Schedules and Creative Preschoolers

Chris left for a business trip to China yesterday, which we thought was really funny as we were studying China and Marco Polo's explorations to China. It also meant that our normal schedule was thrown off a little as we didn't have to wake up as early as usual and we found it hard to get going on our school work. So, I created a simple schedule for us to follow. Each day we write down all the things that each person needs to get done on the white board and then after they complete a task, they mark it off. It works because it can change from day to day and if someone finds themselves not knowing what to do, they just look for something on the chart. It is also adjustable, not tied down to any times so that if piano is next on your list, but someone else is already practicing, then you can work on spelling and do piano later. It's simple, but is working for us anyway.
Amber often gets creative with her free time while the rest of us are working on more structured school work. This creation is a birthday cake, the part that cracks me up is that we can never find pencils when we need them for school work, but she sure found plenty for her candles when she needed them.
She also decided to make herself some jewelry. The necklace is made from a shoelace and the pendant and earrings are paper. This creation started a couple days long project amongst all three girls of coloring, cutting, and designing jewelry. They even made a contest out of it and Chris has decided that we need to buy stock in Scotch tape or the girls need to get jobs.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Our book group book this month was Heidi by Johanna Spyri. We really enjoyed our time together reading this book. It has created more lasting memories and promoted dinner table conversations about the book. At book group, we discussed characters and played a game where the kids had to guess who the characters were. Then, they drew scenes from the story. We also ate dark rye bread with toasted goat cheese on top, it was delicious!

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Or in other words - Happy Chinese New Year! It just so happened that our plan to study China fell on the first day on the Chinese New Year so...we made Chinese lanterns. We also watched a video about the dynasties from the Chang to the Tang, read the story of The Runaway Rice Cake, and ate fried rice and rice cake.
And Krystal discovered that when you make a mistake (like cutting the wrong side of the lantern) you turn those mistakes into creative new ways to do things and create the neatest lantern of all.

India and Martin Luther King Jr.

While listening to the Story of the World chapter about India under rule of the Moghuls, we worked on making sand Mandalas. Since our study of India happened to fall on Martin Luther King Jr. day, we talked a little about why we celebrate MLK day and compared that to the cause of Ghandi and read scriptures about how important it is to learn about different nations and languages.

For desert that night, we made what we called "Diversity Cake." It is basically layers of vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding and graham crackers. The girls had fun helping to make it and we even made an extra one to deliver to some friends.

When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will...Teach Themselves?

People often say that they don't know how I can possibly home-school four kids and do everything else I do and my response is always that the kids do most of the work themselves. Today was a perfect example of that.
MATH: While I was on the couch studying my scriptures and the older kids were finishing up their chores, Amber told me that she was making a course in the hallway. I was like, "That's great," having no idea what she was talking about. As she carted bottle after bottle from the recycle bin to the hallway, my curiosity got the better of me. She had created a bowling game out of the recyclables. Seeing an opportunity I couldn't resist, I gave her the idea to write numbers on the bottles and explained that then she could add up the numbers on the "pins" she knocked down. Krystal joined her in the fun and voila! math was done for the day for those two. While this was going on, Jared was taking our trash out and had employed Clarissa to take out our neighbor's trash, a job he gets paid to do. He paid her a dollar so she added that to her Christmas money and then asked me to help her figure out how much tithing to pay. So we worked on adding and subtracting money and percentages. When Jared was done with his chores, he did math at Khan Academy on the computer.
SPELLING: I reminded the girls that they needed to practice their spelling words and Clarissa came up with the idea to use popsicle sticks to build some of the letters. She and Krystal both decided it was easier just to write the words on the sticks several times and then use them to create shapes. Jared preferred to just write his words several times on paper.
SCIENCE: After Jared did the dishes (and while I was still studying on the couch), he decided to start playing around in the sink with a soda can and glass bottle. He was so excited when he discovered that he could fill the bottle with water and then raise it above the level of the water and as long as there were no air bubbles, it would stay full. We talked about buoyancy and he did some other experiments to represents the way submarines stay afloat and then sink. He even did a little research about it on the internet.
READ-ALOUD, GRAMMAR, and ART: While I read our book group book, Heidi, the kids sat at the the table and worked on creating designs with Perler Beads. Several times in the book we stopped to talk about metaphors and similes as we found them in the story.

PRESCHOOL: After Amber finished her bowling game, she decided to "do a craft." She took a piece of paper and drew little 1/2 inch circles on the paper and then cut them out to be cookies. She then folded another paper to make it a baking sheet and colored it brown. She rolled little pieces of tape and put them on the back of the cookies to adhere them to the baking sheet. After "baking" them she passed out cookies to everyone in the family. I consider this excellent practice in fine motor skills, sequencing, and social skills.

READING and HISTORY: Krystal and Clarissa both read several books to me and did great! Jared and I are working on doing scripture study as his reading practice. Today we read from the Bible Dictionary and 2 Chronicles about Hezekiah's Tunnel and the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. We did some further study on Wikipedia about the different sieges of Jerusalem including those by the Romans and in the first Crusades. Jared is also building a castle under siege with siege towers and battering rams, etc. out of Legos.

What a great day, but as Chris reminded me, not every day is like this.

Krystal is a Star Reader!

Krystal has really been excelling at reading lately and today she reached a milestone in our home. We have been using the Dolch sight words on flashcards to practice reading since the beginning of this school year. Krystal has flown through all the levels of the Dolch words from Pre-Primer to 3rd grade and today passed off all the 2nd and 3rd grade level words. That is a total of 220 words that are most commonly used in the English language, not including nouns. Of course she knows many other words that are not on the list, like family member names and some big words from the scriptures like commandments and Lamanites as well. We hope that Krystal will develop a true love for reading good literature as her skills continue to develop. Way to go Krystal!

Way to go Clarissa!

Today Clarissa came home from tutoring with a certificate stating that she read 100 words!! We are so proud of the progress she is making in reading. When she started tutoring 10 months ago she could only read about 10 words and only two months ago was reading 40 words. She has really made a lot of progress in the last couple months. We are also so grateful for her tutor Ms. Stone who really seems to understand Clarissa and her unique learning style. Last March Clarissa was diagnosed with a learning disability that affects the way she learns. She has difficulty learning through sight and sound, but does well with touch and body movements. She can also remember things better when they have meaning in her life so Ms. Stone lets Clarissa make up stories about each word and draw pictures into the word so that each word becomes like a character in its own story. We really look forward to watching Clarissa continue to grow and excel on the path to communicate her fabulous ideas with the world.