The Last Week For Animal Tales

This week was our last week working with animal tales.  I chose two Jataka Tales to tell this week.  Next week we will be working around the theme of Thanksgiving, and then we will be into December!  Wow!  We will cover Saint Nicholas and Saint Lucia the beginning of December and then take it easy the last two weeks to get ready for Christmas.  Once we get started back up in January, we will dive into math. We will be covering time, working in from the year, to the seasons, to the days of the week, to telling time.  We will also cover money values and times tables before the year is over.

On Monday, we took our walk and came in and wrote our "thankful for" leaves (we did this every day this week).  I am adding some new activities for Grant, too.  We will be doing something different everyday of the week.  My plan is to alternate days with small, fine motor movements with days of big, gross motor movements.  On Mondays, he will be working with clay, or play dough, to make a certain shape.  He started with modeling a ball just using the fingertips of both hands, next Monday he will model a ball using only his writing hand, then using his non-writing hand, then he will do that same progression behind his back.  Once he has done all of that, he will move onto modeling a cube in the same way.

We reviewed math with a bean bag toss.  This week I gave him a number, and he had to tell me one way to get that number using plus, minus, times or divide.

After the math review, we did our penny whistle lesson.

Once we were done with that, I told Grant the story of The Talkative Turtle.

We drew our pictures from the story:

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

After we drew our pictures, Grant practiced the form drawing for this week, and then did some reading.

At lunch, we tried pomegranate for the first time.  The kids had some mixed feelings about it, they thought is was a little too tart at first, but the girls warmed up to it and ate quite a bit. 

On Tuesdays, Grant's activity will be jump roping.  We will make it a little more challenging by having him clap, touch the ground, turn around, etc.

After we were done with math review, penny whistle lesson and jump roping, Grant retold me the story from yesterday and we came up with a summary.  Grant copied the summary.

After that, he did some LA exercises on the board.  He circled all the words with a "th" combination and underlined all the words with a "t".

Boji and Julia were hanging out while we were working on this.

On Wednesdays, We are going to do string games, or cat's cradle.  Grant really enjoyed learning this new skill, too.  We are going to start with a simple design called Jacob's ladder.  I think it will take him a few weeks to get it down.

Afterward, I told Grant the story of The Foolish, Timid Rabbit.

Then, hey guess what?  We drew our pictures.

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

We finished up the morning with some form drawing practice, and reading.

We wrote out our thankful leaves again, and the things Grant was thankful for continued onto the chalkboard.

The only words he asked me how to spell were Julia and Johanna.  The rest he wrote by himself.

On Thursday, we walked out our form drawing and did some zoo-robics.  We did some baby and big frog jumps, and inch worm walking.

Afterward, Grant re-told the story from yesterday using some of our wooden animals, then we summarized the story, and he copied it.

He had a couple dino friends helping him out.

Once he was finished we did some LA exercises on the board.



After he read it, I erased some of the words and he filled them back in.

Grant also acted out the punctuation we talked about last week.  I wrote out these sentences:

Grant was walking while I read them out loud, and then when I said, "period", "exclamation mark", etc.  He acted them out.

On Thursday evening, we took Grandpa Paul out to dinner for his Birthday.  We went to Texas Roadhouse, where they enjoy making the Birth-dee sit on a saddle, while they announce to all tables within ear shot that it is "Paul's 67th Birthday" and they ask for everyone to join in and wish him a Happy Birthday.

All the kids had to try it out, too.

On Friday, I read the kids this book:

and we painted our October quilt squares.

Grant and Johanna had a little altercation on Friday morning, and Grant wrote out this letter, all on his own, for Johanna.  Isn't it sweet?  There are a lot of mis-spelled words, but I thought it was great that he took the initiative to write this out by himself.

Grant also finished knitting his penny whistle case a few weeks ago. I got it sewed up, and here it is:     Go Grant!

He knitted this with only the knit stitch.  Now I am going to teach him how to do the purl stitch.  I need to find a new simple project that he can do using both stitches. We will probably start on that after the start of the year, since our handwork for the next month will focus on finishing up the Christmas presents we are working on together for the girls.

The First Week of November

We got back into the swing of things this week with our usual school routine.  You know the drill.  Walk, circle time (songs and verses), math review, and penny whistle lesson.  Grant was getting pretty good at playing Old MacDonald by the end of the week, and even picked up the penny whistle while he was playing in the school room after we were done with his lesson, just to play it for fun. 

Here is Grant playing Old MacDonald (With a little added talking from Julia):

On Monday, I told Grant the familiar fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  I think we all know the moral of this one.  I used the wooden figures to act out the story as I was telling it.

Afterward, Grant and I drew our pictures with our block crayons.

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

After drawing, Grant did some reading.

On Tuesday, Grant re-told the story using the wooden figures, adding hills to his landscape.  Once he was done with his story he added a few characters of his own (the knight has to ride on the bear because we don't have a horse for him, yet).

We came up with a summary and Grant copied it into his lesson book.  After that we did some LA exercises on the board.  Grant read it through, and then I erased some of the words.  Grant had to figure out which words I erased and re-write them.

We are going to be talking more about punctuation over the next couple weeks, and today we talked about the period (you can see the verse on the upper left hand side of the chalkboard).

On Wednesday, I told Grant another familiar fable of The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. 

(Grant added to my drawing with his own rendition.)

We challenged ourselves a little with our drawing today, and drew the goose in the "negative" by coloring in the page around her.  Grant was a little worried when I first told him that's what we were going to do, but he did well.

Mom's Picture

 Grant's Picture

After we drew, Grant did some reading, and then I read the kids this book:

It was fun to see all the pictures made from different leaves.

On Thursday, Grant re-told the story in his own way.

Afterward, Grant copied the summary and then I mis-spelled some of the words on the chalkboard, and Grant had to figure out which ones they were and spell them correctly.

We also talked about the exclamation point today.

The kids had a lot of outdoor playtime on Friday. After they had plenty of time to play in the leaves, we came in and painted with the watercolor paints.  We are going to cut these into leaf shapes, and then write things we are thankful for on each leaf.  We will add them everyday to our "thankful tree".

Here are some other pictures Grant drew this week inspired by his new knight:

1979 Airstream

This week started on Monday the same as most with outdoor play time, walk, circle time with seasonal songs and verses, math review using a bean bag toss and rolling of the math dice, and and penny whistle lesson. 

After all of this, we took advantage of the nice weather and I read Grant the extended version of The Slender Reed and the Olive Tree in our Usborne book of fables, outside.

Here is one short version of the fable: 

"Well, little one," said a Tree to a Reed that was growing at its foot, "why do you not plant your feet deeply in the ground, and raise your head boldly in the air as I do?"

"I am contented with my lot," said the Reed. "I may not be so grand, but I think I am safer."

"Safe!" sneered the Tree. "Who shall pluck me up by the roots or bow my head to the ground?" But it soon had to repent of its boasting, for a hurricane arose which tore it up from its roots, and cast it a useless log on the ground, while the little Reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over. "

This is a story that I have to remember, as I tend to like things done in a certain way, and resist if things do not go as planned. This should be my new daily mantra, "be the reed, be the reed, be the reed....."

After I finished reading the story, Grant and I drew a picture using our red, blue and yellow block crayons.

Mom's Picture

 Grant's Picture (He thought his should have an octopus in the stream.)

Last week the kids and I collected acorns on one of the walks to make an acorn wreath.  Grant was helping me, and being very careful with the hot glue and keeping it away from his fingers.  He reached over to get an acorn out the bag and his arm hit the very hot tip of the glue gun, and he was done.  I had to finish the rest myself.

I thought it turned out pretty good.

On Tuesday morning, Grant and Johanna drew this maze on the driveway before we took our walk.

After our walk, the school schedule was interrupted a little by a 1979 Airstream, and two guys from Australia. 

The above beauty belongs to one of Cory's good friends, Matt, who lives in Australia.  He was in St. Louis last weekend for a chiropractic technique seminar.  He stayed with us on Sunday and Cory took him to the airport Monday morning so he could fly to Ohio to pick up the Airstream.  He also met back up with his friend who flew over with him from Australia and who had been visiting his family in New York.  The two were passing through again on Tuesday on their way from Ohio to California to see Matt's Mom before flying back to Australia next week.  The silver beauty will be shipped by boat.

The kids had a lot of fun getting inside and looking around.  This will definitely be a project for Matt.  It needs some serious TLC on the inside.

Even with our visitors, we managed to get the main part of our lesson done.  Grant re-told the story of The Reed and The Oak, we summarized it, and then he copied the summary.

I had Grant read the summary a few times and then we did some LA exercises on the chalkboard.  I had Grant circle the words with "ee" and underline the words that started with a "b".

On Wednesday, we reviewed skip counting while Grant was jumping rope, and we reviewed math operations by playing the board game, Sum Swamp. 

This was a nice change for everyone.  Even the girls wanted to get in on fun.

After that I read Grant the story of The Donkey and The Wolf from our Usborne book.  Moral:  Beware of unexpected favours.

After I read the story, Grant and I drew our pictures.  Grant really enjoyed drawing this picture, and it turned out well.  He was very happy with it.

 Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

In the afternoon, Grant and I worked on our knitting projects.  His penny whistle case is almost done.  A few more rows and I think it will be big enough.

Grant also practiced the form drawing for the week on the chalkboard a couple times before drawing it in his MLB.

On Thursday, Grant was very excited to show Dad the work in his MLB, and tell him the story of The Donkey and the Wolf.  After that Grant and I came up with a short summary, Grant copied it in his MLB and then we did some LA exercises on the board.  This time I had him circle all the words that ended with the "ee" sound of y, and underline the words that started with the "th" sound.

In the afternoon, I read the kids this book:

Then we went out onto the driveway and the kids made some of their own tracks using all different kinds of things. 

Julia's favorite was the toothbrush, Grant's was the monster truck, and Johanna's was a little astronaut.

On Friday, the kids has a lot of free playtime, and then I read them this book:

After I read the book we painted our first set of harvest quilt squares.  Last week we drew our designs in pencil on squares of muslin fabric, then we went over the pencil with Elmer's blue gel glue.  Today we painted the squares with watered down permanent acrylic paints in fall colors. 

Once they are dry, I will wash off the glue and heat set the colors with an iron.  We will do 3 sets of these squares.  One for September (which is the month these are for, just a little late), one set for October, and one set for November.  Once they are done, we will sew them together into a harvest quilt.

Next week we will be changing it up and doing some fun activities for Halloween and All Souls Day.