If You Give This Girl Some Paper, She's Going to Ask for Some Glue...

Delaney is constantly making things at home...drawing pictures, putting fabric and paper together, any number of random art projects. I didn't realize how perpetual her creating is until we were away from home for a week for my sister's wedding, and she began to get a little desperate for materials.

She began small, drawing self portraits and other random pictures.

She snagged some ribbon from our wedding materials, found a paper clip somewhere, and fashioned it into a fishing line. She found a discarded box and turned it into a fishing hole.

Then she found her uncle, who was able to discuss fishing and catching worms with her for awhile.

She wrote a recipe for "Banana Swirl", and convinced me to let her make it, then eat it with Sophie.

This recipe later included an ice cream sandwich blended in, and an assortment of other random kitchen goodies.

She made a castle out of drawings of hands and feet, that she cut out and assembled, then drew and cut some dolls to play inside of it.

 

 

And this was all by the fourth day of our trip.

The last three days were filled with wedding fun and lots of driving, and zero time for her to work on projects. When we arrived home, Delaney was so thrilled to have all of her supplies again. Within an hour, she had folded, cut, glued and colored a new masterpiece for her daddy.

This week, she is attending gymnastics skills camp each morning from 8am - 12pm. It has a Harry Potter theme, which is perfect for her, as she is currently reading the fourth book, and loving every moment of the story. I assumed that she would return home tired and hungry and ready to rest.

Silly me. She was tired and hungry and ready to create.

And soon, she was the proud maker of a new wand...

 

 I'm glad the back to school sales are coming up, because we don't dare run out of supplies! :)

...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!

Gone Fishin'

When I first began teaching at public school, a fellow teacher told me that if you turn practicing ANY skill into a fishing game, kids will play it over and over again without complaint.

It's totally true.

I took some dowel rods, some yarn, some magnets and some tape (I should use glue, and will adjust this soon, but I was in a hurry :) ) and in less than 3 minutes was the proud owner of two fishing rods.

I attached large paper clips to Sophie's sight word cards and some addition flash cards I found in a box, set them out on a blue bin lid (because water is blue, right?) and taught the kids how to "fish".

They loved it. In fact, they loved it so much, we have been playing it every day. I love it too, because they can practice whatever they are individually working on, but do it together, and add an element of competition if they so desire.

 

I typically put Sophie's cards face up, and let her pick a word and read it to me. We have also played variations in which I tell her which word to find, or set the cards upside down so it is a surprise. Each version has been fun for her.

Delaney's cards have math facts on both sides, so she "catches" any card and tells me the answers.

 The girls take turns, and if any answers are incorrect, the "fish" gets thrown back in the water, a.k.a. placed nicely back on the lid.

This game has endless possibilities...For Sophie, I will probably make it into a counting game next week. Delaney's math facts will be tailored more closely to what she is currently learning, and subtraction will appear. We could practice alphabetical order, vocabulary, colors, patterns, shapes, rhymes...the list is really endless. It's inexpensive to make, too - you can fashion a fishing rod out of many things that are lying around the house...pencils, paint stirring sticks, wooden spoons, etc.

I might have to make it a little more exciting at some point, and plan to make some cards with sharks and other dangerous ocean creatures, and perhaps some nice ones too, and toss them into the mix. It's always fun to catch a surprise.

Growing a Garden, Homeschool Style

Homeschooling means taking a perfect morning to go to Home Depot, pick out very own flowers for the garden, then learn how to dig holes and mix soil, plant and water.

It means watching the way the sun shines in your yard, and the way the wall casts a shadow over the garden, and why.

Observing how many hours the sun shines on the garden, and figuring out if that is long enough for your pretty flowers to grow, learning about how flowers grow, and watching it in action.. (So far, so good. :) )

These two plants have new blooms already!

Homeschooling means doing out subtraction lesson on the sandbox table under the shade from the trees, while Sophie practices climbing up the ladder to the slide and sliding down all by herself, or plays in the swing.

Math is always more fun with a little bit of sunshine and the wind in your hair.

It means writing poetry and drawing pictures at lunch time, or watching YouTube to see what surfing really looks like.

Delaney said, Look Mom, I wrote a poem!

 

Under the ocean

Is a fish.

 

It means learning about things we are interested in in as much or little detail as we like...for as long as we like. (Hello, Month 3 of the Sky and the Universe...) Doing a whole chapter of math in one morning if we are particularly inclined, or just reading about Laura and Mary for hours, because it's a really good part.

It means to work on skills until they are mastered, in an order that makes sense, and not have to skip around and quickly learn things that will most likely be on a standardized test, but don't make a whole lot of sense to learn right now...Yes, AIMS, I'm talking to you and your arbitrary skill set. Hailey did the test all last week, and I tried not to get annoyed every time I read the "Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep and has a good, healthy breakfast." emails. Shouldn't she be doing that EVERY DAY, not just during precious testing time? (No offense, teacher friends. I know it's not your fault.)

It means a bathroom break or water break or snack break whenever you need one, without an evil eye looking at you for daring to be thirsty or need to go to the bathroom.

It means becoming friends with the nice people that work at the library, or the grocery store, or the many places we go...learning to talk politely with people of all ages.

I'm so thankful to be able to raise my kids like this.

Dugout!

Delaney and I are continuing to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder Series, and are now about halfway through "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Delaney is really intrigued by the idea of living in a dugout as the Ingalls family does for the first third of the book. We decided to recreate it with cushions and blankets, fort-style. 

 Delaney called me "Ma" all morning, and Sophie was "Carrie". 

 Delaney was "Mary" all morning, but if you ask me, she is a little more like Laura.

 

If you haven't read the books, Mary was always perfectly good. Laura was a little on the, shall we say, spirited side.

 I always loved Laura when I was little.

We did math in our dugout, and of course read some more about our favorite little pioneer family.

Discovery Jars

This morning, Sophie got up at 4:30am, and Delaney slept until 7am. They usually get up within 15 minutes of each other, so I took this rare opportunity to get some one-on-one time with Soph.

I threw together some a "discovery jar"...a container from the dollar store filled with a few fabric flowers, a handful of pom-poms, some scraps of felt, a craft stick, a baby food jar with a lid, and a small tin container with a lid.

I put it on the floor beside us, and waited to see what she would do with it.

She investigated the baby food jar first, which was no surprise. She loves removing and replacing screw-on caps.

She enjoyed the flip-lid of the container also. It is just like my morning coffee cup, and she plays "Open/Shut" with that almost every morning.

She dumped everything out, put it back in...

Stirred everything up for a bit with the craft stick.

And then shared with her sister once she woke up.

The two of them played together with all of the objects for about 45 minutes. The flowers became bouquets for a wedding, the pom-poms went into the jar, and out of the jar, as well as many other adventures... They probably would have continued all morning if bath time hadn't so rudely interrupted. :)

Sometimes the simplest things are the most fun and creativity-inducing activities.