UPDATE... it's been a while!

Well, like I said it's been a while since I've posted here!  We have been so busy! Between doctor, dental, vision appointments for the girls on top of school and school activities we've been swamped! We have 2 more appointments in October as well. The youngest is having dental surgery on the 19th. Then she has a follow-up with her pediatrician regarding the new allergy meds the week after that. My oldest has shots the same day as the follow-up. And I'm not exactly sure if the youngest will have a follow-up after her surgery. Not sure how that works.
We have also been doing the Lowe's Build & Grow program. We go twice a month and the girls each build the day's project, get their badges for that project, and their certificates. It's a great out-of-the-home activity for them and they LOVE it! Those Saturdays are also family day. We take the girls to lunch at their choice of restaurant and they get to spend their money they have earned for the past two weeks of chores. On the opposite weekends of these outings they have library Friday. That is today and they are beyond excited! So that's what has been keeping us so busy.
As far as what they've been doing in homeschool we've been busy there too! Serena spent a week or so focusing on math. I've found that she learns and retains better if we have a main focus subject with lighter work on the side. So we did math for a couple weeks and have now moved into grammar. Today she focused on punctuation and capitalization. She has been learning the subject and predicate parts of sentences also. We are working our way up to nouns and all those different parts of a sentence that accompany all this! I wish I knew of a way to lapbook some of this, but at this point I'm drawing a blank! Any tips?
Aleah has been doing typical Pre-K work. Numbers, letters, shapes, etc. Today we re-visited the letter Aa. She did a few worksheets and then a book on the letter A that I got from DLTK printables online.
Anyway, that's pretty much our quick update and view into life for the past month!  Maybe next update I'll have photos and/or videos to accompany the blog update! :)
Until then, Be blessed and have a wonderful day Homeschooling!

Aug 30, 2011

Catching up on my blogging of the school work. We've been working on lapbooks again. The girls are really responding to those. Serena has started lapbooks for the states she has been learning about. Aleah has been working on numbers/letters/colors.

So an update for today. Serena finished her Alabama lapbook. Gotta work on gluing neatly! It's a little messy due to that, but she did a great job. She can recall most of the facts she learned as well. The lapbook also covered parts that her workbook did not so she learned extra things.

Aleah has completed 2 lapbooks since I last blogged. She did the number 1 and today she did a lapbook on colors.

I won't go into detail here on the blog, because I really need to get everything written down in the lesson plan books and grade books, but things are going great!

Yesterday, Monday Aug. 29, 11, was an off day due to the fact that Serena had a midday eye appointment. She will be getting reading glasses, a very low prescription, to help her with smaller font. But we worked on Sunday afternoon to make up for missing yesterday.

August 24, 2011

Day 3 of lapbooks. Today Serena finished up her lapbook on Mammals. She did really well and we'll certainly refer back to it for refreshing her on the subject.  Aleah has completed 3 lapbooks. She did letters Z and K and the number 8.  We'll also continue to use her books as well. The girls loved this addition to school. 

Aleah's Lapbooks

Serena's Lapbook

Week of 8.23 - 8.26

This week we are working on lapbooks. Serena is working on one about mammals as a follow up to her lessons for the last 3 weeks. Aleah is doing smaller lapbooks on various letters and numbers.
This method of learning is going really well. The girls are enjoying the entire process! I'll be posting photos of the finished products at the end of the week!
I am thinking of doing 3 weeks of lessons followed by a week of lapbooking to review the three weeks main studies!

Aug 16, 2011 - Aug 18, 2011

Ok, I'm combining three days work into this blog because time simply got away from me and I didn't get to blog the girls school work.
For the last 3 school days (16, 17, & 18) this is what the girls have done.

Serena
16th
Spelling: at family, ad family all family, an family
Reading Skills: Using clues for story numbering. Color Words. Using Clues to deduce a pictures answers. Making a Poem. Rhyme and Riddles using clues to find the answer. Reading a story and answering the question about the story.
Math: addition, adding tens and ones,

17th
Spelling: Short i sounds, Word Search for short i words,
Animal Science : Kangaroo, Lion, Panda, Tiger, Koala, Birds
Math: Subraction,
Time, Money, and Fractions : Nickel (counting by 5's)

18th
Spelling: Short O sounds, Crossword with Short O words
Animal Science: Eagle, Flamingo, Hummingbird
Math: Subtraction (Finished Subtraction Review Section)
Time, Money, and Fractions: Dime and Quarter (counting by 10's and 25's), Fractions of a Set,

Aleah (On the 17th she had a free day) She hasn't been in the school frame of mind this week, and since she is really just in prep for starting next year I have let her choose how much work. Some days it's a lot, some days not so much.
16th
Colors : Pink
Sorting by Color : Red, Yellow, and Green. This consisted of coloring the images correctly. Cutting and pasting according to the directions.
Letters and Sounds : Yy
Reading Readiness : Same and Different
18th
What starts with Xx and Yy
Matching Lowercase Letters
Matching Upper and Lowercase to each other.

Serena did very well once again with her work. It did take some coaxing on some days to get her in the frame of mind to do her work, but it wasn't a huge task. Doing Science and Social Studies after she does the things she dislikes the most gives her something to look forward to.

Aug 15, 2011

Serena
Spelling
Reading Skills
**Did a lot of these two subjects today. She did very well with her reading skills. Spelling she did well, but really does not like it!

Aleah
Colors : Black & Brown
Patterns: with Movement, Sounds, Matching patterns with objects, shapes, and Ladder Patterns
Pre-Writing
Letter C objects
Social Studies : Over and Under

Aug 12, 2011

The girls had a dental appointment today, so today was an off day.

August 11, 2011

Today we began the day with letting Serena read a book aloud. She read "Are You My Mother?" by Dr. Seuss.

Caterpillars in love while fishes jump
By Serena Powell

Then we had art. This is Serena's drawing in the photo. She wanted to give the original to her daddy, so I'm documenting it here.  She gave it a title and everything.

Aleah is working on her 3rd or 4th drawing now! Here are 3 of her drawings.

Strawberry Shortcake : I'm Glad I love my Friends so  Much!
By Aleah

Strawberry Shortcake : I'm glad I love my friends so much

By Aleah 

I'm Glad I love all my Flower Friends
By Aleah

I'm Glad I love my Bird Friends
By Aleah
Apparently Aleah has "love" on the brain today! 

Then we had lunch.

Serena

Math : Fractions

Telling Time

Short e review

Crossword using short e words

Spent a lot of time on Fractions since this was the most needed area.

Aleah

Pre-Writing

Letter : Xx

Matching Capital Letters

August 10, 2011

Serena
Math - only mirror imaged one number!
Social Studies - US States - Arkansas
Animal Science

Did very well today with taking care to get her numbers and letters correct when writing. Struggled with reading some today.

Aleah
Colors - Orange and Green
Writing Practice - Aa
Math - Biggest/Smallest & Shortest/Tallest Identification
Science - Fast and Slow

Today they both seemed to be a little off in focusing, but did well in spite of that.

August 9, 2011

Typing this up the day after.

Today the girls did GREAT! It was a rough start with trying to get them motivated so I gave them chill time with their library books and just let them have some quiet time. Later we shifted into school mode and they were finally ready to learn!

Serena
Library Book / Quiet Time
Read aloud 2 of her level 2 Click N Kids Books with minimal errors.
Penmanship - Did an excellent job practicing her writing!
Spelling / Phonics - Ending sounds b, d, f, l, r, x
  Short a sounds.
    More spelling reviews.
Social Studies - United States of America studies - Arizona

She did very well today. Spending a lot of time focusing on her problem areas seems to be working. Also letting her work at a pace she chooses keeps her from stressing and her dyslexic problems aren't as pronounced. We still keep the Alphabet chart and Number chart in front of her for referencing at all times so that she doesn't mirror image letters and numbers as often. Being able to refer to something helps her tremendously.

Aleah
Color - Yellow (DID A FANTASTIC JOB on staying within the lines! VERY focused today!)
Shapes - Square - Was very creative with her coloring!
Patterns - with objects
  Today she was instructed to cut out the objects and glue them into the correct pattern sequence. She did 3 pages on her own after she was shown the correct way on 2 problems. She did an excellent job cutting by herself as well as gluing and identifying the patterns on her own!
Letter B - Objects that begin with B

I was very pleased with the effort and attentiveness of the girls today!

Aug 8, 2011

Today was computer classes and reading.

Serena did 30 minutes of online work Click N Kids. This was 2 lessons with phonic sounds, sound families, blended sounds, and sight words.
She then read the Click N Kids books in book 1 compilation. These are 10 short stories focusing on rhyming and sight words.

Aleah worked on Starfall.com. I let her choose what areas she wanted to do work in. She spent more than an hour working on this website going over colors, rhyming, and spelling on her own at her own pace.

Aug 5, 2011

Today we are taking a trip to the library. The girls will choose their reading material for next week and I will be looking for things to add to the lessons and such. Hopefully we'll have great luck at finding what we need!

Aug 4, 2011

Today is a rainy day. We're all moving a little slower, but school must be done! So here goes!

Serena
Pop Quiz - 90
  *Did really well!  Proud of her! She missed only 2 regular questions but she got the bonus question correct bringing her back from an 80 to a 90! Pop Question was on time. She has only spent a few minutes on time so I was really surprised she got it correct!
Penmanship practice
Beginning Sounds Review : f, j, l, m, r, v, y
Math Review - Addition and Subtraction with objects and without
Reading Skills - Story Pictures and Story Order
Social Studies - Continuing with States : Reviewed Alabama. Learned about Alaska.
Science - Animals
Money
Time : Half hour

Aleah
Pop Quiz - A
  *Aleah is a typical 3 yr old. But she did get the concept of what she was doing. Her work wasn't perfect, but again, she's only 3!
Colors - What is Blue?
Shapes - Square
Patterns - Colors and Shapes
Pre-Writing - Circles
Early Math - Big and Small
Early Science - Forward and Backward Identification

August 3, 2011

Girls are really grasping the point system for rewards! Did their morning chores with no arguing today! Great job girls!

Serena

** Keeping a chart with the Alphabet and Numbers in front of her helps her to not mirror image her letters/numbers. She did complain of her eyes focusing funny today.

Math : equal parts of an object review

Time : learning to read time

**Got bored with this WAY too fast. Need to figure out a method she'll keep interest in!

Science : The Animal Kingdom

   Mammals : what makes them mammals

Math : Subraction review

   Subtraction using a number line

Aleah

Science : Learning Up and Down

** Gets bored FAST with the coloring she has to do so she scribbles through it. Not that she can't color nice and neat within the lines, she can, but I believe she would rather move on to a new topic rather than color as the instructions tell her to do.

Aleah's attention only lasted about an hour if that today. Still not bad for a 3 yr. old!

August 2, 2011

Serena
Review - Sums Definition
Math - Addition
Social Studies - State of Alabama
 --Capital, State Bird, State Flower, State Nickname
Sight Words - Flash Cards of 100 words. Score 47%.
 ** Most of words missed she can read in a sentence. Individual words seem to be a problem.


Aleah
Left to Right - Tracing line shapes from left to right
Math - Big and Small identify
Science - Weather - snowy, sunny, rainy. Identify and connect correct pictures to word/image
Flash Cards - Colors, Shapes, and Numbers
**Much better work today. Focused well. Writing her name is going great!

Also did Music Time

August 1, 2011 - First day of school for 2011-2012 School Year

Starting today with reviewing old topics. Also implementing the new chore and good behavior reward system. The girls are excited about the new year.

Serena
Did a review on penmanship.
Reading directions aloud.
Filling in the missing letter of a word
Spelling
Beginning sounds : b, c, d, g, h, n, p, s
Addition
Oral/Visual Review : Letters and short words


Aleah
Color Red - color
What is a Circle - trace and color
Circle's are Different sizes - trace and color
Finding and Completing Patterns
Pre-Writing Shapes
Letter A
Art
Following Directions
Taking Turns

Aleah practicing writing.

Serena doing a great job reading!

Circles!

Showing off her work! 3 yrs old.

So proud of my baby and how her reading has improved!

Working hard!

Calendar, chore point chart, and art display

Reading math directions.

My girls!

Letter A and coloring!

Math Review - Addition