Well we finally made it home from a super long tiring vacation in the Smoky Mountains and then a big weekend ( all my girls and I were in my sister's wedding!) I sat down to prepare school, opened my manual to the apple unit and said "no way!" It seemed like too much to prepare after such a busy two weeks, so I decided to go with turtles instead. Hopefully we make it to apple next week. It was fitting though, because we just recently visited two zoos and an aquarium all of which had turtles to observe.
Our words to remember this week were "I don't quit, I persevere." Of course we read the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. We talked about what it means to persevere in general. Then we talked about how many Christians walk away from the Lord when trials and persecution come, but it's those who persevere until the end that receive eternal life. Boo made some finger puppets to act out the story too.
For our tactile letter activity I gathered up a pile of random items from around the house and I let Boo practice making capital and lower case letter T's out of it.
Boo also pointed out that she thinks capital "T" kind of looks like a table which starts with "T." I thought that was pretty smart!
I used these two books to present information and facts about turtles. We learned that there are many different kinds of turtles and that baby turtles hatch from eggs.Land turtles have legs and can hide in their shells. Sea turtles have flippers and can't hide inside of their shells.
For our craft we made these cute little turtles out of stuff we had around the house! I cut the center out of paper plates and we colored them yellow for the underside of the shell. Then we glued head, tail, and legs to the other side. We glued small Styrofoam bowls for the top shell and covered them with pieces of colored tissue paper. We glued our words to remember on the bottom of our turtles. The girls had fun playing with their turtles too.
The most exciting thing for me this unit was that Boo started learning to blend letter sounds to make words. We started using the "blend ladder," where we place a letter before and after a vowel on the ladder.We only used the "a" right now. Since we skipped the "Aa" unit I was a little hesitant to begin blends, but she knew the /a/ sound already so I went ahead. She did great with it. She has always had a hard time remembering her letters and sounds, but she wants to read so bad. She was elated when I told her she was reading her first real words!
We also ran a little race to teach us about perseverance and sin. Instructions for this were right out of our teacher manual for Bible time. I thought it was a great illustration. First the girls took turns running to the slide and back. Then I added a heavy bag. Boo kept going even though she tripped once. The third time I added another heavy bag. It took her a lot longer and was almost walking on the way back because her bags were so heavy, but I was proud that she persevered and finished the race. After the race we talked about how like the heavy bags made it difficult to run, sin weighs us down and makes it hard to finish our race as a Christian. When we repent and get rid of the sin we are free to live for Christ! Then they dropped their heavy bags and the girls ran freely for a few minutes. I think it made the point and it was fun.
The most exciting thing for me this unit was that Boo started learning to blend letter sounds to make words. We started using the "blend ladder," where we place a letter before and after a vowel on the ladder.We only used the "a" right now. Since we skipped the "Aa" unit I was a little hesitant to begin blends, but she knew the /a/ sound already so I went ahead. She did great with it. She has always had a hard time remembering her letters and sounds, but she wants to read so bad. She was elated when I told her she was reading her first real words!We also ran a little race to teach us about perseverance and sin. Instructions for this were right out of our teacher manual for Bible time. I thought it was a great illustration. First the girls took turns running to the slide and back. Then I added a heavy bag. Boo kept going even though she tripped once. The third time I added another heavy bag. It took her a lot longer and was almost walking on the way back because her bags were so heavy, but I was proud that she persevered and finished the race. After the race we talked about how like the heavy bags made it difficult to run, sin weighs us down and makes it hard to finish our race as a Christian. When we repent and get rid of the sin we are free to live for Christ! Then they dropped their heavy bags and the girls ran freely for a few minutes. I think it made the point and it was fun.
SIS HIGHLIGHT
I would say the highlight of Sis' week was learning about sound waves. We tied two paper cups to a very
long string and had to see if we could hear each other through them. I was doubtful, but it actually worked! The sound waves traveled through the string, and with the cup to her ear Sis was able to hear me talking very low from far away!
This past week she also mastered her 5x multiplication facts and started diagramming sentences. We're still reading Felicity and learning about the colonial days. We finished our unit on whales and moved on to pinnipeds. She also completed her first science field trip sheet in her Zoology journal after our visit to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. This was the first of two big aquarium field trips that we have planned for her this school year. We are really enjoying our apologia curriculum and learning all about sea creatures.
This past week she also mastered her 5x multiplication facts and started diagramming sentences. We're still reading Felicity and learning about the colonial days. We finished our unit on whales and moved on to pinnipeds. She also completed her first science field trip sheet in her Zoology journal after our visit to Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg. This was the first of two big aquarium field trips that we have planned for her this school year. We are really enjoying our apologia curriculum and learning all about sea creatures.
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