Wednesday- 11/7/07

YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lyna read her first word ever all by herself today!!! She sounded it out and then put it together and read the word BAD! I am so proud of her and excited that the method we are using is working after all! We didn't do much else besides letter recognition/signing and reading today, but what an exciting day!

Tuesday- 11/6/2007

ad·ap·ta·tion (ăd'ăp-tā'shən)
n.
The act or process of adapting. The state of being adapted. Something, such as a device or mechanism, that is changed or changes so as to become suitable to a new or special application or situation.

So, through this journey of homeschooling I have learned a lot about adaptation. And again we are at a time for adapting. I feel the need to change Lyna's schedule/curriculum a bit. I would really like to get her reading soon, as once she has started reading a whole new world of education opens up to her. One that she can access on her own even. So, we are dropping some things that I feel are less important at her age and adding more letter recognition/reading. The new schedule will include daily letter recognition/signing time, art on Wednesday still, Handwriting on Tuesdays, Math on Thursdays, and field trips on Fridays. I am dropping science for now and also nature study. I feel the basis for science is math anyway, so we will continue to develop her math skills until a more formal science is necessary. I am also dropping nature study. This was a hard decision to make as I really love this part of our schooling, but Alyna gets a lot of nature time in her life and right now I do not feel it is crucial for her homeschooling curriculum. I will continue to update the blog with what we are doing. For any of you who are following my old curriculum, please e-mail me kensie.malmfeldt@gmail.com and I can give you the entire year's worth of the curriculum.

So, with this new information in mind, today we worked through all of our letter recognition and signs again. We also worked on handwriting and will be writing a letter to put in our stack of letters that have not been sent because mommy can't ever find the stamps pile when it is done! We also worked on some easy reading with these word: ADD, DAD, BAD, CAB, EGG, FAD, and HAD.

Monday- 11/5/07

We're back!!! Sorry for the long hiatus, but we needed it! However we are back on track now...

Today, we learned about the letter H. We learned the words and signs for H, Hot, Happy, Home, Hair, Hands, and Hat. We also went through all of the letters and signs A-H and reviewed since we had been off for a while. We will continue to review daily for the rest of the week along with our regular studies.

Monday- 10/22/2007- Friday- 10/26/2007

We are taking a break this week. We will start back up with the letter H next Monday.

Friday- 10/19/2007

Today, we visited the Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City. It was really neat! They had lots of flowers, trees, and plants of all kinds as well as some animals such as parrots, lizards, and butterflies.

Thursday- 10/18/2007

OFF

Wednesday- 10/17/2007

Today, for art, we made a garden stone. This turned out to be a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. It turns out that the stone mix dries remarkably fast, so you have to do everything in super sonic speed which just doesn't work well with a playful, energetic three year old! We had fun though, made a big mess, and learned a lot!

Tuesday- 10/16/2007

Today, we had Circle Time and then for handwriting we did some worksheets and wrote a letter to our pen pal. For science, we learned about why leaves change colors and also recorded the growth on our biodome. We have two plants growing inside.

Monday- 10/15/2007

We had both Circle Time and our lesson a bit late today, but both went well. For Circle Time, we did all of our usual things (singing, rhymes, etc.) and we read "Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Phister and we read Book of Mormon Stories, namely the story of Lehi receiving his vision about the destruction of Jerusalem. For the lesson we learned about the the letter Gg and the sound "g" as in garden. We also learned the ASL signs for G, Garden, Gorilla, Goat, Grass, and Guitar. Alyna already knew the sign for green, so she really liked practicing that one as well.

Friday- 10/12/2007

Today we were going to go to the Orr Family Farm (an agri-entertainment farm), but when we got there we found out it is only open from 6:00pm to 8:30pm, and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. So, we did some quick thinking and decided to make of the the day we missed a couple of weeks ago and go to the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. We had a really great time seeing all of the dinosaurs and they have a terrific kids "discovery" place!

Thursday- 10/11/2007

Today, we had a great Circle Time. For Nature Study, Michael took the kids on a Nature Walk to the park to play and for our math lesson we learned about fractions with fruit!

Wednesday- 10/10/2007

Today was SO much fun! I woke up with a nasty cold, so I figured it was going to be a crummy day, but, at least in the schooling department, it has went really well. Circle Time was fun and we incorporated a scripture lesson today. Lyna paid attention really well for that. Then, we had our art project, which was just a ton of fun. I am so glad that I decided to do it! We built a fairy house! So, here are some pictures. I didn't get a lot of pictures of us actually making it, as it was a pretty involved project and needed constant supervision, but there are some of the finished project.
(Everyone knows you HAVE to wear your fairy dress if you are going to build a proper fairy house!)

Tuesday- 10/9/2007

We did get Circle Time done today, it went really well. We sang "Hinges" and did lots of fun rhymes. I am going to incorporate some type of scripture story/study in the next few days during Circle Time, I will update how it goes. For morning lesson, we did handwriting. We wrote a letter to a pen pal and also did some worksheets out of "Handwriting Without Tears". This afternoon, for science, we built a biodome and planted in it. We used this, but modified it a little bit because we didn't have enough of some of the materials. We will see how it grows and record its progress!

Monday- 10/8/2007

We missed Circle Time today. This afternoon we learned about the letter Ff and the sound "f" as in fish. We learned the ASL signs for F, Fairy, Fire, Fish, Forest, Farm, and Flag. We also reviewed all of the vocabulary and signs we have learned so far.

Friday- 10/5/2007

Today, we did Circle Time and reviewed all the previous letters, words, and signs and then headed off to the zoo. We got to see a lot of animals even though it was really hot outside. Lyna used a lot of her signs (cat, bones, elephant, etc.). I was proud of her for doing that. She also asked what other animal signs were. Unfortunately, I am not fluent in ASL, I am learning with her, so I have to look those up for her now. Here are a few pictures I got from today before my camera battery ran out.

Thursday- 10/4/2007

Today went really well. Lyna was really interested in the lessons today and really paid attention well. Circle Time went great. We had about 10 special guests in the for of Little People. They decided they needed to sit in with us. They were very good though and only needed to be told once (by Lyna) to be quiet! We did math with blocks which worked really well. Then, for Nature Study, we made a window design of the night sky. We also added pumpkins to our fall nature table this week!

Wednesday- 10/3/2007

We had a great day of school today. It was kind of a lazy day because our art project was not near as involved or time consuming as some previous ones. We did Circle Time and then, this afternoon, we made elephant ears and an elephant trunk. We also had to make, per Lyna's request, some elephant toes. Apparently, she did not feel her costume was complete without them. By the way, the pink is her crown and she is the queen elephant!

Tuesday- 10/2/2007

Circle Time went well today. We have decided to replace the reading of the fairy tales daily with reading a book instead. Lyna seems to respond better to this. She would bore easily with the fairy tale and then not want to continue Circle Time, so this change makes things a lot easier. For the morning lesson we did Handwriting and wrote a letter to a special someone. For afternoon we did this science experiment. It was really fun and interesting.

Monday- 10/1/2007

Today was a challenging day for school. Lyna was tired and grumpy so Circle Time was interesting, but once we started doing our "dancing and singing" time to "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" it got better (although she didn't want to stop doing that). This afternoon we learned about the letter Ee and the sound "e" as in elephant. We learned the ASL signs for E, elephant, egg, empty, emperor, elves, and engine. Lyna is down for a nap now, hopefully she will wake up a bit more cheery!

Friday- 9/28/2007

Today was a sick day. We were sad to have to miss our trip to the Museum of Natural History, we may try to make it up next weekend.

Thursday- 9/27/2007

Well, not a great day for homeschooling...our family has a bug, so not much got done today. We did get Circle Time and math done (we learned about distance and took some measurements), but we didn't get any of our Nature Study done. Hopefully, everyone will feel better soon so we can get on with life!

Edited to add...we did end up getting our nature table done after this post, here are some pictures of what we added this week...

Wednesday- 9/26/2007

Well, I had grand plans for a very cool art project (making an actual doll), but Noah was sick last night and I got hardly any sleep, so plans changed. I looked around online this morning and decided we would make paper dolls instead. We got kind of a late start on Circle Time (and we got to have a special guest, Daddy!) and then immediately did our art project. It went really well! Lyna loves the dolls. I would still like to make the doll at some point, but I am thinking maybe for the end of the year project? Anyway, here are some pics from today...

Tuesday- 9/25/2007

Today was good. We had a good circle time, Lyna was really excited about our story "Why Bat Has No Friends" (Aesop's Fables). She was relating it closely to her own relationship with her aunt Randi Kay because in the fable the mammals and birds are fighting and she and Randi Kay fight! It was very funny, she kept stopping me every time I would say fight and telling me that her and Randi fight over toys and that it's not very nice! I think it is really helping having the dancing/singing time during Circle Time, Lyna is responding so much better to this then she was to the yoga. After Circle Time, we did science. We built a dam with help from Daddy...Our dam didn't really keep the water out very well, but Lyna sure had fun playing in the sand! We also did some handwriting work sheets and wrote a letter. Lyna is so fascinated with mail, this has become a fabulous way to get her to practice handwriting!

Monday- 9/24/2007

Today was a good day for school. Circle Time went well. We have decided to replace yoga with a "dancing and singing" time, to get all of the energy out! It worked much better for us. This afternoon we learned about the letter Dd and the sound "d" as in dog. We learned the ASL signs for D, duck, dog, dinosaur, dance, dolphin, and doll. Lyna continues to amaze with the speed that she picks up the signs, we are really having fun with those!

Friday- 9/21/2007

We had Randi Kay again with us today, she really loves Circle Time! Both of the kids were good for Circle Time. We had plans of cloud watching in the morning today, but here was the sky this morning...
Yep, only blue, no clouds! So, instead we printed out some pictures of clouds and talked about the different kinds. We also reviewed all of the letters, vocabulary, and signs we have learned thus far this year. This afternoon we went on a field trip to a friend's house to the their chicken coop. The kids really loved this! So much so, that afterwards they were pretending that their car seats were their nests and they were chickens. They then went on to build their own "chicken coop" when we got home. They love chickens!

And just for fun...here is the sky now...
Of course! So, we may have to go out after Lyna's nap and cloud watch for a bit.