Inspired

There have been bounds of creativity running around here lately.

Delaney has been filling her days with art. She gets even more creative and full of ideas when I mention that we should probably work on some math...haha.

I had some art picked out for the girls to do for Thanksgiving, but instead they created their own turkeys. Delaney made hers independently, and Sophie just needed a little help drawing her feathers before she cut them, and a little bit of gluing assistance.

Delaney drew the Mayflower.

Over the weekend, Delaney wrote several "word" books, to "teach Sophie how to read". They start out easy and then increase in difficulty.

I especially like that she included "barf" and "puke" on her "words to know" list, as well as the girls' favorite word to yell, "gaggle". Who doesn't laugh hysterically when yelling that silly word?

She also made some visual math problems, several crowns and some rings...This equation has something to do with the time at which Delaney is hungry.

A game, in which we have to jump over lollipops and only land on the safe spike...

And a self-portrait...

I found the "What Shall I Draw" book, and Delaney spent the morning drawing a princess and a sea monster, and writing a little story to go with it.

"Once upon a time, there was  sea monster who said the next one to touch him would be his dinner. No one ever touched him ever though."

We go to the library most Monday mornings, and I encourage Delaney to chat with the librarians in the kids' section and practice her "speaking with grown ups" skills. She brought her picture to the library to read to them, and they hung it on the wall. She was so proud. I am a bit annoyed at my self for forgetting to take a picture...it was a good drawing and a cute story!

Sophie watched Delaney drawing all of her fun pictures with the drawing book, and wanted to try to draw her own creation. With just a little help, she made this cute little tiger.

Sophie also made an owl with me. She liked him so much that she asked me to hang him up in her room.

Delaney has been experimenting with fashion design. She made Sophie this dress out of some flannel and yarn...

And a belt out of craft foam for me.

Next, I will get out the sewing kit and teach her how to stitch a little bit. She will probably surpass my sewing abilities pretty quickly, since I know how to sew on a button and that's about it. :)

I taught her how to play checkers a few weeks ago, and Cullen is now teaching her to play chess. Sophie likes to help Cullen, and she knows the names of all of the chess pieces now. Delaney is learning to play Battleship with me, and is picking it up pretty quickly.

Now we have to get planning and working on all of our December crafts and goodies. I love the holiday months!

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.

Geometric Shapes and Some Drawing Fun

While Delaney was at Day Camp last week, I took the opportunity to spend some one on one time with Sophie, and begin to move us toward the habit of school time in the mornings.

I pulled out the geometric shapes first. There are a lot of things we can do with these...colors, counting, shapes, patterns, picture puzzles....the list goes on.

First, we reviewed shapes and colors. I love how she says "Hec-ca-gon" and "tap-a-ZOID!", because everyone knows those are really funny words.

I wasn't sure if she was quite ready for the picture puzzles, but she was interested in them right away, and rocked the flower.

 

I made an AB pattern for her, and she caught on to how to finish it rather quickly also.

 

 

Then we made 345809766 towers and knocked each other's over. She liked that part best.

I worked with her on spelling and tracing her name.

She made several smiley faces.

 Which are quite possibly the cutest smiley faces ever drawn.

 Ever.

I drew some shapes for her to complete. After she completed my squares, she told me that they needed a nose and a smiley mouth too.

I have a feeling that Sophie knows how to do much more than I give her credit for. She and Delaney were drawing with chalk yesterday, and Sophie proudly showed me that she can write a "P", "O" and "L".

I can't wait until she shows me what else she has hidden in her "things I know that Mom doesn't know I know" reserves...:)

When we spend fun times like this together, I remind myself how very important it is that I make time to do so. She is my last baby, and this is my last two and I need to soak it all in before I get too busy and she is three. Soph is such a funny, smart, kind little girl, and her personality is just perfect right now. I never thought I'd say this...but I love two. I hope I can figure out a way to make the next five months crawl by.

Doubts...and Reassurance

We have been doing many of the same activities over the last few weeks. Delaney spends most of her time writing stories, drawing pictures, writing letters to family members and reading books. We listen to cello music and the girls paint how it "makes them feel", in Delaney's words.

Writing letters and drawing pictures for the Easter Bunny

Read-a-thon

Cello art by Delaney

Cello art by Sophie

Sophie continues to love the alphabet magnets and we work on putting them in order and spelling her name. I downloaded the app, Endless Alphabet, after reading some comments that Brandi made about it, and we absolutely love it. Sophie has to match up letters to spell big words like "gargantuan" and "invisible" and then a cute little monster acts it out while the narrator tells her what it means. I am dying to see if she will incorporate all of these words into her vocabulary as she starts speaking more.

I limit my girls' screen time so their eyes don't fall out and their bodies don't become too stationary, but there are so many fantastic apps for the iPod and android tablet that I don't feel guilty anymore when I let them play for awhile. The land of Motherhood can be such a judge-y place, and I think moms are often made to feel like if they are not talking/interacting/playing/reading with their children every moment, that they are doing something wrong, or being selfish, or any number of other things. I have been having a bit of a rough week in this respect, beating myself up for my "lack of". I need to just *stop* and realize that I am doing just fine. My kids are happy. They are learning. They are playing with each other more every day, making up cute little pretend games. They are both curious. We all love books. There is nothing wrong with playing computer games for an extra 30 minutes or sitting around reading books all day long, doing "nothing". It's okay if we stay in our pajamas until noon, and then enjoy a midday bubble bath. That's the beauty of homeschooling.

Some days I begin to question my belief in child-led learning, and second guess if I am teaching Delaney enough math, and if I need a curriculum, and if I am going to fail her academically some day, and a million other doubting-myself-questions.

Then, she asks me with questions about the aurora borealis, which she learned of while she was watching her very favorite show from the BBC, "Walking With Dinosaurs" (it's on Netflix if you have a dinosaur lover).  We looked up pictures and definitions and learned so much. Did you know that the different colors in the aurora depend on electrons striking oxygen or nitrogen at certain altitudes? I certainly didn't!

And then there was the evening that I pointed out the constellation Orion in the sky (she still has a love affair going on with the sky) and she immediately ran inside, found her constellation book and drew Orion, Sirius and one other unlabeled constellation that I am supposed to look at and identify. (Who knew I would be the one taking the tests? :) )

I've probably said it before, but my very favorite thing about homeschooling and letting her tell me what she wants to learn is how much I get to learn too. She was interested in past U.S. presidents a month or so ago, and we checked out some library books and learned some very interesting facts about our nation's leaders that I would probably never have known had she not been intrigued. She is also curious about gemstones and jewels and how they are formed. Back to the library we went, and we (both) studied those books, learning where and how they are made. (We are saving the rest of that study for when Grandma Gail comes to visit. She is a jewel expert.)


All of these things remind me that I am on the right path, and as long as I nurture the girls' curiosity, and encourage each learning endeavor, we will all do just fine.

Alphabet Time, Sophie-style

It seems like it was just yesterday that Delaney and I were working on ABC's and ABC order. Sophie loves her alphabet, too, which I really credit to www.Starfall.com. I am certain that Starfall taught Hailey how to read ten years ago. I bought the kindergarten curriculum a few years ago when I started homeschooling Delaney, and Delaney still plays more.Starfall.com almost every day. The online books and poetry and music are wonderful, and the math games are fantastic. It is one of my happiest $36 expenditures every year and I HIGHLY recommend it. They have an iPhone/iPad app that is $2.99 and mirrors the ABC games on the website. I downloaded it for Sophie in January, and within about 2 weeks, she knew all of her letters and most of her sounds. It has ABC mazes to reinforce alphabetic order, "what is different" games for identifying letters and differentiating uppercase and lowercase, an uppercase/lower case sort, and lots of other skill builders for initial sounds and rhymes.

Since Sophie learned her letters so quickly, I decided to test her attention span and see if she was ready for my alphabet games.

I unpacked the Garanimals ABC and just set the board out on the floor. I showed her the alphabet cards and let her identify some of the letters for me. I asked her to find a few on the board, demonstrating how to match them up, and then I left her alone.

A few minutes later, I checked on her, and she was doing great.

 

 

She matched up fourteen before she moved on to another activity. If you ask her, her favorite letter is "Q".

Today, I pulled out the "rainbow" cookie sheet and the magnet letters. We put them in order together...we sang the ABC song (26 times ;) ), and she found the correct letters and put them in their spot.

She wanted to play with the little animal erasers that I use with bingo, so I asked her to find letters and she put animals on top of them.

I love her little voice. "Where aaaaaaare you, letter E? Right there!"

 I helped her spell "Sophie".

She thought she was pretty awesome after finishing all of this hard work. I did, too. :)

Valentine Heart Math

Delaney has been working on memorizing her addition facts to 10, mostly with computer games and her dad and I randomly quizzing her throughout the day. I had bought some Valentine candy hearts for an art project, and decided that they would be great for an addition game, too. (Instead, really, because it appears that Cullen found them too, and there may not be enough left for my art project! :) )

I put a handful of hearts in some little bowls, and wrote numbers 0-10 on post-it notes, and made an extra post-it for numbers 2, 3, 4, & 5. Delaney put the numbers in order, and we began.

 Her job was to count the number of hearts in the bowl, and then make all of the post-it combinations she could to add up to that number.

 

 Once she found all of the addition facts for her number, she got to eat a treat, which is of course the real point of the game, right? ;)

I could adapt this game in many different ways...for beginning math, we could count the hearts and then find the correct number, add the hearts in the bowls and find the correct post-it answer... Delaney could do subtraction with the post-its, and find the bowl of hearts with the correct answer. Hearts are  good for many other graphing and sorting activities too, and there are LOTS of free printable resources online to facilitate these. 

Sophie helped a little too, "counting" the hearts.

 She also played with her dollhouse beside us, and got some love from the kitty, who enjoys school time also.

I did some color sorting with Sophie after Delaney and I finished. I laid out construction paper to match the hearts' colors. First, we reviewed colors, then she matched the hearts to the paper of the same color.

It was the first time that I had tried a structured sorting activity with her, and she needed a bit of help to get started, which Delaney was happy to provide.

"Here, Sister. What color is this? Now, where do you put it?"

And then, she finished on her own.

 

She was pretty pleased about eating a few treats afterward, too.

The post-it addition facts were excellent for helping Delaney learn all of the different ways to add up to a sum. I wanted to find another fun way for her to practice the addition facts other than me asking, "Delaney, what's 4+2" while she colors or eats. (Yesterday, she got tired of me asking her questions and said, "Um...I don't know, The number line in my head went on a trip. I think it's in Egypt.")

I did a Pinterest search for addition bingo and found lots of great free printables. We used this one yesterday, from www.mamaslearningcorner.com, because it has facts up to 12, and we will use this one from www.donnayoung.org in the future, because it has facts into the teens. (Both of these sites have tons of great ideas and printables on many other subjects, too.) We used our candy hearts for bingo markers, and the winner got to eat their bingo.