Adam the Reader!

Adam completed All About Reading Level 1 today!!  He has worked very hard on his lessons and is reading SO well!  He has mastered every single one of the 174 sight words in this level.  I gave him a little word test I found online and I’m guessing he’s reading at about a 2nd grade level!  He absolutely loves to read to us and to himself.  He takes piles of books into his bed and reads them on his own and he reads his Book of Mormon multiple times a day!  I love that he LOVES to read!  I know it doesn’t come easily for many kids, and I truly think this is one of his gifts and talents.  Plus, All About Reading is awesome!!


We started basically exactly 1 year ago, on 10/10/12 and finished on 10/25/13.  It took longer than it should have because we had a long break while we moved and then while trying to settle in and get my bearings in a new state.

Here is Adam when we finished Level Pre-1.  The change in him between the two pictures took my breath away!  I still see him as that little almost 5 year old and not this big, almost 6 year old!  My baby is growing up too fast!!

To celebrate his big accomplishment, we went out to dinner and he chose Buffalo Wild Wings.  We gave him a little gift.

Chapter books!  Well, beginner chapter books.  I just got these from Usborne as a recommendation to bridge the gap between readers and chapter books.

He immediately cracked one open to read while waiting for our food.  And he read in the car all the way home!

I love the way he reads!  He is so expressive and does great voices!

We both can’t wait to start Level 2!

Caleb the 18 Month Old

My baby is 18 months old!!!  He is busy, fun, active, loud, and loves to mimic!

He weighs 22 lbs. 14 oz. – 30th percentile
He is 32.5 in. tall – 50th percentile

That would explain why I can’t find pants that fit.  They are either too short, or too big around the waist so he is frequently sporting the awesome safety pin look.

He is talking a lot these days and will mimic pretty much anything we ask him to say.  Some of the words that he pronounces cute are:

Apple – “a-po”
Cheese – “sheeez”
Juice – “yuice”
Hello – “heh-ro”
Adam – “a-duh”
Abby – "ah….beeee”
Binky – “deedee”
Puppy/Dog Dog – “dah dah” (I tried calling his dog lovey Puppy to distinguish it from Abby’s Doggie/Dog Dog, but he calls it “dah dah” anyway)
He said Dada for a long time and just in the past month or so calls me Mama!

He also knows a bunch of signs.  Off the top of my head:

milk, all done, cracker, apple, cheese, more, sleep, bath time, diaper change, drink, eat, please, wind, train, (speaking of train, every time he hears a train horn, he gasps and stands still and then signs and says “tay” and then keeps making little gasping noises while raising his eyebrows).

He always has the most awesome bed head!  As soon as I lay him down in his crib, he crawls over to the same corner, smashes his head up into it, and takes the stink-bug position.

This is how he folds his arms for prayers.  About half the time he’ll say, “a-meh” at the end.

He loves to read books!  Before naptime and bedtime, he either chooses a book himself from his book basket, or he wants me to go through them and he shakes his head and says “noooo” to each one until I get to whatever book he wants and then he just smiles and points.  His favorites at the moment are “Moo Baa La La La”, “Mommy’s Best Kisses”, “You and Me Baby”, and any of our lift the flap Shapes, Colors, Sizes, or Numbers books.

During school time, he is either playing on his own, or sitting on my lap.  On this day, I left the room, (probably to grab the camera to take a picture of whatever the big kids were doing) and came back to this.  He wants to be big so badly!

I really need to make sure to take time to play with him.  Poor 3rd child in a homeschool family!  I feel very guilty when it comes to my lack of time engaging 1-on-1 with him.  He was so thrilled when I sat down during school to play with him!
 

Another example of wanting to be big!  I laughed so hard when I found him with his own laptop, next to the kids playing the iPad and Xoom.

He’s starting to get into our “Baby Signing Time” DVDs.  His attention only lasts about 5 minutes and then he plays and walks around while semi-watching.  When the theme song comes on he squeals and runs to sit on the couch!

I’m head over heels for this boy!

Homeschool Highlights–10/1-11/13

This is a recap of the past 2 weeks of school.

Bible

Abraham & Isaac
One day at lunch, I left the kitchen and when I came back Adam said, “Abby wants to give her Doggie back to God”, to which Abby emphatically responded, “No I don’t!”.

Jacob

 

Math

We continued working on place value this week because I felt he needed more reinforcement before moving on.

We played “Numbers Under Construction” where he had to build the number on the slip of paper given.  He easily did the 2-digit numbers, but each time I gave him a single digit, he’d use the blue 10’s instead of the green 1’s.  I switched off between 1 and 2 digit numbers and each time it was a single digit, I allowed him to mess up, then check his answer by lifting up the flap on the piece of paper.  He never got frustrated with himself, just said, “Ohp, wrong” and cleared the “construction site”.   He got the single digit numbers wrong 6 or 7 times and then finally remembered not to use the 10’s.  It was good patience practice for this mama!

Another game we played was “Bulls Eye” and Abby had fun joining in on this one.  They took turns tossing or dropping pennies onto a bulls eye marked with 1, 10, and 100 rings.

Then they recorded the results and said the number it made.

He took his very first ever math test and got 100%!!

We started Lesson 2 in Math-U-See Alpha which has lots of number writing practice which is most definitely needed.  He worked very diligently!

 

Reading

We are getting so close to finishing All About Reading Level 1!  One day he learned about compound words and had fun cutting up words.  He loves it when he gets to play these little games in the curriculum.

He doesn’t love the Fluency Practice sheets but we’ve discovered that rather than making him read word after word, I use a pointer stick and just pick out maybe half of the words.  He doesn’t mind the sentence section of the sheets and got a kick out of this particular sentence:  “Tom had a drumstick in his lunchbox”.  To him, a drumstick is not chicken and since his Uncle Tom plays the drums….well, you can see how that would be so funny!

He is participating in Pizza Hut’s “Book It!” program.  His goal for October is to read 20 readers.  We’re a little behind from missing a few days of reading lessons, but boy is he determined to earn that pizza certificate!

 

Handwriting

They love Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K!  Here are some pictures of the typical things we do each week.

Building letters with Wood Pieces

Stamp & See Screen

Workbook pages

“S’s are hard!”

Adam practiced C, O, Q, G, S, and 8 during these 2 weeks.
I didn’t noticed that he didn’t complete the last line of 8’s until now….naughty boy.

 

Science

We learned about the reproductive organs last week.  It’s interesting how they aren’t phased at all about discussing their private parts.  I guess we haven’t reached the “funny” or “embarrassing” stages yet.
Side note, Abby’s little body is already getting crowded!

To go along with this week, I bought a book about body parts.  I’m glad I found this book because it is strictly about body parts and I felt that was appropriate for my kids at this time.

 

Random Abby Things

Abby kept busy playing Boggle Jr. again….she loves this game!

And using a few File Folder Games.
Shape Matching

And matching lower case to upper case letters.
I need to sit down and record exactly which letters she knows.  I think she knows all of them, but I should keep track like I did with Adam.

 

CALEB

Caleb.  Poor guy gets left in the dust a lot and I hate it!  He’s pretty content to play on his own, or come sit on my lap at the table, but I keep having this nagging feeling that I need to focus some time on him.  I sat down to play with him one day while the kids were coloring their Bible pages.

Isn’t he adorable??

And of course as soon as Mom puts her attention on anyone or anything else, Abby must make her presence known.  Although to her credit, I think I had some fun kid music playing and she couldn’t resist a little hopping.

 

And finally, one picture that just warms my heart.  I was working with Abby at the table and looked over to see this.  I love being home with them!

Homeschool Highlights–9/23-27/13

Week 3 of homeschooling felt more natural.  More a normal part of our day.  Yay!

Bible

This week for Bible study, we learned the story of the Tower of Babel.  I loved how Abby added a ladder on her tower and Adam had lots of workers.  One of my favorites things is listening to them talk while they work on their Bible worksheets.  They are just so funny!

We built our own Tower of Babel with blocks.

 

Handwriting

Adam reviewed numbers again.  I want to get a poster to hang up so he has a reference on how to form them.  Especially while doing math.

During handwriting, Abby played with word puzzles.

 

Math

This week we started Lesson 1 in MUS Alpha which was Place Value.  Along with the worksheets, we played “Decimal Street” which he really loved.

Sometimes I put the blocks on and he had to write the numbers.

And sometimes I wrote the numbers and he put the corresponding blocks on.

I’m encouraging him to use a pencil when he writes, but I thought it was cute how he used the colors of the MUS blocks when he wrote the numbers in.

He also played a “Busy Bee Place Value” matching game where he matched the block cards to the written words and then to the numerals.  This game is where I really saw it click.  I have 2 more place value games so we’ll continue with it for at least part of next week.

While Adam worked on the “Busy Bee” game, Abby did a cute matching file folder game.  And then was bored because it took her about 30 seconds flat.

And while Adam worked on a worksheet, she diligently played with our magnetic mosaic blocks.  She worked hard to copy a flower design by counting out each block needed.  She asked me for help to get the blocks just right.

She chose to play with these another day as well.

 

Science

This week we learned about the kidneys and bladder.  Later in the week, Adam told me that his brain was telling his bladder it was time to empty!

We talked about how Aunt Annie has horseshoe kidneys, meaning her kidneys are attached like this:  (I think anyway)

We did an experiment to show how the kidneys filter out the liquid waste from our blood.  We put cornmeal and water in one jar.  In the other jar we used a coffee filter on top to act as a kidney.  We poured the “dirty” water over the filter to show how the kidney cleans the liquid so the body can use it again.

 

Abby Time

I always feel like Abby is neglected because Adam needs more help from me at this point.  One day I declared it was “Abby Time” and sent Adam off to play with Caleb in his room.  It didn’t last long because Caleb knows how to open the doors, but it’s something I feel strongly about so we shall persevere!
This day we played with Pattern Blocks together.

A few cute pictures of Caleb.

 

Johnny Appleseed Theme

The biggest highlight of our week was celebrating Johnny Appleseed’s birthday with our friends the Tillotson’s.  They lived in our ward when we first moved to Texas, but have since moved just a few miles away but are in another ward now.  Brigham is Adam’s age, and Oliver is Abby’s age.  Then there’s Henry who is just a little older than Caleb, and baby Tilly.  This is the same Brigham, (Briggy) that is on Adam’s soccer team.

Before we went over, we read a book and watched Disney’s old Melody Time episode of Johnny Appleseed.

Apple Tasting

Johnny Appleseed faces.

Apple Stamping onto cute pocketed aprons to use to collect treasures on nature walks.

A “Happy Birthday Johnny!” over yummy Apple Crisp and Apple Cider.

  Looking forward to Week 4!