Yy- Yellow

This week we learned about colors. Our theme was Y is for yellow, but we actually learned about all colors.
One of the first things I did was show Boo some nature pictures. The first set were in black and white, and I asked her how they were different from the real world? Then I showed her the full color pictures. We discussed how boring the world would be without color, and that God could have chosen to make the world without so many colors. We gave thanks for all the beautiful colors that God gave us to enjoy. We looked out the windows at all of the colors, and saw our first robin of the year! Spring is almost here! Our words to remember this week were, "Thank you God, for this beautiful world."

We learned the colors of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) and we made a little rainbow out of construction paper. This was really simple. We just cut strips of paper all the same size. Then we cut a little off of each end making the next color about an inch shorter than the one before it. Then we stapled all of the ends together to form the rainbow shape. Cute and easy!




We read the book "The Crayon Box That Talked." This is a cute story about a box of crayons who don't get along. They don't like each other, until a little girl uses them to make a beautiful picture and they realize that all the colors are needed.

We experimented with colors by mixing paint. We learned what the primary colors are, and how they can  be mixed to form secondary colors. We also learned what happens when you mix black or white to colors.

Now that Boo can recognize and write her numbers 1-10, plus add and subtract a little, we began learning place value. Our number cups and out 100 chart that we worked on all year were suppose to introduce this. However, other than learning to count by tens and what the numbers look like, she didn't really grasp the concept. I've never been impressed by MFW math so we supplement. MathUsee uses what they call decimal street and they do an excellent job of teaching place value while making it easy for kids to understand. So Boo got introduced to decimal street, and we practiced putting all the little number blocks in their right places (or houses on the street.)

We also Had a party at Grandma's house for Saint Patrick's Day. We ate corned beef and cabbage (our yearly tradition.) We also had green punch, green sherbert, and gold chocolates. It was lots of fun for the kids!

Qq- Quail

This week we learned the letter Qq and about Quail. We read the story of the Israelites when they complained about the manna in the desert and God sent quail. We learned that because of their ungrateful hearts and their refusal to listen to God, many of them died. We talked a lot about giving thanks, and how it is the opposite of complaining. We also read several stories about people like Paul and Silas, who gave thanks in the midst of trials rather than grumbling. Boo's words to remember this week were "I don't grumble or complain; I give thanks."

I didn't have any books about quail so we looked at some pictures online. I found some info on this website below. I just summarized and told Boo the bits of info that I thought she would find interesting. 

Quail Info

Since quail are birds. We made a bird feeder out of an empty gallon water jug. We just cut a hole and Boo decorated it with stickers. We'll add a string to hang it by too. Simple huh? There's still snow on the ground so we'll wait a couple more weeks before we buy bird seed and try it out.


We also used our bird book to look at the names of different kinds of birds (this book is also used in 2nd grade Adventures and is sold on the MFW website.) We didn't read the whole book. Just looked at the names and pictures of the birds.

We read the peom "All Things Bright and Beautiful" by Cecil Francis Alexander. I've always loved this poem and it brought back memories because we sang the song in choir in high school. I was excited to share it with my girls. After reading the poem 2 days in a row Boo drew an illustration to go along with it. We also watched this Youtube video so that the girls could hear the poetry put to music and learn the song.

I introduced Boo to simple subtraction this week. So far she's only had a light intro to addition and been working through her Math U See Primer. She's been doing pretty well with it, which is a huge difference from the first half of the year when she was struggling to even recognize numbers 1-10!

Sis Highlight:

Sis is only about 3 weeks from finishing up her 3rd grade math and 4th grade spelling!! It always feel so good to finish up some subjects for the year so that our school days are shorter and we can concentrate more on other things. We're a little bit behind schedule in science, so I have a feeling once we finish up with a few of the other things we will be fitting in some extra long science lessons and more experiments. One of the cool things we did this week was make an Indian tepee! We are still learning about pioneers and the 1850's. We read Kirsten learns a lesson about when Kirsten meets an Indian girl. She gets to visit the tribe and even go inside of a real tepee. We learned a little about Indians and then Sis build a t-pee. It was a slow project that took 3 days of letting wood glue dry and putting it all together but Sis really enjoyed this one.

The finished product!

Vv- Vegetables

This week we learned about vegetables! The first thing we did was take a trip to the store. I let Boo help me pick out veggies for the week. We normally eat a lot of cooked vegetables especially with our dinner so that was nothing new for us. However, baby Bear is the only one of my girls who will eat raw veggies other than salad. Boo promised to try at least one bite of each raw veggie with dip. She picked carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper, lettuce and celery. She actually liked them all. For our tactile letter activity Boo just made "V's" out of her carrot sticks.

Our words to remember were "God gives me all that I need." We learned that God is the one who created plants. He gave them to us as food to eat. He also gave us the sun and rain to grow the plants. God is a good father and he gives us everything that we need.

We talked about the parts of a plant and labeled one.

We tried to keep school short and sweet this week. We didn't do many extra's or any crafts. At this point in the school year everyone starts to get a little antsy for spring and they start not wanting to do school. Keeping them motivated is challenging. I try to have a light week every now and then to avoid burn out. That just happened to be this week, we had a 3 day school week. The other two days we had a movie day at the start of the week and a shopping day on Friday.

 Boo is doing great with her new math curriculum and is moving through it faster than I expected. She's doing well with learning to read too. She's also excited to be almost done with the alphabet and MFW K!

We did read a few stories. We read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, a chapter from Frog and Toad Together called "The Garden," and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. We had a measuring activity that went along with Peter Rabbit to practice using a ruler.

                        Sis Highlight:
Sis and I started reading her Kirsten American Girl books and learning about pioneers for history. We just love these historical series and want to own all of them! There are 6 books per series and they each have a learning section in the back full of facts about the time period. Plus each boxed set comes with a board game. So far they have all been really good stories. Each day after all her other work is done we usually cuddle up on the couch while Baby Bear naps and read these together . Sis says it's the most favorite part of her day. (It's mine too, I enjoy reading them them as much as she does!) I'm excited to be starting the pioneer days though because we have some neat projects planned that I'm hoping to be able to fit in the remainder of the year.