Week 4

MATH
Caleb worked on Lesson 2 in his math workbook, practicing writing numbers 1 - 20.  Caleb likes these kind of worksheets and said, "Math is my favorite subject this week."

LANGUAGE ARTS
I read aloud to Caleb every day; "Pippi's Extraordinary Ordinary Day was the best.  Let's get more Pippi Longstocking books!"  Caleb also practiced reading aloud from a phonics book.  Caleb continued to do pictures and sentences in his MLB, which focus on a letter.  He thinks of words that start with the letter he's practicing, and he got a kick out of thinking to write the word "jaw breaker" for the J page.  The picture is of the hill Jack and Jill went up. 

SCIENCE
He put the finishing touches on his Ocean Lapbook, gluing in the different things he's worked on.  The finished product includes: a science book where he separated mammals, fish, and invertebrates; a worksheet identifying the Earth's oceans, a pictures of an ocean food web, a book he wrote for L.A., an "O" letter word wheel, an envelope with different ocean animal cards he learned about, and a "Don't Pollute the Ocean" themed picture.  "The Don't Pollute picture was the hardest to make.  I had to write long words!"  (It was also his first introduction to using apostrophes.)

The Ocean Unit has really gone well.  I found some great websites too that helped reinforce everything he's learned.  Caleb's favorite was SOSKids. 

SOCIAL STUDIES
We are working with calendars to recognize the weeks and months.

I read a humorous, fun book to Caleb called UG: Boy Genius of the Stonge Age.

"Ug thought of ways to make the stone age life better.  He wanted to make fires to cook and keep warm, boats, wheels, and soft pants.  I would not have wanted to live when everything was hard as stone!"

ART
Caleb worked on a group mural at his art class at Greenwood.

He also had his first lesson playing the recorder.  We worked together out of a Beginning Recorder book and the first lesson was on correct fingering and an introduction to the note B.

P.E.
Caleb started swimming lessons at the Camas Center for Community Wellness in Usk.  It is a beautiful facility with several pools, a gymnasium, rock climbing wall, and more.  He enjoyed his swimming lesson and afterwards he practiced using his snorkel and we also played basketball in the gymnasium.

Week 3

MATH
Caleb started in his math workbook this week.  The first lesson is about place value and reading 3-digit numbers.  He uses manipulatives (math blocks) along with his workbook.  He did really good and enjoyed exercises on "decimal street," where I write a number and he builds it, then says it.

 
 

LANGUAGE ARTS
We have been reviewing a few letters each week.  Caleb writes them alone, in upper and lowercase, and then in words or sentences.  We learn a tongue-twister or rhyme for each letter, that helps him remember the sound it makes.  He draws a picture that also reinforces the sound.  The book he does these exercises in is called his Main Lesson Book (MLB).  He also wrote sentences to go along with pictures of our recent trip to the ocean.  We put them together to make a book.  This week worked on reading 2 books aloud from the Real Kids Readers collection.

Here is a picture of a page in his MLB for the letter H.  The sentence is hard to read, but says "Tree houses high in a tree":

He did better writing sentences for his ocean book, as he remembered to properly space the words.  Here's a few pages:

 

SCIENCE
We're finishing up an Ocean Unit that involved reading and learning about the ocean habitat, ocean food webs, and other ocean facts.  Caleb has done some different worksheets and things that he is putting together into one big book.  He will continue to work on it and hopefully be done next week, and I will post pictures then.  This month, he has taken nature hikes several times a week where he can study and observe nature.  Last week he was introduced to the difference between deciduous and evergreen trees, and glued samples into his science MLB.  He has continued to observe our local trees, collect nature samples and witness the changing of the seasons.

 

 SOCIAL STUDIES

Last week we finished reading "A Street Through Time" which does a beautiful job illustrating changes throughout history, starting with the stone ages.  We didn't introduce new material in SS this week, but have started another book and will continue to read about the earliest people and the stone ages.

ART
He did a variety of painting and colored pencil drawings this week.  Here is a watercolor/sand absorbtion painting he did at Greenwood:

P.E.
On Mondays, our friend Janelle takes Caleb and other kids to the park to exercise and play outdoor games.  This week they played a ball game.  At Greenwood, Caleb helped build and participate in obstacle courses that involved slides, trampolines, and balance beams.