6-18-18

Today we tried doing activities together. We started with a sight word memory game, mostly for A, where I introduced the new words before playing a round of memory. A and/or I helped J read the words when it was her turn. A seemed pretty comfortable trying the new words, it is always inspiring when he is willing to try things that might be a little uncomfortable for him. We also played a letter name/sound game, where both A and J had a set of letters and had to find the letter I described (find the last letter in your name, find the letter that says /j/, find the letter that usually goes with q, etc). This game was mostly for J, but gave A a refresher and helped boost his reading confidence.

Next up we talked about the differences between traveling on the Oregon Trail and taking a car trip over the same distance. Fortunately, our upcoming road trip provided a great frame of reference for the kids on this. The general consensus is that our car trip sounds like a much better way to travel than by ox and cart. Also for social studies we read the next chapter in Little House in the Big Woods, about Pa’s gun. For the first time with this story, J was much more interested than A.

Math time for A today was working with $ and adding and subtracting two digit numbers. This is easy enough for him, unless he feels like it isn’t and then it is a struggle. I want to experiment more with letting him work on his own with space and time to solve the problems and see how it goes. He can do complex math in his head (Mike  wanted to buy a $3 car, a $4 balloon and a $10 doll. He had to borrow $11 from his friend to buy all the things, how much did he have to start with?), but sometimes gets stuck on simple things ($7-$2 = ?) and I can’t figure out where the challenge is for him. While A and I worked on math, J did a colors worksheet.

After we finished all of our ‘must do’ activities, I helped A with our new Codemaster game and J did a puzzle and then helped fold some laundry. The kids played for a while, then we watched Treehouse Detectives with lunch before running some errands. Now A is playing some Sonic and A is watching another detective episode.

6-14-18

Daily Schedule

• Oregon Trail Packing
• Sight Words
• Little House in the Big Woods chapter 2
• Peg the Hen story and online activity

Today’s big activity was deciding what we would pack if we had to head out on the Oregon Trail. A and I, with some help from J, learned about things pioneers might need on the trail and then had to make some decisions about what items we would put in our wagon. Both kids did a pretty good job of ensuring we had the basics without adding too much stuff that would add weight without any meaning. This was a fun math and social studies activity. We also talked about how it might take the pioneers about 3 months to travel to Florida from Vermont and why it only takes us 3 days. It took them a while to realize that the answer is because we have a car!

Today was our last day with our current sight word list before adding some more. A knows all of the words consistently except the (still!) me and us. After we finished the sight words we all headed to the sofa for some more Little House. I think both kids are into the stories, and we certainly have plenty of conversation as we read.

Once we finished the read aloud, A read me Peg the Hen. He is really getting comfortable with the little readers and doesn’t usually complain about them. He knows when he is saying a word that shouldn’t be there (today he said her instead of a and self corrected) without making it into a production, he is using picture clues, and he is willing to sound out words vs just guess. It is exciting to see him become more comfortable with reading and be willing to give it a solid try. After reading the story to me, we played the /e/ games on his tablet as a way of finishing up the /e/ unit.

Today J: Joined us for part of the wagon packing activity, worked on the /s/ sound and writing s, did letter shape puzzles and did Starfall activities on her tablet.

6-7-18

Daily Schedule

• Sight Word Flashcards
• Peg’s Egg story
• Tornado writing
• 1st Grade math workbook choice pages
• Twister Trouble
• Magic Tree House story
• William Wegmann ABCs

Today was our first day with J doing training also, which I will have more to say about later, so A had to be a little flexible and take turns and work on some activities on his own, which mostly went ok. He originally wanted to start with the easy reader Peg’s Egg, since reading isn’t his favorite, but we found it challenging to do while J was doing her work at the table too, so we switched to sight words first. This second set of sight words is taking A much longer to learn than the first set. I think they just aren’t as meaningful for him out of context. Peg’s Egg wasn’t much of a struggle for him at all, but man, the child DOES NOT want to sound out words on his own. At least I know that he can, so we aren’t stressing on it, and focusing on a positive experience instead. He read the story twice in a row without complaining. Yay!

I had plans for us to write a story about tornadoes, but A couldn’t get into the activity. He did come up with his own solution: Make a wordless story like his favorite book Journey. He ended up drawing the cutest story about a man who helps rebuild a house after a fire tornado destroys it. I think he was surprised that I let him do this instead of writing a dictated story.

Next up he got to choose three pages in the “gifted student” math book. He chose adding three digit #s, a skip counting activity, and a page about finding three dimensional shapes. After math we finished our lapbook for tornadoes and the Magic School Bus book before reading three more chapters in Twister on Tuesday and then watching a ABC order video.

Before lunch A and J played a few games together (briefly) and now they are playing LEGOS and tsum tsums together.

Today was also J’s first day of training with us. Since A is working through the summer, she is going to do some activities with us to. Her daily choices (she chooses 4) are take a bath, make her bed, do a puzzle or activity on the floor, do an activity at the table with us, do an art project, and/or play in her room.

Today J:

• Worked at the table with a blue board and counted/filled in missing # between 0-10
• completed a Todd Parr puzzle
• took a bath

made her bed

 

5-18-18

Daily Schedule

• sight words
• Singapore Math division
• multiplication top it
• Magic Treehouse Haunted Castle on All Hallow’s Eve
• Eye Spy Disney card game

Today the kids got their new tablets! We are planning on using A’s as part of villain training, but for right now they are just for fun and exploration. I was impressed that A didn’t ask once to use his tablet instead of doing some of our villain activities, or complain about doing the work to be done faster. In fact after we were done with our planned activities he asked to play an additional game before wanting to use the tablet (and only then because J asked about hers).

We started the morning reviewing sight words, and then I pulled the second set of the words that A seems to be fluent with in preparation of adding a new group of words next week. A seems to be looking forward to the new words, he even asked to see them when he saw me getting them ready.

Next, we finished up our Singapore Math division chapter. We ended up using our bottle tops to help out with a problem, which spawned into its own graphing discovery time before I introduced the game of top it. Top-it is essentially war but you flip over two cards each and add, subtract, multiply or divide to see who has the biggest (or smallest) number and that person gets the cards. A chose multiplication and he was able to use a calculator to find his answers. He already knows how to get his  x10s and x1s but for the rest he used the calculator or we compared cards to decide whose was bigger (9×4 is obviously bigger than 9×2!).

 

After multiplication we finished our Magic Tree House Book. A seemed to really enjoy the book and was even willing to guess what might happen a few times. Once we finished the story, A asked if we could play a game, so A, J and I all played the Disney Eye Spy card game.

Now A is hard at work with his tablet. While he knows he won’t get this much tablet time everyday, he is enjoying having the time to explore all the ‘new’ games and apps.

5-10-18

Daily Schedule

• Sight word flashcards
• Mexican Train dominoes
• Domino runs
• finish Into the Volcano

Today was a pretty light day. A did his flashcard sight words before we played a few rounds of Mexican Train dominoes. Apparently he hasn’t played this version of dominoes before, but he did pretty well, even though I won both times I am pretty sure it was due to his bad luck, not his failure to match the dominoes/plan ahead.

After we played some dominoes, what else was there to do but to build a few domino runs?

 

After dominoes, he and J worked on some fuse beads and then created some story with stamps that they acted out on paper. When they were finished we finished Into the Volcano and started the Magic Tree House story Haunted Castle on Hallow’s Eve. A liked Into the Volcano, though he was definitely more interested in the first part of the story where they head into the volcano than the later parts where the main charachter has to rescue his brother and other aspects of the plot got more complicated. Now they are both watching some RescueBots with no current plans for the afternoon.

5-9-18

Daily Schedule

• Beginning and Ending sounds in Starfall workbook
• Singapore Math multiplication pages
• parts of a volcano worksheet
• MasterMind
• Sight word memory game
• Into the Volcano

Today started off with the work that A didn’t want to do yesterday. I still can’t tell if he is resistant because it is too easy or if he doesn’t know. He did the worksheet pretty quickly with no real challenges, but he is still hesitant to commit to his answer without checking with me first.

Next we did more Singapore math. A really likes the is it true or not type problems, but the basic count how many things in the set and then tell how many sets is super boring for him. We only did a few of the more basic problem, with A much preferring the self selected harder problems.

After that we wrapped up our volcano studies with a cut and paste worksheet. Shockingly A loved this and agreed he would like to do some word building/reading activities that were like this!

While we waited for J to return home we played about 45 minutes of MasterMind, with A being the Master. Upon J’s arrival we played sight word memory. A still knows all the words but the. No idea why it won’t stick in his brain, though I think he is starting to get it, since he told me the wrong word today with a goofy smile on his face.

We wrapped up our morning with some Into the Volcano and some work on a birthday card. Now the kids are playing in their room, with plans for xbox, outside time and karate late.

 

5-7-18

This week we are focusing on beginning multiplication and /e/ cvc words

Daily Schedule

• sight word flashcards, introduce go, like, you
• short e word building
• Singapore math multiplication
• discussion about Kilaueu
• Life

We started the morning out with sight word flashcards for Andy’s choice. He recognized the new words go and you right away and could identify like the second time around. He still doesn’t recognize the though! After that warm up, we built lots of /e/ words that we will use in different activities through the week. A made the note that e wasn’t bossy in any of the words we build, which was a disappointment for him.

Singapore math today was an introduction to how the math program does multiplication, which was fine at the beginning but I get the feeling A thought it was too easy (count 5 sets of 7 and tell how many all together) so he wasn’t really into it until we went into the challenge problems within the challenge book (for example, is 9+9+9+10 more or less than 9×4?. He knew it would be one more instantly, but yet earlier told me he had no idea how many were in three groups of 10…) I am having a hard time figuring out what he knows, since he has no interest in anything that is too easy, but refuses to guess/try if it is something he sees as too hard or boring. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this unit goes.

After math we read this article and watched the video on this page. A has decided he would not like to live on a volcano, but we both found it intriguing that people would willingly live on an active lava field. As a family, we have been following the eruption of Kilauea with much fascination. We added several facts to our KWL chart today, including the fact that Kilauea has been erupting continuously for about 35 years!

A didn’t feel like reading our Into the Volcano story today, so we played a game of Life instead. Currently, he is playing LEGO worlds and later we will likely go for a trail walk at J’s pre-school.

 

5-3-18

Daily Schedule

• Volcano research
• Math Dice Jr.
• Reading/writing work
• story time

Today was a “we got way off topic but still manged to get lots done” day. We started the morning looking at the Into the Volcano book by Donna O’Meara. She talks about her work studying volcanoes and we learned about different types of volcanoes and added a few facts to our KWL chart.

After we added facts to our chart we moved on to our math activity for the day, the game Math Dice Jr. A knew he was going to lose, due to sheer bad luck but he still had a hard time with that fact in the moment, which resulted in break time for him to reset.

Once he felt like he had calmed down, we started on our phonics activities, which for today was working in a Starfall reading/writing workbook. He got extremely agitated when I asked him to read the sentence he finished. Dramatics included whining, crying, yelling, throwing his book in the trash. I explained that I wasn’t going to make him do anything by himself and we could always talk about why he didn’t want to do something. Once he had calmed down he explained that the reading part was boring since he already knew what it said and he wanted to write his own story instead, so we did. We also talked about the activities that I wanted us to get done during today’s villain training and made a deal to do it tomorrow instead. We ended up writing the first two pages of “Battle Aliens”. A dictated the story to me and I wrote it down. At the beginning he started by telling my full phrases and sentences, but as we kept writing he would tell me single words at a time and once or twice told me sound by sound, so clearly we are getting somewhere with reading/writing skills. He also offered to take the pen and write the numbers each time we used one.

After we finished writing, he and J played with castle blocks and we read the next few chapters in our Into the Volcano graphic novel. A played his LEGO game on the xbox for most of the afternoon.

The only photo from the day, looking falsely calm and studious.

5-1-18

So we didn’t do Villain Training yesterday or the previous Friday for a variety of reasons, though A and mama got plenty of activities in, it wasn’t considered an official training day. Today we got back on track though, and today starts the unofficial first day of the 2018-2019 Villain Training year!

Daily Schedule

• Singapore math picture graphs
• introduction of new sight words (into, to, and) and a flashcard review of our current words
• /a/ missing beginning/ending sound words with the blue board
• 2 chapters in Into the Volcano
• KWL chart about volcanoes

I was hesitant how today was going to do, since A started off the morning unwilling to head out and start the day with breakfast, but he rallied and we ended up having a pretty great day.

We started out doing the picture graphs chapter in our Singapore Math workbook. We only did half the problems as A seems to have a pretty good grasp on this and doing all the work seemed unnecessary and overwhelming to me. He breezed through these with no problem with the math concepts, though I think things would be smoother for him if he could read the graphs and questions.

Next I introduced him to the new sight words, it seems like he already recognizes and and to, and was fairly quick to pick up into (into also lead to a brief discussion of compound words, since he thought it was silly). He seems to solidly recognize all of the other sight words in isolation, except for the. Hopefully, he will retain this knowledge when we practice reading sentences and stories.

Word building was no problem today, he has really taken to sounding out words and is able to isolate beginning phonemes with no problem, though he still has a tendency to get a little stuck with ending sounds. I had out about 10 panels to do and he was adamant that he didn’t want to do all of them. He self selected the six hardest to do (I am not sure if it is because they looked the most interesting or because the easier ones were pink)

After word building we tried something new. A got a 10 minute break to play with J and we agreed to meet back at the table when the timer went off. This worked fantastically well, A even beat me to the table. We decided now was a good time to read a few more chapters in our story and have a snack.

After the story I introduced A to KWL charts (know, want to know, learned) and we filled it in with some things we know about volcanoes and some things we want to learn about them. A illustrated our chart, which led to a discussion/drawing of volcano robots that head into volcanic fissures to study inside volcanoes. A has decided he wants to study and learn about volcanoes as an adult and he has a plan for his volcano robot already. Discussions about his robot led to an introduction to rulers, as we compared the size of NASA’s original and second volcaonobots to the anticipated size of his volcano robot. Lots of spontaneous learning and connections being made.

note the volcano robot both in the volcano and on the separate sheet of paper

After A completed his drawings he and J played together for the remainder of the morning, a game that started off as an egg selling stand and morphed into all sorts of things. Lunch was spent watching some tv. I have a feeling the afternoon will be more playing and hopefully some time spent outside.

 

 

4-26-18

Today’s Schedule

• Play MindMaster
• snack and story
• 2 pages in Starfall workbook
• watch The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About: Maps

A quick note that yesterday A had an appointment and so we didn’t do too much villain training. A few word problems and some introduction/practice to a few Dolch words (an, on, the, for, see, is)

Today we started out the morning playing MindMaster for over an hour. This was a big hit for A so long as he could be the master (person to pick the design) not the challenger (the person who figured out the design). He played vs me and J for a few rounds before they both teamed up against me for several rounds. At the end of our time playing he agreed to play challenger, so long as he could play with me so we invited Papa-U over to help J be the master. 

After playing our game, A and I finished the Magic Tree House book we have been reading this week and took a snack break before starting work in his Starfall workbook. This went pretty smoothly, with no resistance. Interestingly, I think his handwriting corresponds to his comfort level with an activity, since he started his work with big, sloppy writing but by the end of the first page he was actually writing pretty neatly. We did read a beginning reader that went along with all of the activities we have been working on, since he offered to read it, though he did not care for my praise when we had finished the story. We have been working on short /a/ words and a few sight words mixed in. He seems to be picking up the reading fairly easily, so hopefully he will build up his confidence.

After reading and math we watched a tv show about maps to wrap up our simple maps unit, and then A watched another episode of the show before J returned from a trip to the library and lunch time.

Now they are playing LEGOs in their room, I heard something about the “evilest world in the world” A has plans to go play a game with the grandparents later as well as play Mindcraft but I suspect LEGOs with J will take up most of his afternoon.