After I set all that up, we went to the library to pick up a copy of the book that I had reserved (ours is in one of 6-7 boxes of books, and I didn't have time to search for it). While we were there, I decided the kids should get library cards. E wanted to sign his own paper...
Each kid was allowed to pick 2 books to check out with their own card.
Then we came home, and E read us the story. Yay reading!
After reading, it was time to do our craft. Even R participated today!
While our caterpillars were drying, we took a break to practice some fine motor skills and do some lacing cards.
After lunch, with R down for a nap, we got down to schoolwork! First up today was handwriting. Today, we got familiar with "Mat Man". They learned to build him and draw him. They worked on listening to step-by-step directions, and using the four shapes that make capital letters - big and small lines and big and small curves.
Next, we worked on lessons 3 & 4 from our math program. We began with a warm-up: Eli read us Yellow is the Sun and we practiced the song.
Today's lessons were on sorting, patterns, and the number 5 (which is a whole hand, and also a special mark when using tally sticks).
We moved all over the room and sorted all kinds of things. They worked both individually and together.
Interestingly, this math game of sorting single and double-digit numerals was more confusing to E than T. She got the hang of it on the first try!
After math, we moved on to our unit study. Today we focused on learning the order of the planets. For those of you who are concerned about Pluto, we continue to focus on the fact it is a "baby" (or dwarf) planet.
We used our new pocket chart to learn a very important sentence: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
First, he had to put the sentence in order.
Then he had to use the sentence to put the planets in order. He did a great job!
T can't read, so we helped her put the sentence together, and she focused on matching the first letter of the word to the first letter of a planet. She did great!
Our next project was to practice more cutting and pasting. I had to help T cut because her scissors are too big, but she did great anyway. She helped clean up the scraps for us, and then she sorted her cut out words into "planet" and "sentence" piles. E cut all by himself, and his cutting skills were markedly improved in just one day! I think he gained a lot of confidence in his cutting today.
R woke up by this point, so T kept him occupied with his busy bucket while E finished his cutting.
Just to prove I'm really here!
More busy bucket time....now we are lacing pipe cleaners in a colander.
All finished! Behind them, you can see their completed Mat Man drawings, and our KWL chart. KWL = Know, Want to know, Learn.
Yesterday, E asked, "What do they eat in space?" I happened upon some astronaut ice cream and strawberries last night, so we had astronaut food for afternoon snack! They LOVED it!
During free play, T got out our rocket costume and pretended to take a trip into the solar system!
Our caterpillars were FINALLY dry enough this afternoon to put eyes and antennae on them! Thank you to Daddy for helping R with his glue (and to keep him from eating the eyes, which he tried to do IMMEDIATELY).
The finished products! We are going to take them with us to our show tomorrow. I'm so excited! This will be the first puppet show for all of us!
Another great day at school! Tomorrow is our field trip, they have a play date on Thursday, and then we resume on Friday. Shalom!
