Break's Over
Today we started school again. That's right, the day after New Year's. I'm a cruel task master. Since it is the beginning of a new month, I made our calendar (poster board, marker and a yard stick for strait lines is all you need) and let them color and draw on it. They then wrote birthday cards for all the people in our families who have birthdays in January. I have Isabel making a book for Sylvia. She is coloring pictures that she chooses from coloring books (we have too many). She cuts the pictures out, glues them onto paper and puts them in a sheet protector and into a folder. Kind of busy work, but she loves it and it is fun for her to think that she is making it for her sister.
Next they wrote in their journals. For Luke I sometimes write the first sentence of a story or a question and let him finish it or answer it, but most of the time he already has his own story in mind that he wants to write about. In Isabel's journal I write the ending of a word, then she lists all of the words she can think of that end in, for example, "ink" or "ad."
They had Spelling (unscrambling words) and finished their Math worksheets, we then watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy about Spiders. Did you know that a Daddy Long Leg Spider is not really a spider? I am Googling it right now but can't quite figure out what they are if they are not spiders.
So after we had lunch at a friend's house, we came back to have reading time. Isabel reads Bob Books to me and is doing so well! Can I just say that I LOVE Bob Books. Forget Dick and Jane. Bob Books make more sense by working on a consistent vowel sound in each book, while Dick and Jane just say "Oh, oh look" too much. Luke read his Ranger Rick magazine because he has finished his books from the library. Today I looked up books for boys and found this website. So on our library's website I requested some of the books from the list. Something else that is great for boys (girls too, I guess I used to read them) are Choose Your Own Adventure books. Last Saturday at the library we discovered a whole section of them. Luke loved to read and re-read them making different choices.