Sonlight Core A - Week 24 Day 5

Since there are no extra activities provided for the Under the Sea book assigned to be read on day 5, if possible, I come up with an arts and craft for the boys to do (related to whatever they are learning).  Today, we read about jellyfish (and flatfish but I couldn't find anything to do for that) so we made some jellyfish.

Ditto is always looking to see how brother does things (although, at least this time he chose a different color)

I love the his face when he is concentrating!

 

Munchkin refused to smile in the picture because he said jellyfish don't smile...such my serious child.

Update 6/1/2013: They are still playing with these everyday. They love to run around and make the legs wave behind them.  Fun project!

Sonlight Core A - Week 24 Day 4

Science: 

Munchkin is always so sweet about letting Ditto help with his science work.

All of the projects are ready to be observed (the cucumber has actually already started expressing water).

Sonlight K - Week 19 Day 1

Read-Aloud: In celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, we read Abraham Lincoln. It is a very long book and I thought it was quite "deep" but it was enjoyed by Munchkin and Ditto (he sat through the last half of the book).  Munchkin even asked me to read it again immediately after finishing it!

We also finished up reading No Children, No Pets. It seemed a rough going in the beginning but in the end, I think, Munchkin enjoyed it.

Tomorrow we will start reading our new book - A Grain of Rice.

For pure enjoyment, we are also reading The Wizard of Oz and Winnie the Pooh again (both of which we will watch the original movies for when we are done reading the books).

Math: We didn't get to it today. Tomorrow we will try to complete Lesson 77 and 78 to catch-up.

Spelling: We continued working on vowel-consonant-silent E words.  He did very well on his test. Out of six phrases, he only spelled the word "truck" incorrectly (truk). And out of six sentences, he spelled "pole" incorrectly (pul).

Science: The focus was on trees and leaves in our Children's Encyclopedia. To expand on our learning and understanding of trees, Munchkin did a Parts of a Tree worksheet and some Montessori types of trees three-part cards (Oak, Laurel, Maple, etc.).  Ditto helped with the matching of the "just picture" part of the three-part cards. For the leaf section of our reading, we did these fall leaf matching cards. To finish off, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf. This is great book to go with this topic.  We did a Munchkin found counting the rings of a tree to learn its age the most fascinating part if this lesson. 

Language Arts: Munchkin continued practicing his reading. His flow and intonation when reading are coming along quite well.

Sonlight K - Week 10

This week was pretty fun but we had to work some this weekend because a lot of things came up this week (doctor and dentist appointments, surprise trip to Disneyland, fun time with Grandma).  Here are the highlights from our week:

Language:
Munchkin worked on sentence length.  

Here he changed a short sentence (Sam ran.) into a longer sentence (Sam ran fast at the race!)

We discussed how adding descriptive terms to sentences help the reader envision the story better.  After lengthening some sentences and shortening others, Munchkin decided that when he grows up he wants to be a Dad, Author, Illustrator, Knight.  Very cute!

I also gave him a group of words and asked him to sort them into like categories. I thought I might need to help him through this one but he did it all by himself.  I was very impressed!

left to right: body parts, food, animals, men, etc.

History:
We discussed the first explorers and I Munchkin worked on this worksheet while I read.

Munchkin loved this and asked if he could have more of these!

We also discussed how explorers navigated using homemade compasses.  In order to see what it was like, we made our own homemade compass.

we confirmed our experiment by comparing our findings to my husband's phone

Meanwhile, I took this picture of what Ditto worked on one day while Munchkin and I were having school.  I thought it was so cool that he was making such a cute effort to write letters.

Because of this, and after discussing it with a very eager Ditto, I've decided to start Letter of the Week (based on books) activities this Monday.  We're all excited!

Math:
We continued to work on our double facts as well as adding one number facts and adding zero number facts.  Munchkin understands all of these concepts perfectly.

On Friday, he tried to figure out how many different ways he could make the same shape with a different pattern?  This was just the perfect amount of challenge. 

Art:
We finally finished up our Preview Lesson of Meet the Masters.  Dad worked with Munchkin on making his portfolio.   

not part of the preview- a quick lesson on color mixing

On the front is a palette with all of the artists we will be studying this year (including Munchkin's name) and he decided he wanted to paint this picture on the back (a knight on a horse with a knife and a castle in the distance)

Science:
This week we learned about "living things" and cells...
To help cement the information in Munchkin's brain, we made edible cells...

animal cell

plant cell

And watched Magic School Bus Goes Cellular. Not the best video but the boys enjoyed it.

Another day we discussed the "animal world".  I decided to take a different route with this and first discuss vertebrate vs. invertebrate.  We did the activity below to make sure he understood the difference...

Then we watched this video...twice. Great video!

Sonlight K - Week 9

This week we started having chores for both of the boys.  Munchkin has had a chore for a while now (clearing the silverware out of the dishwasher) but this weekend, it was decided that Ditto would also begin to help around the house.

So now, Ditto clears the silverware...

and Munchkin wipes off the guest bathroom counter daily and sweeps the front walkway regularly.  Since we have been discussing "service" this week in our family scripture study, this was a great way to put it into action - serving our families.

Math
Among other things, we used linking cubes to measure the length and width of our office desk...

 Munchkin enjoyed this so much that he wanted to measure our kitchen table...

 We ran out of linking cubes (we only have 100)...

...but we just determined that our table was more than 100 linking cubes long and 56 linking cubes wide.

Although I feel pretty confident in Munchkin having learned his double facts (1+1, 2+2, etc.) I wanted to do one more "fun" activity to cement his understanding and confirm my confidence.  So, this week I read Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong.  The boys LOVED this book! They requested I re-read it multiple times (at lunch, before naps, at dinner). To make it an active reading, I had Ditto count the pictures and I had Munchkin figure out the doubles.  We also read Double the Ducks by Stuart J. Murphy. I had the boys do the same thing (Ditto - count, Munchkin - double) and then Munchkin completed a few pages from this Double the Ducks Activity Pack.

We also continued working on graphing and graphed a handful of a pattern blocks a few times...

Science
We have been discussing a great deal about our planet this week. To enhance the reading assigned by Sonlight, we read some very enjoyable books.

On Monday, after reading about the destruction of the rainforest, we read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. After reading about pollution we read The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute Anymore. And after we read about the extinction of animals, we read The Hunter and the Animals by Tomie dePaola.  Munchkin really enjoyed each of these books and even though it was a lot of reading it provided a great opportunity for further discussion and understanding of each of these subjects. 

On Tuesday, after reading about global warming (Sonlight assignment), we made these fun earth crafts.

the original idea came from To The Lesson

Munchkin's

Ditto's

They really enjoyed these and worked on them for a very long time.  

On Wednesday, we read about ways we can help our planet and afterward we made a bird-feeder.  

Language
This week, I decided to start Munchkin on writing in a journal. I want him to develop a real love for writing and even though he practices his handwriting daily, I feel free-writing in a journal will allow him to practice without even knowing it.

 After his reading work, we worked on defining the word cab...

...this process really cemented the meaning in his mind (we have read more stories with this word in it as the week went on and he still remembers).

Spelling.
Munchkin has been doing extremely well in spelling. He hasn't misspelled any words yet (granted he is still spelling phonetically spelled words and sometimes writes his letters incorrectly) but this week he advanced to my dictating phrases to him and him spelling them...

...he did well (this provides a great opportunity to work on handwriting and word spacing).

That sums it up for our week!

Sonlight K - Week 5 Day 2

We had a great school day today!  Among many other things, we went continued our journey through Sweden and learned more about the Vikings.  Today we learned about the clothes the Vikings wore.  Munchkin worked hard going around the house to collect what things he could to make himself a Viking costume...

Munchkin has all the necessary supplies: sword, axe, belt with buckle, wraps around legs, "pretend leather shoes", and cape. And a mean face (even though "he is a happy and nice Viking").

For our Saxon Math lesson today, I used some of our Montessori materials to help Munchkin gain a more thorough understanding of some math concepts.

We used the Short Bead Stair to begin to recognize quantities using colors (this will come in handy in future, more difficult math presentations)

Then he wanted to complete a worksheet to show off his skills (within two presentations he had memorized all of the colors and their corresponding quantities without looking)

Afterwards, we worked on a non-mathematics related activity (even though this is in his Saxon Math 1 Meeting Book)...

Here he is drawing a picture of a Fall tree (from memory)

His completed page. He decided to write a sentence about what a Fall tree means to him - "The Leevs chanj culer (the leaves change color).

Then we did a little bit of seasonal picture math (addition and subtraction) using leaf table scatter I bought at Target last year.

He loved it and was very good at it!

I also did a mirrored example on our whiteboard.

Sonlight K - Week 5 Day 1

As requested by Munchkin, we began our day with History.  Today he received an introduction to the Vikings. After our reading he came up with a Viking costume...

We worked on math, reading, and developmental workbook.  That was about it for today because I wanted to focus on Ditto's school...so we spent the rest of the day doing some Mother Goose Curriculum...