E and I

Last week Grant continued learning the vowels.  He learned E and I. 

On Monday, I told Grant the story The Golden Key.  We wrote the letter E, talked about the sounds it makes, and drew a picture from the story in our lesson books.  We are also saying verses, singing songs, and doing bean bag tosses that incorporate the vowel sounds.

Grant's Key

Grant's E

Mom's Key

On Tuesday, Grant re-told me the story of The Golden Key while I wrote it in his lesson book.  After that I had him re-tell the story using props to the girls and I.  He enjoyed doing it, and Johanna enjoyed listening to it.  It was a short, simple story, so it was a good one for him to start with. 

On Wednesday, Grant learned the letter I.  I told him the story The Spirit In The Bottle.

(Grant added the roots on the tree in my chalkboard drawing for me.)

Grant's Spirit In The Bottle drawing

Mom's Spirit In the Bottle drawing

Grant's I

On Thursday, Grant re-told the story for his lesson book. 

We also made lists of A, E, and I words, and then made up silly sentences using those letters.  Here are the ones we came up:

"Grant ate a fake cake."

"A free eagle met a bee with big feet who liked to eat treats and beets."

"Baby Zabey sat by the lake and ate a plate of dates."

"A fly spied Poisin Ivy (this would be the villianess from the Legos Batman Wii game) and hides high in the sky!"

Grant was also able to say that he read his first book.  It was a very simple book (about Mat and Sam) containing about 7 words which repeated themselves in different ways to make up the story, but I do feel a little sense of accomplishment, and Grant was very excited!

New Teeth

This is a very common sight around here these days.  Julia is getting six new teeth.  Her eye teeth, the first molars on the top, and two big molars on the bottom are all coming in at the same time. 

Valentine's Day Painting

This is a wet-on-wet watercolor Valentine's Day painting by Grant.

IX, X and A

Last week in school we finished our math block with the Roman Numerals IX and X.  For the number 9, we talked about the nine planets in our solar system (Yes, I know there is some debate abour pluto being a planet, but for now we will consider it a planet).  Grant loved drawing this picture.  He wants to re-decorate his room with a space theme and have a space themed Birthday party.

Mom's Planets

Grant's Planets

For the number 10 we talked about our 10 fingers.  I also read Grant a silly story about a man with ten camels, but he kept counting nine because he forgot to count the one he was riding.  He would get off the camel to go and search for the lost one, only to come back to ten camels.  Grant thought this was pretty funny.

Mom's Fingers

Grant's Fingers

In our container story, Katie (and Grant) has now answered all of King Equal's riddles and is now ready to receive the five keys to unlock the doors which hold behind them the gifts of knowledge, the "angel sounds", or otherwise known as the vowels.

The first key opened the door of the Archangel Michael who gave Katie the sound of the letter A.  I told Grant the Grimm's fairy tale, Our Lady's Child.  After that we drew a picture from the story, wrote the letter A, and talked about the sounds it makes.

                                         Mom's Angel

                                        Grant's Angel

Holy Cow!

We heard the dogs barking yesterday and thought it might be the mail lady coming down the driveway. We looked out the window, and there was a COW in the driveway. There are not many people who can say that!
A farmer is keeping some of his cattle in our pasture. In the picture below you can see the rest of them in the background, happily grazing behind the electric fence. This one found a way out somewhere.
The dogs kept it back from the house, and even managed to chase it back up the hill before the farmer arrived to put the cow back on the other side of the fence.

The BIG Spill

A few days ago, a few bad decisions ended up in a big mess. A painter was supposed to be coming in to paint in the upstairs hallway. Nobody was going to be home, so I set the paint can on the stairs where the painter would see it, and took down Julia's safety gate so he wouldn't have to bother with taking it down. When the kids and I got home, I could tell that he had not been to the house, yet. I took of Julia's coat and shoes and let her go on her way while I took of Johanna's coat and shoes. I was on my way to put the gate back up on the stairs when I came around the corner to find Julia sitting in a pool of green paint. AAHH! The lid did not get put back on the paint can tightly, and she managed to get it off and spill half a can of paint. I stood for a moment, in shock, before I set up the paint can, grabbed Julia, took off her now paint covered pants, asked Grant to get some old towels, and sat looking at the mess wondering where to start. Grant had to try and keep Julia away, but the whole time she was screaming and crying because she felt that she needed to be right next to me in the paint. I sopped up the paint with the towels and tried to scrape as much of it as I could back into the can. In the process, I managed to get paint on my favorite pair of jeans (I was wearing them at the time).
I will admit that there was more than a few tears shed. I probably did not show the best example to the kids of how to act in such a situation, but after I recovered a little bit we talked about how it was just "stuff", nobody got hurt, and there is nothing we can do about it now.
We were planning on getting new carpet within the next couple of years. I think we will be getting it sooner rather than later.

V-VIII

This week, King Equal gave us four more riddles to solve for the numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8.


Mom's drawing for 5:


Grant's drawing for 5:

On Tuesday, we learned about the number 6 and talked about our six senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and life. We drew the answer to our riddle in our lesson books and then we made a Valentine's Day beeswax candle in celebration of Candlemas. Candlemas takes it's name from the blessing of the candles on this day for use in the church throughout the coming year. It is also a celebration within the church of the presentation of Jesus in the temple.

"At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting we should celebrate a candle Festival to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new."

-All Year Round

"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will take another flight.
If Candlemas Day be cloud and rain
Winter is gone and will not come again."

We also talked about it being Groundhog's Day. Grant was sad that he saw his shadow, which meant another six weeks of Winter weather. He was afraid that it would affect his Birthday. We assured him that it will be Spring before his Birthday, not to worry.



Grant took this photo of our Valentine Day candle:

Mom's drawing for 6:

Grant's drawing for 6:

Mom's drawing for 7:

Grant's drawing for 7:

We talked about the 7 colors of the rainbow, as well as the 7 days of the week. We set up some sticks outside with the numbers written in between in chalk. Grant jumped over the sticks onto the numbers while counting, then he jumped backwards while counting backwards. After that we had him jump with one leg and then the other while reciting the days of the week. He kept missing Thursday for some reason, but he was being such a goofball while doing this, that he could hardly focus on saying the days of the week.

The girls helped Dad push the wagon during our walk.

On Thursday, we talked about the number 8 and I told Grant a story about a spider spinning her first web. We drew it in our books, then I had Grant make a spider web in the room. The kids enjoyed playing in it and pretending to be spiders.

Mom's drawing for 8:

Grant's drawing for 8:

Leave it to Johanna to decorate the spider web!