Week 4, Day 1 in ECC

Okay, so coming off a "Light and Independent Friday" yesterday, to a full Monday schedule today (which is Wednesday) is quite a shock to the system. It took us a while to get everything done. Mostly it was Rabbit needing extra time to get the copy of the memory verse done and the extra time we spend on math. Everything else really went quite smoothly.

Tigger and Pooh have come down with colds. Nothing major, but makes them a bit more clingy, and harder for me to work with Rabbit.

During Geography, we're suppose to review the state names. Rabbit got 40 right today - an improvement of 5 over the last time we played. She got Nebraska/Nevada right this time. I told her to remember Nevada has a "V" in it, and the lower part of the state of Nevada looks like a "V." I have to remember I have a United States puzzle map, where most of the pieces are in the shapes of the states, and see how fast she can put it together. It would be a nice change from our state game.

For math, we started Gamma today. I had watched the video yesterday, and read through the teacher's manual. I let Rabbit watch it today, and then we practiced what he showed. I know in the past she had understood the concept of multiplication, but she seemed confused at first. Then I showed her 1 x 3, and for some reason, that clicked for her. So, she did Lesson 1A, and asked to do the test. I said sure. She got a 100%. Then we talked about why 1 times any number is always that number, and 0 times any number is always 0. She wanted to take Test 2, also, but I said, let's at least wait until tomorrow. I'm not really worried about her understanding the concept, but, I think it will take us time to master the facts. In light of that, I ordered Dianne Craft's multiplication cards. I also order her number cards for future use with right-brained Tigger.

For English, we were suppose to do Lesson 84 from Primary Language Lessons. The original lesson was a letter from a boy who had found a pocket knife at last Sunday's picnic and was asking his friend if he had lost one. We were suppose to write a response to that. Well, Rabbit can NOT relate to pocket knives, and wouldn't have a clue how to describe one. I figured that we'd have a big emotional road block to the lesson as written. So, I made up a letter from her friend at Awana's, saying she found a Bible and was wondering if Rabbit had lost hers. Then we talked about how to describe Rabbit's Bible. Tomorrow we'll actually write the letter in response.

Week 3, Day 5 in ECC

Well, thank goodness our first "Light and Independent Friday" fell on Presentation Day at our home school support group. What a blessing that was. We did our three "R's," Bible, spelling, vocabulary, and even worked in one of the repatterning sessions from Brain Integration Therapy. After Presentation Day, the group meets at a local park, weather permitting. So the kids were able to really get some of that excess energy out at the park.

For Vocabulary, Rabbit is summarizing the definition and writing that down on the pages we got from CurrClick.com (as suggested by Crystal). Some of the words don't have pages in the Geo Scribe document, so we print out a blank page, and then I write the full definition from our A to Z Geography book.

The one interesting thing - after we did our "repatterning," Rabbit actually seemed worse. But, I imagine it is kind of like physical therapy - the first few times it hurts more, and as the strength returns, it gets easier.

Doing the Writing Without Curriculum ideas from Dianne Craft has been great for Rabbit. She feels successful, and is making progress. And we finished Level C, Group 1 in Spelling Power, only missing 1 word today. book. I've been drawing the pictures and letting Rabbit color them, as it can take too long otherwise. Then we reviewed all the terms so far. I am having her do both terms now, even though she is only 3rd grade.

Week 3, Day 4 in ECC

Today went quite well, for a Monday. I managed to work in all the Brain Integration exercises, even when I forgot to do them at the right place. We also added in Awana verses today. Rabbit is now in T-n-T. Last year I had her trace over the verses I had written out. She doesn't want to do that this year, so for now we're just going to say them after the pledge, before we work on ECC's Bible lesson.

We looked at the Illustrated World Atlas for Geography. It was funny, because yesterday when I was checking the lessons, I misread it as Intermediate World Atlas and was looking at the pages and noticed it didn't match the topic in the teacher's manual. I almost posted to the My Father's World message board when I realized my mistake.

Science is still all about deserts. She did her science page on the strange rock formations you find in the desert due to wind.

We did our writing eights again today. We only got through "o" before 15 minutes was up. She still doesn't like to do them. I suppose it is the repetitive nature of it. But, afterward we did the Writing Without Curriculum ideas recommend by Dianne Craft. She did great! She went in a totally different direction than I expected, but it was very good for her. I've got to remember to give her heaps of praise for all the good things she does.

Spelling went much better today. She got her three words from last Friday correct, and then only missed one word before our 5 minutes were up. I think she's getting back into the routine of things. I am still reminding Rabbit about attitude, but it isn't as much. She even said she didn't mind doing her "seatwork" today.

For math, we reviewed a couple of topics that we haven't seen in a while that are on the final for Beta. We're planning on doing that tomorrow.

Week 3, Day 3 in ECC

My goodness! Well, the morning actually went well, until I told Rabbit it was time for Spelling. We used Spelling Power last year, and she really liked it, so I was going to do it again this year. I was working on lunch, so I asked her to come into the kitchen for us to do it while I started making things. We had done the placement test yesterday, and after that, I decided to just start over at the beginning of Level C again, as she had only made it through 5 groups before we finished last year. We only got through 5 words before she missed 3. She spelled "family" as "famly," even though I clearly pronounced the /i/ and she clearly said the /i/. She spelled "asked" as "askt," and she couldn't even spell "paths" without melting down.

Someone else on one of the MFW yahoo groups mentioned reviewing phonics. I beginning to think I'm going to have to. Rabbit can read - she's reading at a fourth grade level. But, she has a disconnect between the sounds and the letters when it comes to hearing them for spelling. She hates writing, but I feel like I need to review each sound and have her write them as she says them. It's like the connections never got made. It's hard to believe she forgot how to spell over the summer. Okay, so that was my frustrating moment for the day.

We played the Geography Game with the States - and she remembered 35 from all our reviews last year. I thought that was great. She confuses Nevada and Nebraska (they both start with "N") and Idaho and Ohio (they both end with "o"). She also had trouble with the smaller states on the East cost, and then she got Wyoming and Montana backwards.

I really like the Wild Places book over the Living World book. Rabbit decided to draw a picture of an oasis for her science page today.

Doing the read aloud at lunch works pretty well. I feed them and read. Then when I'm done reading the chapter, I eat. They are a captive audience that way.

Rabbit is only doing about "B" work in math. She did her lesson 30 test yesterday, and her Unit 4 test today. We looked over the final and decided that we'll need to review rounding/estimating before we do the final, as we haven't reviewed that in a while. Everything else looks okay. So, we'll have a review day on Monday, and attempt the final on Tuesday. I've been using Math-U-See's online drill this week for math drill. And really, her "B" work isn't that bad. I can usually see what her mistake is because she shows her work. Usually it's subtraction, and she forgets that if the number in the column on top is not the biggest, she needs to borrow. Again, that reversal thing, like she does in reading.

We read some more in our Pathway Reader again today. I think the morals in the stories are excellent, and she really gets something out of them.

For the boys preschool today, we read Lentil. What a fun story. The boys really liked it. Then, we got the Lauri lower-case alphabet out, and I pulled all the letters out, connected all the puzzle pieces, and had the boys try to put the letters back in. Then they each laced up a few letters. They love the lacing stuff, and Pooh is really good at it. He can look at something Rabbit does to her shapes or letters, and then copy it without us really showing him how. Tigger, on the other hand, needs help getting it started, as he's too likely to pull the string all the way out, and then he's pretty random in his lacing unless he really concentrates on it.

Week 3, Day 2 in ECC

I set up our magnets on the whiteboard last night, and then went to bed to catch the weather on the news. I had noticed that our Nature Walk would land on Friday, but it was suppose to be cold and wet on Friday. So, I discussed with my husband taking the kids over to Cherry Creek State Park for lunch and Nature Walk. He thought it was a good idea. So, I used it as a motivator for Rabbit. I told her if she worked hard this morning, and we got most of our work done, we would swap today's science for tomorrow's Nature Walk.

Rabbit got everything done except for her handwriting page and book basket. We didn't take a recess this morning, but I figured a long walk at the park would be good enough. Rabbit is still having attitude issues with English (that's the Primary Language Lessons book). She says it is the writing, but we don't do that much writing for it. Personally, I think it is the black-and-white nature of the book. But, she is learning from it, whether she knows it or not.

We even did our art project this morning. We did "sand paintings." I bought some sticky-backed designs from Michael's and some sand, and we did a design for each kid. Rabbit did a "Princess," Tigger a "Dinosaur," and Pooh a "Fish." That took us almost 45 minutes to do. But, they loved it, and the boys love their sand paintings.

I packed up a lunch and we went over to Cherry Creek. We ate while I read in our Cameron Townsend book. Then, we walked along the shore. We saw gulls, either storks or herons, a pelican, and some black bird with white markings on it's chest. Rabbit found several shells in the sand, so they must be importing sand from some coastal area. Next time we do this, I need to remember to bring towels so if the kids want to wade I have something to dry off their feet.

When we got back, Rabbit worked on her Nature Notebook page. We had a "Crinkleroot" book of birds, so she copied a swan out of it, even though we didn't see one. Then, she finished her handwriting, and did book basket. She found another book with lots of pictures of wildlife, so she did a few more sketches of that after book basket was over. I made her put them in her own notebook.

It was great to have the picnic and Nature Walk to motivate Rabbit. We have hardly any tears at all for school this year, and we're enjoying it.

Week 3, Day 1 in ECC

Started with the magnets again, and they helped. But, we started a little late, so when it got to 10:00 and we hadn't done science yet, I just moved the magnets around so that Spanish and Recess came next, then Science.

There was a lot of map labeling to do in Geography today. I had Rabbit do some, and then I wrote in for the smaller countries. Plus, there was putting the flag stickers on the right countries. I bought Flag Sticker books for Pooh and Tigger, and together we did four flags. Then, I worked the first page of the Geography packet with Rabbit. That was good, and she did great with it. I think the suggestion in the teacher's manual is good: at the younger ages, do as much as you can with them to teach them how to look things up.

In Science, we started learning about deserts. The nice thing for Rabbit today was to just to color the deserts in on a world map, rather than drawing her own.

Rabbit did great on her math page today. Tomorrow, we do the last lesson test in Beta, and then will do the Unit Test IV, and Final Test. It will be nice to move on.

For Math Drill today, we did 10 minutes at the Math-U-See on-line drill. Just addition today.

For English, we did Primary Language Lessons lesson 58. It was a review of how to use a comma in the place of "and" in a list. I had her dictate the sentences and wrote them out, showing her where commas went.

The first chapter of the read aloud didn't take that long. I plan to read those at lunch. We're reading about Cameron Townsend - the man who started Wycliffe Bible Translators. Since we had already done so much today, we skipped reading, but I plan on continuing it tomorrow.

Week 2, Day 5 of ECC - Feeding the Wildlife

One thing I did this long weekend was get some 1/2 inch magnetic tape from Michael's. Then, I printed out all possible activities (using either a 20 or 22 point font) that we might do in a school day. This includes all our Brain Therapy exercises, plus Dance, Awana Verses, Pledge, Recess, Lunch, Seatwork, and all our ECC subjects. I itemized out Handwriting, Copy Memory Verse, Dictation, Writing Strands, and Vocabulary, rather than having the generic "Language Arts" category. I cut out the subjects and exercises and put them on the magnetic tape. I placed the magnetic strips in order down the white board so Rabbit can see what we're doing each day. Then, when we finish an exercise or subject, she gets to move the magnet to the bottom of the white board and see what the next topic is we will do.

One of the activities for Geography today was to make a map of the yard and hide a treasure. So, I made a bag of pretzels and dairy-free chocolate chips and hid them in a bush/tree in our back yard. I had a map with a star for where it was hidden. I didn't put the treasure out until this morning, and I put it in a bush that had pretty wimpy branches. Well, Rabbit finally recognized the map as a map of the backyard and went hunting for her treasure. She found it, but the squirrels had already gotten into the bag - at least half the pretzels and chocolate chips were missing. Lesson learned: don't use food as a treasure for this activity if you have wildlife in your neighborhood! A trip to the dollar store would be better.

I remade the treasure and let her eat it for her morning snack while we did Power Glide Spanish.

Having Rabbit take care of the magnets worked great, and kept us doing the next thing. During math, while I was putting the boys down for quiet time, she did her math page by herself, without me sitting next to her! She did make some mistakes - like number reversals. She was doing column adding (she set the word problem up correctly), and the first column totaled 20. But, she wrote the 2 and carried the "0". I had to remind her we write the units (or ones) and carry the tens. She hasn't made that mistake in a while. She did the same on one of the other problems. The units column added up to 12, but she wrote the 1 and carried the 2. But, I told her how proud I was of her sitting down and working by herself on it, and staying on task with it.

During reading, the story was about a boy named Noah, and his superior attitude toward his younger siblings. When we finished reading today's selection, Rabbit said, "I really don't like that Noah boy." We talked about why. Finally, I said, "What does he have in his heart that is making him act like this?" Rabbit said, "Oh! Pride." Then we talked about how God doesn't like the proud. We had memorized a Proverb's verse last year about that. I was glad we could tie God into the end of the day as well as the beginning of the day, too.