Saturday School Show and Tell

We had a busy week. Let's see...

Monday was President's Day and we celebrated by kicking off our week with a unit study on Presidents.. mostly Lincoln. Oh and very exciting.. I left a comment on some of our activities on the Lesson Pathways Blog and I won a free President's Flash Cards Set!!! WOO HOO!!!! I guess I can't say they never gave me anything. Thanks Lesson Pathways. You guys ROCK!!!! 

In Science we began a unit study on Rocks and Minerals. I got this unit study from School Express. I, of course, got some great books from the library to go along with it. I will probably go into more detail on that next week. I normally don't do so many unit studies but with family in town, I am trying to keep things easy. 

In Math we continued adding tens and ones. I have to say it was a struggle this week. Skittle's worksheets are starting to have more problems on them. He is not used to having to do a page full of problems. He had little to no motivation and only got done before the timer went off once. Next week I am going to be giving a new math program a test drive. I will let you know how it works out for us. 

For Literature, Skittles began reading Frog and Toad stories. They are so much fun. I LOVED them as a child and now he does too! When I started the year I was reading from a novel everyday. The boys liked Peter Pan but after that they lost interest in the books I was reading. I do voices and get pretty animated so I couldn't figure out why they were getting bored. I had been getting my reading lists from Simply Charlotte Mason. Since they were getting bored I decided to switch gears until they are a little older. I do not want to get too hung up on what great literature that are exposed to and make them dislike it. I have been choosing lighter reading and having him read to me. He really likes it. Next year, I will be using Lesson Pathways for my Literature selections. They have lots of ideas to make the books fun. Our Poem this week was My Treasures. 

Twizzler worked on the letter L this week. It was especially difficult because he has a speech delay and has a hard time making the "L" sound. I have been working with him on this sound using Mommy Speech Therapy. We read the Tawny Scrawny Lion a few times this week and I noticed he makes a good "l" sound when he says "elephant". So when we read the book I had him say el-lion,  el-look, and el-little. It was a great opportunity to work on his speech. This week on his letter L, he made a lion, lollipops, leaves, and googly eyes for look. 

We also worked on the numbers 0-5. He is starting to grasp math concepts. He did some work counting things up and matching them to a number. I am so proud of him. He is starting to understand that letters and number have meaning. For the past several days he has said a word and then said, "Hey that starts with the letter, B." or P or what have you. It is so rewarding when they finally start to grasp the concept you have been laying before them. 

We also took some fun field trips this week. We went to a free race car museum in the mall by our house and looked at the engines and structure of the race cars. We also got to see some of the history of racing. On Thursday we watched the final launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery.

We even had time for a really great nature walk. The trees around here are all budding and seeds are blowing all around us. We found several kinds of seeds and looked them up in our field guide. Their favorite was the Red Maple because when they fall they spin like a helicopter.

Oh the final thing thatTwizzler learned this week... drum roll please.... dum da da dum... He can now swim!!! Yup, it was warm enough to go swimming this week and my little guy mustered up the courage to try it out on his own, sans swim fins. He is so proud of himself and that is what it is really all about.