Monday, January 23, 2012

School: Week 1

This will be first of many post about our school activities.  This is mainly for my records but perhaps someone will find something useful.  Most of these subjects are for Olivia (age 4.5) and not for Lucy (age  26 months).  Most if not all of these subjects are covered on a daily basis and with the exception of Upstart take very little of our day.  We do not sit down and cover everything at one time but rather do a little throughout the day.

January 14 to January 20 2012:

Great school week!

Morning Messages:  Started this week. Lucia LOVES seeing her name and recognizes it.  She even got upset one morning that I didn't have a part that said anything that dad was doing.

Book of Mormon Stories:  Olivia covered the first 4 chapters and knows the story of the Brass Plates very well.  She colored a great picture and repeatedly asks to watch the movie about the Brass Plates.

Math:  Found a great FREE website where it is quizzing Olivia on her math skills.  Even though she only uses it for 5 minutes a day, the progress report shows that she is making some improvement.  We have also been sitting down with craft sticks and using them to make addition problems.

Handwriting:  Olivia writes daily for about 15 minutes in a book that I made.  I printed off writing sheets with the basic alphabet and having her go over each page protected sheet with a dry erase marker.  I have her write her first and last name, birth date, my phone number, and a few sheets of letters and numbers.  Her handwriting has dramatically improved over the past few weeks!  I have also started to play a child's audio book during this time.  This week we listened to "Rapunzel and Other Classics of Childhood."

Spanish:  Watched episode 3 of Salsa each day.

Independent Reading:  This is a totally new concept for both girls.  I ask them to DEAR: Drop Everything and Read for a short period of time.  I honestly only expect Lucy to look at books for 5 minutes and Olivia I am hoping for 15 minutes and increasing in the future.  I want to use this time to make lunch but it is still a foreign concept to them.  I'm typically the one reading to them, not on their own.  This needs some work!

ABC:  This one is only for Lucy.  Daily while Olivia is working on a different subject, Lucy watches "Meet the Letters."  I love these shows!  Lucy knows nearly all of her alphabet upper and lowercase.  She still calls an E a F, but this is great for someone her age.

Rusty & Rosy/Upstart:  40 to 50 minutes every day covering reading, math and science.  On Friday while Olivia was at piano lessons I had Lucy do 10 minutes.  I don't figure that she will pick up much but she loves the special attention and getting to do school like sister.

Read Alouds:  We are reading Uncle Wiggily.  Olivia asks for me to read this book and thinks about it through the day.  Earlier in the week she told me that Uncle Wiggily was in the shower with her until I opened the door then he jumped back into the book.

Memorization:  We reviewed our past memorization: 1st Article of Faith, 2nd Article of Faith and my phone number.  She has these pretty well mastered with some prompts to begin. We started on the 3rd Article of Faith.

Piano:  Now that we have a real piano and not just a keyboard, Olivia has really improved with her practicing.  Her teacher said that she noticed a big difference.

Game:  This week the girls really enjoyed playing Mighty Mind.

Field Trip:  This week we went to the Bean Museum which is a Life Science Museum and the girls greatly enjoyed it.  They loved the Reptile show and came home to make a poster of Reptiles.  What makes a reptile and what is a reptile.




1 comment:

  1. I have never heard of Salsa before. I'm going to look into that!

    We have some old Rusty and Rosie videos from my MIL, and I credit both them for helping both my kids learn their letters and sounds.

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