Mighty Mind

When Olivia was about 2yrs old we received a Mighty Mind set. She would spend a good hour manuvering the pieces to fit into the spaces on the card.  I loved the logic that she had to use to figure out how to make the picture.

Today, we unpacked Mighty Mind and Lucy greatly enjoyed it.  (I should say that we have Mighty Mind as well as a similar set)  She did a fantastic job looking at what shape should be put down next.   I also found that Lucy knows nearly all of her shapes.  :)

And they are also great to use to build a fence and a playground.  Love Olivia's imagination!



Beginning Writing

Olivia is starting to show a greater interest in writing.  It rather exciting to see my 4 1/2 year old try to sound out words and write them.  Here is an example from this morning.  Olivia was organizing some cutouts I made (to use with telling stories) into different bags.  I didn't ask her to do this task, but she took it upon herself to put them into various gallon sized bags and write what each was.  One bag says pelpl (people) and the other Indinins (Indians).

I just ordered All About Spelling and looking forward to trying it out.  I think Olivia is at a perfect spot to begin this!

Cleaning Pennies for President's Day

For the past few years Olivia has had a little obsession with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  Such odd things for a little girl, but it was sparked with our trip to Mount Rushmore.

She was very excited when I told her it was President's Day and naturally she insisted that we decorate the house.  Not typically a holiday that I decorate for but I did have two cutouts of  Washington and Lincoln that the girls gladly hung on our livingroom wall for the day.  (The same cutouts that my two girls went and kissed goodnight before naps! And later insisted that we sing Happy Birthday to them!)

We read several books about Washington and Lincoln and decided to look at their portraits on our coins.  While examining the coins, Olivia notices how some of the pennies were tarnished and others were bright.  We then decided to do an experiment to see how we could remove the tarnish off the older coins.

Getting the pennies ready for our experiment.  

First mixture was 1/2 c vinegar with 2 tsp salt.  

Second we tried lemon juice and third a foil lined bowl with dishwasher detergent.

It was fun to see how the different 'chemicals' reacted with the copper.  We found that the vinegar and salt actually did the best job at removing the tarnish.  The pennies did not look brand new, but it did remove many years from them.  

Dinosaur Outing

Last week we visited a tiny paleontology museum on a university campus.  It was the perfect size for my little children who don't have a huge attention span.

Posing in front of the dinosaur mural.  Love that Olivia is literally posing and yes she dressed herself that day!

I was particularly amazed by the triceratops 9 foot long skull that was on display.  I had always imagined triceratops to be smaller for some reason.  This picture does not do the size justice!  The brow horns would have been 3 feet long!  (See the description below)

To try to bring in the learning that we've been doing at home I made sure to ask Olivia questions like: "Do you think that dinosaurs are vertebrates or invertebrates?"  "And are dinosaurs mammals, reptiles, or amphibians?" "How about the flying dinosaurs, were they reptiles too or birds?"  She did very well at answering and as a little confused by the flying dinosaur but naturally any 4 year old would be.  

Reading

I truly hate admitting this but I am struggling find time to read to my children. We do many different educational activities throughout the day but by the days end I realize that we didn't sit down to read (guided or read alouds). 


Coming from someone who loves to read, this is horrible for me! 


I certainly get some reading in like we read the scriptures as a family every night and I read to the girls from the children's scripture reader during the day, I read poetry to Olivia at bedtime, we listen to an audiobook at least once a day, and Olivia does get reading instruction on Rusty & Rosy (which by the way she is reading!!).


But I feel that I need to have a time where I sit down and do a formal read aloud and guided reading with them.


I asked for some advice from friends to find out how they do it with their children and one said that she reads to them during breakfast and lunch.  This then sparked a memory of a blog post that I read once years ago when Olivia was a baby about how that mom read to her children over breakfast.  Something that I am going to try and hopefully my energetic girls respond well to.


Let me ask you, how do you fit in educational activities, house cleaning and all our other demands as parents and still find time to read with your children? 

My children's current obsession--listening to Magic Tree House!

Draw Write Now

This past week I received a much anticipated order in the mail.  I heard some good things about the Draw Write Now series (found new on eBay for $5) and thought it would be fun to change up Olivia's writing time.  Up to this point she writes out a page of 4 letters and 2 numbers a day.  I can tell that she is starting to get bored with it.  Practice with handwriting is important but I want her to also enjoy it.

Olivia was beyond excited to learn to draw a chicken today.  Okay, so you might be asking why drawing with a writing curriculum.  The thought is that as they draw, their fine motor skills will improve thus improving the letter formation.  There is a section for the child to write out with each drawing which in itself is great practice.

A view of Olivia's (age 4.5) first day at Draw Write Now.  

Easy examples of drawing which helps build fine motor skills. 

Sentences to write out with each drawing.  

I didn't want to order paper for this program so I found a great website with various writing papers that I could print from home.  They had a PERFECT one with a drawing space on top and four lines on the bottom for writing.

After we wrote the sentences, drew the hen and colored, Olivia immediately asked to do the next lesson.  I'm glad she is so excited about this writing program!

School: Week 4

February 6 to February 10

This week I think I got a better daily schedule down.  Schedules, I believe has been difficult; trying to figure out how to fit everything in that I want to teach (I could probably take up the ENTIRE day if Olivia permitted me to), giving my girls plenty of free time to play and explore, clean house and still find time for myself.

My daily outline is as follows:

Breakfast:  listen to primary music and do our morning message.  If I forget to do the morning message, I'm sure to hear about it from the 2 year old!

Schedules:  After breakfast is when we get cleaned up for the day, girls showered, beds made, curtains opened up etc.  I want them to build good life habits and this is the time to do it while they are still young.

Gospel study:  We read the scriptures, draw pictures or watch a video related to the story that we are learning about that week.  We've been staying on the same story all week.  For some thing might drive them crazy to repeat the same story, but I want to make sure that my girls know the stories before we move on.  Funny thing is that I've found that as I'm doing this, I frequently will find them acting the stories out.

Writing and Math:  I turn on an audiobook, we've been listening to The Magic Tree House books, and the girls write for 15 minutes or so then followed with a few math problems.  Olivia does 15 minutes of math instruction with Rusty and Rosy (Upstart) so I use this time to see where she is needing some extra help.

Spanish:  This past week I came across a new Spanish Instruction show that my girls have fondly named Spanish TV.  We watched the 1st episode multiple times this week.

Reading:  This is more or less spread through out the day where we do independent reading, guided reading and read alouds.

After lunch Lucy heads down for a nap and Olivia does her more formal studies with Upstart.

We're not doing 'school' all morning, but this has given me a guide to follow that has been working well.

In the afternoon I try to sneak in some memorization which has happened to work out great while Olivia is dancing around the kitchen.   A few days ago I told her that we needed to do some memorization and she headed right to the kitchen and started to dance.  Perhaps the movement helps her remember what she is memorizing.

I also sneak in piano practice and try to play an educational game with them while making dinner.

School: Week 3

January 30 to February 3

School went very well this week.  We kept on schedule and covered many things; although at times I feel like I am repeating myself everyday.  I don't want to move on from some things until they fully understood and other things like handwriting are repetitive in nature.

Writing:  Since we are still working on the same things, I thought I would show what I am doing.  With the Rusty and Rosy Learn with Me I have access to tons of worksheets.  I printed off all of the letter practice sheets and slipped them into page protectors.  Can I tell you how much I love page protectors and dry erase markers!!  This allows Olivia to practice her letters and numbers several times and I don't have to throw away the paper.  She does about 4 uppercase, 4 lowercase letters, 2 numbers and a few random sheets with her first name, last name, birthdate and my phone number each day.

Olivia writing in the letter practice book that I printed for her.  I have noticed a huge different in her handwriting since her started back in September!

Lucia naturally wants to sit down and do writing just like her big sister.

I have Lucy sit on my lap and I write on each letter while I am saying the letter.  She knows all of her letters and starting to work on the letter sounds.  Here she is trying to trace each letter.  She actually has good fine motor skills!

I also trace over her name several times while spelling it out.  She recognizes her name and gets very excited when she sees it in print.

Math:  We are still doing the website xtramath.org and seeing an improvement daily.  I made up some dry erase worksheets for her to do some basic math skills.  This week we started with the 3's which is proving to be a little harder than the previous numbers.  But she is understanding it and doing very well!

Social Studies:  Since we live in a very rural area, we usually drive through at least one if not 5 other small cities before we reach our destination.  Olivia loves to call out what city we currently in.  My problem has been that she refers to them as countries rather than cities.  So to help her tell the difference we made up this little project that I found on pintrest.

We talk about the earth which is very large and our continent is a smaller part of that earth.  From there we talk about how our country is a smaller part of the continent and so on until we are to our house.  Olivia really enjoyed putting this together.

This also opened up the discussion of continents.  I found some printable flashcards online to help her visualize this.  Since Olivia has been to 4 countries in her short 4 years, it was fun to point out where those countries would be on the continents.

School: Week 2

January 23 to 27-

This was a harder school week since Ed was off work all week.  I did manage to sneak some educational things when we weren't busy doing things as a family.  Olivia also was tested for the ELP or gifted program for the local school district.  We won't find out if she has been accepted in the program until May!  It's killing me not being able to plan!  The school that I have chosen has all day Kindergarten (5 days a week) and is a Spanish Immersion class.  This is my first choice mainly because of the gifted part of it.  I have been afraid that Olivia will be bored in a typical Kindergarten setting.

Memorization: Olivia has pretty much mastered the first 3 Articles of Faith.  I am thoroughly impressed with her memorization skills.

We stopped at our local library (can I say here that I can't wait to have access to a fabulous library again after our move!) and picked up some easy readers for Olivia to do guided reading each day.  This is certainly helping her improve her reading skills.

Field Trip:  After Olivia's test for the gifted program and looking at student family housing on the university's campus we stopped at the Church History Museum and spent some time in the children's section.  The girls had a blast!

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.

Education

Many of you know that I have STRONGLY planned on homeschooling my children.  I've been researching curriculum for the past 10 years, mind you that Olivia is only 4 1/2.  I have been doing various activities with my girls for sometime to introduce them to wonderful world around us.

Olivia has been participating in a wonderful computer-based preschool called "Rusty & Rosy Learn with Me."  The best part is that we get to use it free since our state is participating in the program.  I am thoroughly impressed at the achievements that Olivia has made!  She is on level 2 of the program which is the beginning of 1st grade work.  She especially loves the science sections and will tell you all about the vertebrates around us.  Yes, she will use the word vertebrate!

Since we have many changes heading our way this summer, I've wondered if I should pursue my homeschooling plans.  After our trip I started to look into charter schools and found one that I really liked, but I still felt very uneasy about it.  After a trip to the temple I felt that I needed to put Olivia into a Spanish Immersion program.  I am happy about this for a few reasons.  First, if she succeeds she will be able to converse with her Abuelos.  Second, Spanish immersion is only part of the gifted program at this particular school district so they should give her a few more challenging things.  I do worry that she will be bored in school since she is already ahead.

After a parent meeting at the school district, Olivia is signed up to take the "gifted" test on Tuesday.  I am extremely nervous!  Not that she will do poorly but that I will be let down if she doesn't get into the program.  They said that they have some 300 children test for the 30 slots offered.  I won't find out until the end of April if she was accepted.  If not, hopefully one of the charter schools will pull through and if that doesn't work then I will homeschool her for Kindergarten.

In the meantime I will continue to work with Olivia and Lucy in hopes to provide them a great education.  To help me keep track of what we do, also to make it that I can search in the future of things we did, I plan on posting our progress here.  This is mostly for me, but who knows perhaps someone will find something inspiring.       

Smarty Pants Take 2 or how I teach

After my post about what Livy has learned before turning 2, I was asked by a parent how I teach her.

I have divided the alphabet, colors, shapes and numbers into different months and put various flashcards and books into Ziploc bags. I want to continue to review what we have already learned and add to it. I have one bag for each month and plan on focusing on one letter for a two week time period. Some months will have 3 letters, but should still work out fine. We do one color, shape and number a month since they are less than letters. (We are working to number 10 for now.)

I don't sit and drill Livy with these things. The bag is perfect to take in the car when we are driving an hour to grandma's (naturally I'm not driving when I do this) or while I'm making dinner Livy likes to look at the pictures and in a way play school with me. She'll ask what certain things are. I think it is important for her to drill me and remember the pictures and letters that I tell her as it is for me to ask her what the objects are.

Now details for the bag contents. These are all things I have had around the house with the exception to the sandpaper letters that I purchased at a local educational supply store.

Each month I have flashcards for a color (one color card shows the sign), shape and number.

Letters. The black and white cards are sandpaper letters. Livy likes to trace her finger around each letter since it is textured. I read in a Montessori book that this was good to form pre-writing skills plus another way for the child to learn the letter. We each have a way of learning whether it is visual, audio, etc. We like to review the sign for each letter as we learn them. Signing time is great for learning this. They have an ABC video which is perfect! It is another way for Livy to learn her letters.

For each letter I have various flashcards, mainly animals since that is what I had on hand, that show the letters. I ask Livy, "What is this?" And she will respond with the correct animal. Great way to boost vocabulary. Naturally she knows what these animals are, but I will point out the letter to her. "You're right, this is a Bird. Look here is the letter B. What sound does the B make?" Sometimes I will point out the other letters to her. To my surprise a few days ago, I was showing Livy the cat flashcard. (We're currently working on our C's.) I covered all the letters and showed her the C and asked her what is that. Her reply, C. I uncovered the A and since she well knows her A asked her what that was and she replied A. Before I could uncover the T she shouted T. She knew what came next!

For fun, I recently added some animal flashcards we picked up at the zoo. I like to ask her what the animals are. She doesn't know all of them, but it is fun for her to look at the pictures and learn new words for animals. We have advanced past calling every primate a monkey. Now they are monkeys and orangutans.

I purchased these toddler friendly magazines off of eBay while I was doing daycare years before I had Livy. I put these into the bag as well for another fun way to build vocabulary, learn about new animals and to look for letters, colors and shapes.

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We look for letters on signs, shapes around the house and colors. It surprises me how much Livy has grasped!

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Another great resource are the videos from Preschool Prep Company. Meet the Letters, Meet the Numbers, Meet the Colors and Meet the Shapes. We haven't purchased Meet the Sight Words yet. Before Livy can watch any other shows she can choose from one of her educational videos. So she can choose from Signing Time, any of the Meet the videos, or a few others. I like to point out the letters or shapes that we are talking about while we are watching. Just another way for her learn. It is actually surprising how much she has gotten from these videos alone!

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Livy loves the website Starfall. We mainly stick in the alphabet section. If you are not familiar with Starfall, you click on a letter and it will introduce it to you. After that the only words or noise I should say that it will say is the sound that letter makes. I have other friends who have used this site and found their kids love it and are learning the letter sounds.

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I have also started a homeschool preschool curriculum with Livy from Sonlight. It is a very basic curriculum for her, we are doing the pre-preschool but we are enjoying it. Filled with fun books and activities we can do after reading. Basic things like building blocks, baking cookies or building a tent under the table. It is another way to make learning fun and we get to talk about the story afterwards.

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For our family, education is more than just learning your letters and such. We also have some religious activities. We read and look at the pictures in the Book of Mormon reader, talk about the stories in the Bible with various books, we have Family Home Evening every Monday where we get to talk about different things. We have been using the new nursery manual for this. Livy has been fascinated with temples after we took her to the Draper Temple Open House. She also loves to look at any picture that has Jesus in it.

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Do you have any fun activities you do with your children to teach them the basics like their letters, numbers, colors and shapes?