What a nice day again. I am starting to think I might survive till Spring! We had our preschool coop this AM and despite my dreading what Zeff's behavior might bring he was pretty good! He didn't always want to do what the group was doing but was more willing to at least try whatever activity they were doing. Joss's behavior was also OK, I had to correct her a few times.
We spent quite a while reading in the kids bedroom this afternoon, Keian held a board book so that he would leave our pages alone and when Zeff got bored of our book he paged through others. I also let Zeff use stamps today while Joss did school. For a good two minutes they were both happily, busily working away. I had visions of the future, and having two (and three and ??) little ones at the table doing school! My visions didn't last long, but it was nice while it lasted!
We also spent a fair amount of time on the San Francisco Symphony for kids website. http://www.sfskids.org That was really fun! I haven't done much to teach the kids about the composers but we really like listening to and talking about all kinds of music. They had some really fun music samples (Flight of the bumblebee, Ride of the Valkyries, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Peter and the Wolf). We had a blast dancing like bumblebees and acting out the Sunrise (I was shocked it wasn't written for Star Wars - I'm such a dork:) ).
For math on Monday, she used our number chart to figure out how old a friend's baby was by counting from the 14 (the day she was born) to the 23 (the current day). She also counted the miniloaves of blueberry-banana bread we made (12) then used marbles to represent them and figured out how many we would get since we were going to bring 1/2 to our friends and keep 1/2 for ourselves.
Today,Jossy sewed a pocket out of cardboard for school. She loves little handcrafts like that. We are doing letter P and a poem about pockets in literature. Kinda silly in comparison to the reading we are doing and she is doing on her own. She is continually annoyed with the Calvert school people for the questions they ask that she thinks are stupid. She was supposed to show me sets of 3 and 4 and she said (correctly) "Mom, Zeff can do this!" She really does need the practice and instruction forming the numbers but the number concepts are down pat. She is also sick of the letter sounds practice. She does know them all, other than confusing p,b and d and needing help with a very few others (h,v). I too, am frustrated with our pace in our curriculum right now, I guess that is what they mean by feeling "boxed-in". I hate to miss anything important but I am inclined to just skip 20 lessons and see if we can get somewhere where I am not cutting 2/3 of the practice out and supplementing like crazy to keep her from getting bored.
I guess I need to sit down with the TM again and see how I can accelerate things. I am also thinking about seeing if Joss can get through Math quick and do 1st grade Math instead. It is possible to do Math seperately through Calvert and I have changed my mind about keeping Math with the rest of the program. It doesn't tie in as much as the Reading, Science, Games and Art do.
Anyway, these are just my musings and probably not very interesting. I will take the TM with me to the blood donation center tonight and look it over. Unless I bring Joss, I was thinking she might enjoy it and find it interesting. There is a critical shortage of blood in my area. Since I am a nurse and see how often people need blood and how important it is to their wellbeing (and survival) I think this is very important. I would advise anyone who is able to consider donating blood. (I am also curious about my hematocrit and they will tell you what it is if you ask! Again, thinking I am probably a dork!)
We spent quite a while reading in the kids bedroom this afternoon, Keian held a board book so that he would leave our pages alone and when Zeff got bored of our book he paged through others. I also let Zeff use stamps today while Joss did school. For a good two minutes they were both happily, busily working away. I had visions of the future, and having two (and three and ??) little ones at the table doing school! My visions didn't last long, but it was nice while it lasted!
We also spent a fair amount of time on the San Francisco Symphony for kids website. http://www.sfskids.org That was really fun! I haven't done much to teach the kids about the composers but we really like listening to and talking about all kinds of music. They had some really fun music samples (Flight of the bumblebee, Ride of the Valkyries, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Peter and the Wolf). We had a blast dancing like bumblebees and acting out the Sunrise (I was shocked it wasn't written for Star Wars - I'm such a dork:) ).
For math on Monday, she used our number chart to figure out how old a friend's baby was by counting from the 14 (the day she was born) to the 23 (the current day). She also counted the miniloaves of blueberry-banana bread we made (12) then used marbles to represent them and figured out how many we would get since we were going to bring 1/2 to our friends and keep 1/2 for ourselves.
Today,Jossy sewed a pocket out of cardboard for school. She loves little handcrafts like that. We are doing letter P and a poem about pockets in literature. Kinda silly in comparison to the reading we are doing and she is doing on her own. She is continually annoyed with the Calvert school people for the questions they ask that she thinks are stupid. She was supposed to show me sets of 3 and 4 and she said (correctly) "Mom, Zeff can do this!" She really does need the practice and instruction forming the numbers but the number concepts are down pat. She is also sick of the letter sounds practice. She does know them all, other than confusing p,b and d and needing help with a very few others (h,v). I too, am frustrated with our pace in our curriculum right now, I guess that is what they mean by feeling "boxed-in". I hate to miss anything important but I am inclined to just skip 20 lessons and see if we can get somewhere where I am not cutting 2/3 of the practice out and supplementing like crazy to keep her from getting bored.
I guess I need to sit down with the TM again and see how I can accelerate things. I am also thinking about seeing if Joss can get through Math quick and do 1st grade Math instead. It is possible to do Math seperately through Calvert and I have changed my mind about keeping Math with the rest of the program. It doesn't tie in as much as the Reading, Science, Games and Art do.
Anyway, these are just my musings and probably not very interesting. I will take the TM with me to the blood donation center tonight and look it over. Unless I bring Joss, I was thinking she might enjoy it and find it interesting. There is a critical shortage of blood in my area. Since I am a nurse and see how often people need blood and how important it is to their wellbeing (and survival) I think this is very important. I would advise anyone who is able to consider donating blood. (I am also curious about my hematocrit and they will tell you what it is if you ask! Again, thinking I am probably a dork!)
posted by KatyM @ 3:38 PM
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