The Return of Sand and Sun

Week 11 began with four hours outside. We learned how to use a compass and Ethan walked a square according to my directions and his compass findings. It was great to see him realize that he had walked a square.

We're having a great morning. After morning movement- yoga and coordinated song/movementm, we worked with the word families AP and AR and read two great fairy tales that connected into the letters u and v. We practiced writing U and V in our daily books. Avery did a great job and was able to write both letters. Having Avery and Ethan have the same schedule has been very valuable to Avery's learning curve, which is why I think she tested so well, or part of it, and having them be on the same schedule will help me in my organization. We also are doing our part for Earth day and I had them draw an earth, Avery's was pink, yellow and varies other hues, and Ethan's was more Earth like. Ethan at first drew a yin and yang symbol, which fascinated me. It just came out as he drew the outline of land masses. I love the natural intuition of kids. And I love being able to see it every day in our natural state of homeness. We also talked about our favorite part of the earth, Ethan's being water and Avery rainbows.

After drawing we went outside and started cleaning and organizing our yard. Not much garbage thankfully to clean, but a lot of sticks and leaves and decaying vegetation to remove. The kids played outside for over an hour and now we're going outside to clean our street and make it look and feel good for earth day. Happy Earth Day!

Week 10

After a week of illness, we're back on track and starting week 10. Today we worked on the letter T, introduced word families starting with -ad, reviwed numbers 51-60 and filled the days in a calendar for April, counted in 2's, completed unit 2.1 of our Spanish Muzzy program, reviewed last night's bedtime stories, which Ethan could recall quite clearly, and will do more art and games this afternoon. It's a good start to a good week. We have to get a better desk for computer usage, as ours has a poor layout and doesn't accommodate our large screen nor keyboard.

Next week we're hosting a spring party for our homeschool cooperative. I am also looking at going down to the twin cities overnight to visit the MN Children's Museum, not open Mondays. We'll also visit the underwater aquarium at the mall, eat at the rain forest cafe, and visit Ikea. I'm thinking we'll go the first week in May as I won't have yoga on Mondays and then we can visit the museum on Tuesday.

We'll see.

So, have a great week!