Almost On Schedule
Well, today is the first day we've actually managed to start school before 10 a.m. and get done before 3. That's encouraging.
The older girls are having quiet time now. Baby E is acting tired but refusing to take a second nap. She seems to be feeling a bit better today, but has added a cough to her symptoms.
I'm feeling particularly fatigued today, so I think I'll try to lie down with her and see if that helps her go to sleep.
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I heard back from the allergist this morning that my celiac test had a "high normal" result in the "equivocal" range for the IgG antibodies--meaning it's neither positive nor strictly negative. The allergist said this was nothing to worry about and requires no further action.
I'm not sure what, if anything, that exactly means, but I'll be getting a copy of the test results in the mail soon. Then I'll have more specific information that will enable me to make myself crazy consulting Dr. Google. :)
Tonight I get to attend a menu-planning event sponsored by our church MOMS group. We'll all bring our favorite recipe books and plan some menus.
We're really enjoying school, all of us.
Currently AJ is learning about Christopher Columbus, studying measurements, and identifying vowels and consonants. In English today she learned about syllables, practiced identifying them, and added -ed and -s endings to words. We talked about birds, and composed an essay about hummingbirds (she narrated and I wrote, then we edited it together).
M&M is reading better every day. In math the last couple of days she's learning about creating patterns. We made fingerprints today and talked about how no two fingerprints are the same, and then she composed a brief essay about it.
I'm glad I didn't try to skip ahead too much in math. M&M had a little more trouble grasping the concept of creating various patterns from the same objects than I'd expected. So we're going to spend an extra day or two on that. Today I had her do an activity creating different shapes and pictures from colored shaped tiles. She enjoyed that.
AJ is supposed to do an activity tomorrow weighing things on a balance scale. But I don't have a balance scale and am not sure where to obtain one, so I'm going to switch that lesson with another one to give me the weekend to make, buy or borrow a balance scale. Conveniently, that will put both girls doing liquid-measuring exercises tomorrow. That will be fun.
I realized today that I skipped a few too many lessons in the first grade English book for AJ, so we backed up in that a bit. We're going to start near the beginning and go systematically through most of it, I think.
She's learning how to tell the difference between vowels and consonants--a hard concept to explain! I think I just memorized them as a kid; I don't remember learning the how or why. The best way I've come up with to explain it is that vowels are the letters with two sounds (long and short). We also talked a little about open vs. stopped sounds, but I'm not sure that really makes sense. She'll have to end up memorizing them also, I think, but if anyone has any ideas for a better explanation I'd love to hear them.
We've also started reading Farmer Boy from the Little House on the Prairie series. All of us are enjoying that. It's good literature and history all at once.
The older girls are having quiet time now. Baby E is acting tired but refusing to take a second nap. She seems to be feeling a bit better today, but has added a cough to her symptoms.
I'm feeling particularly fatigued today, so I think I'll try to lie down with her and see if that helps her go to sleep.
###############
I heard back from the allergist this morning that my celiac test had a "high normal" result in the "equivocal" range for the IgG antibodies--meaning it's neither positive nor strictly negative. The allergist said this was nothing to worry about and requires no further action.
I'm not sure what, if anything, that exactly means, but I'll be getting a copy of the test results in the mail soon. Then I'll have more specific information that will enable me to make myself crazy consulting Dr. Google. :)
Tonight I get to attend a menu-planning event sponsored by our church MOMS group. We'll all bring our favorite recipe books and plan some menus.
We're really enjoying school, all of us.
Currently AJ is learning about Christopher Columbus, studying measurements, and identifying vowels and consonants. In English today she learned about syllables, practiced identifying them, and added -ed and -s endings to words. We talked about birds, and composed an essay about hummingbirds (she narrated and I wrote, then we edited it together).
M&M is reading better every day. In math the last couple of days she's learning about creating patterns. We made fingerprints today and talked about how no two fingerprints are the same, and then she composed a brief essay about it.
I'm glad I didn't try to skip ahead too much in math. M&M had a little more trouble grasping the concept of creating various patterns from the same objects than I'd expected. So we're going to spend an extra day or two on that. Today I had her do an activity creating different shapes and pictures from colored shaped tiles. She enjoyed that.
AJ is supposed to do an activity tomorrow weighing things on a balance scale. But I don't have a balance scale and am not sure where to obtain one, so I'm going to switch that lesson with another one to give me the weekend to make, buy or borrow a balance scale. Conveniently, that will put both girls doing liquid-measuring exercises tomorrow. That will be fun.
I realized today that I skipped a few too many lessons in the first grade English book for AJ, so we backed up in that a bit. We're going to start near the beginning and go systematically through most of it, I think.
She's learning how to tell the difference between vowels and consonants--a hard concept to explain! I think I just memorized them as a kid; I don't remember learning the how or why. The best way I've come up with to explain it is that vowels are the letters with two sounds (long and short). We also talked a little about open vs. stopped sounds, but I'm not sure that really makes sense. She'll have to end up memorizing them also, I think, but if anyone has any ideas for a better explanation I'd love to hear them.
We've also started reading Farmer Boy from the Little House on the Prairie series. All of us are enjoying that. It's good literature and history all at once.
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 3:25 PM[Permanent link]
4 Comments:
I grew up on the Little House series, too.
Nice playing with you today!
Just a quick suggestion on vowels, instead of saying they're the ones with more than one sound ('cause "s" also has more than one sound (it sounds like ssss and zzz)). Vowels are the ones that you can say just breathing, not closing your mouth or using your tongue.
Also, it's hard for kids under 7 to understand that liquids measure the same no matter what shape they're in. Their brains just aren't wired for it yet.
I grew up on the Little House books too, jane dark. Loved them; still do. I had fun playing Settlers of Catan with you, too.
Liz, thanks for the idea. I tried explaining that, but didn't word it quite like that so I'll give your take on it a try.
The math, science and history curriculum we're using are actually intended for kindergarten, so hopefully they aren't going to be over the kids' heads in much.
I think at this age the goal is more exposure than mastery. I figure the kids are going to love pouring water even if all they get out of it is that it takes lots of small cups of water to fill up a big jug. :)
An addition to the explanation liz gave - if you want to shout something, you need a vowel, since they are the only sounds that don't require articulation and provide a steady stream of air (which is also what liz said, more or less).
Of course, my explanation also requires the distinction between the consonant sound (e.g. what you would use to sound out a word) and the letter "name". Which is a good thing to know but may be over the girls' heads.
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