...And the New Year Begins

We've settled back into a nice rhythm for school since taking some time off around the holidays. I think we were all ready to get back to a regular routine. It was definitely good to have a few weeks to read as much as I wanted and for the girls to play as much as they wanted. I feel like all three of us have renewed creativity and excitement to learn again.

Sophie wants to do her "math facts" every day...which currently means learning to write her numbers.

We count random stuff all the time, and she counts to about 20 independently now. I am reading a book called "Dr. Wright's Kitchen Table Math", which has ways to integrate math into every day activities for ages 2-8. It's a little dry when "Divergent" is calling to me from the next room, but back to school, right? :)

Delaney is on her fifteenth math facts set, working hard to learn all her addition facts. I try to mix it up a little. Sometimes she writes the answers, some days she tells me the answers, some days she uses the Mathtopia app to practice instead.

Delaney is still enjoying Dreambox. She is getting much better at the problem solving section, and her favorite game is Frog Race. She is about 1/3 through the second grade section, and she amazes me every day with the concepts she picks up with relative ease.


We've been playing lots of board games...Scrambled States of America, Princess Monopoloy, Connect Four, etc. Delaney used Connect Four to teach Sophie about patterns this week. Big sisters are the best.

 

Delaney continues to learn how to be a chess master with Cullen in the evenings.

I love listening to Sophie's commentary during the games. Last night while "helping" them play, she said, "Wow. Looks like I winning!" and "Aaaargh, don't put me in check!"

Sophie has been practicing initial sound recognition. Her stack of sight words that she knows is getting bigger, and we've started playing with sounding out small words.

Our new year has begun quite nicely, and I am so pleased with my girls and their excitement to learn!