun! I wonder if we went to the corn maze the same day? It sure was muddy the day we went. I'm glad you made your way out of the maze!
The pumpkins you carved look really cool!

Week 8

MATH
Caleb finished Lesson 5 and took his test.  He started Lesson 6, where he practices writing numbers 0 - 100 and counting by 10's.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb is applying reading in a variety of fun ways in addition to just reading books.  We played the game I Spy Eagle Eye, where he looks at fun pictures and has to locate the hidden objects listed.  He played a Hooked on Phonics computer game.  We also read many books, including  lots of Halloween stories, and also listened to stories on CD that accompany picture books.

Caleb practiced writing letters and words.  For the letter S, we came up with a sentence together that used S words: Snakes are scary and slimy.  But it was his idea to draw a picture of me getting scared by a snake.

SCIENCE
Caleb enjoyed the weather observations from last week, and this week he learned about different types of clouds.  We talked about how clouds can be used to predict the weather and I wrote descriptions of cumulus, cirrus, and stratus clouds in his science book.  Caleb did his best to make clouds out of cotton to match the description.  Caleb did more weather charting, adding clouds to the list of things he recorded (he also checked temperature, wind direction, and weather.)  Caleb commented, "It's definitely going to rain." after observing a gray sky thick with "blanket" or stratus clouds.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Caleb continued moon charting, using calendars, and practiced locating North, South, East and West during our science studies.  The highlight of the week were the seasonal fall events he got to participate in.  We went to a cider-pressing celebration that included pressing apples, eating apple pie, and drinking lots of cider made with local orchards' apples.

Going to the corn maze and pumpkin patch was a great time, despite the drizzle that day.  "We got lost, but it was still fun!"  After we found our way out of the maze, we picked out pumpkins to carve at home.

ART
In art class Caleb made some fun Halloween decorations, including a bat that he cut the fabric for and learned how to stitch together and fill with stuffing.  He stitched the whole thing and glued on eyes.  The group also made big spiderwebs out of netting that they learned to tie around a hoop, and then they crafted spiders and bugs to put in it.  The class also got to help make a Halloween pinata that they discovered, after breaking it open, was filled with small toys.

P.E.
Caleb was back at swimming class where his swimming skills are really improving.  

So Much Fun!

You sure have been doing a lot of fun learning! I really like your birch bark basket. You did a great job on that.
It sounds like the weather might be changing in the next couple of days. Your weather vane might come in handy. I think it's supposed to get colder and rain too.
The Eyewitness books sound really cool. It seems like you really like to learn new things.
You do know a lot of math problems, and I bet you learn new ones every week! Keep up the fun learning and someday you can be a scientist in the ocean if you want to!

Week 7

MATH
Caleb completed Lesson 4 and took his test.  He started Lesson 5, addition with the number 1.  He also liked circling the addition problems on his Addition Fact Sheet.  He circles the problems after he has learned them and this reinforces the commutative property of addition, or the fact that 2 + 0 is also 0 + 2.  "Look how many math problems I know!"

LANGUAGE ARTS
Caleb worked on the letters P, Q, and R in his MLB.  P was the most fun because together we came up with lots of silly rhymes and phrases that had to do with Pink Pigs and Pumpkin Patches.  Caleb wanted to draw a pumpkin patch, as we had just finished reading a book called Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns.

Caleb loves to have books read to him and we read from a collection of stories, more A-Z Mysteries, and more Halloween stories.  "The Eyewitness Books are my favorite this week."  A friend let us borrow a huge stack of Eyewitness Books.  They are from a series of informative non-fiction books, each one being filled with beautiful, fun pictures and focusing on a single science or social studies topic.  We read books on whales, oceans, and pirates, to name a few.  I have Caleb read words and sentences aloud when we come across words he is learning.

SCIENCE/S.S.
These 2 subjects overlapped a lot for us this week.  We are continuing to read books about space and the moon, and chart the moon phase on Caleb's calendar.  We discussed the moon's orbit around the earth, and Caleb made a flipbook that helped him see why the moon looks different depending on where it is in space.  After reading some poems about the moon, Caleb wanted to write one and I suggested he draw a picture to go along with it.  He drew the earth and sun, and the moon in between the two, explaining to me that, "It is a full moon because the sun is shining right on it."  The words under the picture say, "Moon please be mine.  You are the best."

Caleb also made a weather vane that we took outside to see the direction of the wind.  Caleb learned how to find North, East, South and West, depending on where the sun comes up and goes down each day.  He charted the weather over the course of 3 days, recording the temperature, wind direction, and weather.  There wasn't wind on two of the days, and each day was clear and sunny, but it was a good exercise in charting that we will continue to work on.  The picture he drew is of himself next to his weather vane on the one windy day.

ART
The project Caleb had the most fun with this week was making birch bark baskets.  He used a round piece of birch bark and used a glue gun to attach a leather bottom.  He added a feather and bead decoration he made.  He uses the basket to collect things we find outside for our nature window.  (We have a windowsill where we put things we collect outside that reflect the current season.)

P.E.
Caleb played and exercised at the park and practiced riding bikes (he can now ride training-wheel free!)  He didn't attend swimming class this week since his brother was sick and they've both been a little under the weather battling colds.  It was a good time to discuss health, caring for bodies, and proper use of medicine.