March 10th 2010
Wednesday Park Day
We took a snack break in one of the other rooms after Maggie and Zoë collided and Zoë's nose started bleeding all over the place. It wasn't really a bad run in, Zoë just has a sensitive nose like her Daddy. Enzo was all over the place, running through any open door that he saw. He did pause to try to hug Maggie's little sister, Zeland, who is two. She wasn't in to having a hug though so Enzo moved on to Naomi's baby brother, who was happy to have the attention.
Abby @ 6 years, 2 months, 26 days
Zoë @ 6 years, 2 months, 26 days
Enzo @ 1 year, 5 months, 16 days
School posted by Laura at 4:03 PM |
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February 22nd 2010
School Vacation Week?
Abby @ 6 years, 2 months, 7 days
Zoë @ 6 years, 2 months, 7 days
Enzo @ 1 year, 4 months, 28 days
School posted by Laura at 1:19 PM |
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February 24, 2010 08:57:46 AM posted by Leeann
:P
January 20th 2010
Timeline
We read a bit about Alice Cogswell and about Helen Keller today and kept refering to the timeline, adding in things like when Grampy, Nonna, and Grandma Cindy were born - to give some reference. We'll keep working on it. I guess it's kind of an abstract concept yet for them.
Abby @ 6 years, 1 month, 5 days
Zoë @ 6 years, 1 month, 5 days
Enzo @ 1 year, 3 months, 26 days
School posted by Laura at 6:32 PM |
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January 18th 2010
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Abby @ 6 years, 1 month, 3 days
Zoë @ 6 years, 1 month, 3 days
Enzo @ 1 year, 3 months, 24 days
School posted by Laura at 1:44 PM |
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November 27th 2009
Native American Unit Study
We looked on territory maps and current day maps to see which states the different tribes resided in. With all of the different tribes in each territory we read and learned about how they differed and were similar to each other. We met a man from the blackfeet tribe, made canoes and bear claw necklaces and learned about things like cradleboards and headresses. We read stories of some of the famous Native Americans such as Sacajawea, Pocahontus, and Squanto. The girls also watched the Pocahontus movie and saw how things differed from the actual life of Pocahontus. Zoë and Abby are a bit bummed that our unit on the Native Americans is over, they really enjoyed this one. We're still discussing to figure out what unit we're going to begin now.
Abby @ 5 years, 11 months, 12 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 11 months, 12 days
Enzo @ 1 year, 2 months, 3 days
School posted by Laura at 11:15 AM |
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September 20th 2009
Naysayers
After asking what grade the girls were in and me casually saying that we're homeschooling she just laid into me. It was awful. I tried twice to just have her drop it. First just saying, "well this is our choice" and after going around a bit with her saying, "let's just stop the conversation because you're obviously set in your opinion and I'm obviously set with my decision to home-school" But NO, this woman was crazy asking me how I socialize them (and telling me that weekly homeschooling groups weren't good enough because "those people are of the same mind" or something like that) and when I told her I was myself college educated in early childhood education she confronted me on WHERE I went to college!
I can't even begin to get into every outrageous thing this woman laid into me with but she had the audacity to come right out and say to me that I was depriving my children and doing wrong by them and that they weren't going to come out ahead and they weren't going to have any skills to be on their own in life!
I'm sorry, but there have been plenty of very well rounded people in history who were home-schooled, as well as those that went through public school so really I feel it's more of a to-each-their-own sort of thing. I understand that people have their opinions on things and specifically the public vs. home-school front, but it's just not right for either side to behave that way. I don't mind people who have honest to goodness questions out of curiosity to ask me. However if you feel the need to tell me that I'm doing a disservice to my children and why... just don't.
Abby @ 5 years, 9 months, 5 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 9 months, 5 days
Enzo @ 11 months, 26 days
School posted by Laura at 9:00 AM |
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September 17th 2009
Home Learners Picnic
Zoë and Abby played a lot with Christian, who is Timothea's son, as well as a little girl named Isabella, who is their age. They had a great time and just ran and played for about two hours. Enzo had a good time too, walking through the grass and asking to eat everything he saw any of us having. I finally pulled all of the kids away to the car, but we'll hopefully see a lot of the people who were there again in town. I found out that they meet at a nearby park every Wednesday so it'll hopefully be a nice outlet.
Abby @ 5 years, 9 months, 2 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 9 months, 2 days
Enzo @ 11 months, 23 days
School posted by Laura at 3:41 PM |
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September 10th 2009
Homeschool Celebration at Short Sands Beach
Chris played with the girls on the playground while I introduced myself to some of the homeschooling parents that were there. Then Enzo and I joined the others on the playground, where Zoë and Abby were playing with Maya. If you remember, we first met Maya and her mom Anya at a playground in Portsmouth. I think the girls were happy to have seen someone there that they know. Enzo was having a great time scooting his entire body through the soft sand and even going down a slide or two.
Abby @ 5 years, 8 months, 26 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 8 months, 26 days
Enzo @ 11 months, 16 days
School posted by Laura at 1:31 PM |
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September 4th 2009
First Week of School
Zoë's not a big fan of journaling, but I think the more writing practice we have (we do that three times a week) the more she'll get comfortable with it. She does really like her time to sit with me and read-aloud though. This is great since she tends to be timid and feels that Abby's a better reader than her. She does well sounding out the words and really has the timing of the reading down. As in, pausing at commas and stopping at periods.
Abby also enjoys reading aloud and zooms through the words and figures pretty much all of them out. Though the zooming is what we're working on. Having her slow down and pause and stop where she should. While I was out today I left Chris the instructions of what we were doing for math so that he could do it with them and both girls were so excited to tell me about using the counting cubes and everything else they did with Dad.
I'm still trying to fine tune the schedule, what with outside activities not always being at the same time or day each week, but things are starting to come together. The portfolio's are all put together, with subject dividers (thanks Grandma Cindy) and weekly work logs (for all of the things we do that don't have something to physically go in the portfolio). I have my weekly planners printed and a timed schedule to fill in - once I get it all worked out. Things are coming together and next week we have our first homeschool group get together.
Abby @ 5 years, 8 months, 20 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 8 months, 20 days
Enzo @ 11 months, 10 days
School posted by Laura at 6:11 PM |
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January 16th 2009
School Week Wrap Up
Abby @ 5 years, 1 month, 1 day
Zoë @ 5 years, 1 month, 1 day
Enzo @ 3 months, 22 days
School posted by Laura at 11:21 AM |
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Comments:
January 17, 2009 02:27:35 PM posted by Karen Grandpre
I cannot begin to tell you what a great job you are doing.
The girls are so much like you were when you their age.
They are darling to fallow along with in these puzzels.
LOVE~GG~K
December 26th 2008
School Week Wrap Up
We reviewed beginning sounds, which the girls both zoomed through with no problems. They had a pretty easy time with all of the review and Zoë actually said to me, "You're going to have to give me harder work than this, this is all easy." We also reviewed the parts of a clock and telling time on the hour. And finally, we did some self-awareness activities.
It was a lessened "work" week what with Nonna here and the holiday and all. Doing things like baking, playing sorry, uno, and other games are all good fun ways to learn some lessons too though.
Abby @ 5 years, 11 days
Zoë @ 5 years, 11 days
Enzo @ 3 months, 2 days
School posted by Laura at 7:11 AM |
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Comments:
January 11, 2009 01:25:41 PM posted by Nonna
We certainly had fun with Funky Monkey...with Abby and Zoe being the TOP Banana. How did you girls do that. Uno forget...I don't think I won one game between Zoe, Abby and Chris..but I did win Sorry!!
September 26th 2008
School Week Wrap Up
For journals both of the girls journaled about fish and they both spelled their titles the same way 'Fishss' for fishes. Not a lot of sentence writing today, I guess it's just Monday.
Tuesday: Abby and Zoë got to do yoga in the pool today. We did the posture sequence, altering a bit on a couple of poses due to the water level. After the yoga we of course did swimming, swimming, swimming and then lay on the nice hot deck.
For journals Zoë wrote about the yoga in the pool, along with a great picture. She left us out of the pool though, saying that the picture was of before we got in it. Abby journaled about pineapples and drew a really good picture of one, complete with the 'eyes' that we have to cut out.
Wednesday: Had a baby brother! We will take a couple of weeks 'school vacation' as transitions are made. Though I did suggest to Chris that he give the girls some paper to do a journal while I was still in the hospital and Abby did a cute journal with a picture of me in the room, with a good depiction of the room layout, and me in the bed with the baby.
Abby @ 4 years, 9 months, 11 days
Zoë @ 4 years, 9 months, 11 days
Enzo @ 2 days
School posted by Laura at 6:02 AM |
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September 19th 2008
School Week Wrap Up
Here's what we've done for the week:
Monday: We talked about graphs and did a bar graph, graphing the clothes the girls have here. I set the graph up with the numbers on the side and the articles of clothing along the bottom, the girls and I went and recorded the amounts from their drawers, and then we sat down to do the graph. Abby and Zoë took turns filling in the bar for the clothing and then at the end I asked some questions. They saw by looking at the graph that what they have the most of is undies at 16 pair and they have the least of pants (capri's) at 2 pair. We did some other comparing that was fun as well.
Later on we played word bingo. I had saved a rectangle of cardboard from the outfit Irene had given us and today used it to make four bingo cards, each with nine boxes. Together the girls and I brainstormed words that started or ended with the letter combos of sh or ch. From that list the girls randomly chose nine of the words to fill in each bingo card. The first game we did a 'black-out' where they had to get the whole card filled in to call bingo, Zoë won this one. The next round we did an 'x' and Abby was the first to make an x across her board. (we're using shells as the markers)
For Yoga today we did the 'just for fun' sequence. At Journal time Abby journaled about the plants we saw at Manu's on the way back from the beach, and Zoë journaled about the beach itself, which ended up with two submarines in her picture and it turning into a story about one being nice and the other being mean.
Tuesday: Unfortunately we didn't get any school stuff done today, which the girls reminded me of. With my dentist appointment this morning, shopping in the afternoon, and then dinner out, the day got away from us.
Wednesday: We played three rounds of our word bingo this morning. First Abby got to be the caller, while Zoë and I filled in our cards, Zoë won with getting her x first. There were some words on the list that I had to help Abby with, but she did really well at sounding the majority of them out herself. Next Zoë was the caller and she did really well sounding out the words too. This time we were doing 'four corners' and I got mine filled in first. Every time I'd take a shell off my card and read the word for her to check she'd say "No, I didn't call that word". Luckily I had them put marks by the word when they called it so we'd remember. Next I was the caller and Zoë won this game as well. Abby was bummed that we weren't playing another round as she wanted a chance to win, but with a little reminding she stopped pouting and said "Good game Zoë." After this the girls really wanted me to do a 'math story' with the shells so I made one up about a guy going to buy a bassinet and which one was the best for him to get and how it wasn't necessarily the one with all the bells and whistles and this and that and they helped decide which one he could and should get.
For Journals Abby journaled about coloring and Zoë journaled about nap time in her room here. Abby wrote "Culren" at the top for her title and then "Claons" below her picture of the clown paper she'd colored. Zoë wrote "Nap Tim" for her title and then also wrote it again as 'nap tiem mi room' above her picture of their room. She also labeled the door, her bed, and Abby's bed in her picture.
Thursday: The first thing we did today was talk about community workers. We talked about what a community is and about the people who help in our community. Then I had a pencil 'person' come up onto the table and give hints about what they do for the community and the girls guessed who the person was. Also each of the girls got a turn to pick someone in the community and give us hints.
We did some geography stuff afterwards. I found some maps for kids online and showed the girls the map of the whole U.S. and then the map of some different states and I also found a map of just Portsmouth to compare. They're still having some trouble getting the different state, same country and that cities are not states, etc. etc. so we'll do some more with that. While we were doing this Abby asked if we could do Brazil and I reminded her that Brazil was not a state in the U.S. but a whole separate country and we talked about that a little. With nothing tangible in front of them, they both kind of got tired of just looking at maps on the computer so I'll have to make the next mapping lesson a bit more exciting.
For journals today both of the girls had similar content. Zoë wrote about snow white and for her title wrote 'prinsus snow wyt casyl' (Princess snow white castle) and then drew quite the picture of snow white. She also wrote a really long sentence, "with a period at the end, mom!", but I think she lost concentration after "the prynsus snow wyt casyl wow" as then she just began writing numbers and "love you now" over and over. Abby's was about a barbie princess that she's seen commercials for. Her title was 'BoRBe cAcuL' (barbie castle) and then next to her picture of a barbie princess she labeled 'PRiNSuS' with an arrow pointing to the picture. She wrote a sentence too, "This BaRbE is Net oN teve" (This barbie is neat on tv)
Yoga today was the 'before bed' sequence, as we ended up going out this morning at the designated 'yoga time' and we had some time before bed. I left off the 'magic carpet ride' at the end and I guess maybe I should have done it because it took the girls a while to get to sleep.
Friday: To do more with mapping I drew an outline of our whole house (in Portsmouth) and then we talked about the different floors of the house and then the different rooms in each floor. Abby and Zoë told me the things that were in each room and where they were at and we did this for each level of the house. Afterwards we talked about how the whole house was like the whole United States and each different level of the house was like a different state and the different rooms on each floor were different cities in each state. We gave the levels of the house states and cities and the girls helped choose which whould be what. We had the basement be Pennsylvania, with the washer/dryer area being Avella and the back workbench area being Pittsburg. The first floor was Massachusetts with the kitchen being Quincy, the little coat area being Scituate, and the living room being Boston. The second floor was New Hampshire with the bathroom being Dover, Abby and Zoë's room was Portsmouth, Our room was Derry and the closet room was Newington. The top floor was New Jersey with one room being Annandale and the other being Clinton, yeah I know, same place but the girls don't know that. : )
Today Abby journaled about our house in Portsmouth with her title being 'HAAos and Prsins' (house and persons) She also wrote 'This HAaos is FuN' (this house is fun) Zoë journaled about Pica Pau (Portuguese for Woody Woodpecker) with her title being 'Pecu Paw' and the sentence she wrote was 'the pecu paw is FuN' and she also added St with a period at the end just to show me which two letters make the ssst sound.
Abby @ 4 years, 9 months, 4 days
Zoë @ 4 years, 9 months, 4 days
Enzo expected in 5 days
School posted by Laura at 3:39 AM |
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Comments:
September 23, 2008 05:54:08 PM posted by Nonna
My goodness!! Wow!! So much you are doing and learning!! Whew!!
May 15th 2008
Honeybee
With Zoë and Abby being so preoccupied with bees lately, I thought some projects round the idea would be a good idea. I wrote out a poem for it (from a book we got from the library) on a big piece of paper and drew pictures around it. First we just worked on reading the poem yesterday, then today we did a little project. I had drawn black and white pictures of a honeybee for each of the girls and then today we thought of words that rhymed with "bee". Each time one of the girls thought of a word, we figured out how to spell it and then they got to write that word in one of the stripes, or wings, of the bee. Here's the Poem:
The Honeybee
I can see
A honeybee
Go in and out
of that old tree.
I can see
A honeybee
Fly up and down
my garden's sea.
I can see
A honeybee
Jump rose to rose
so fast and free.
Then I see
That honeybee
rest for a while
right next to me.
The words that Abby thought of to rhyme were: three, key, me, and pea. Zoë thought of: honey, tree, sea, and we. We thought of "free" together. After we did the rhyming project, I read the poem and then we counted how many of the words we thought of were in the poem and how many weren't.
Abby @ 4 years, 5 months
Zoë @ 4 years, 5 months
Enzo expected in 4 months, 9 days
School posted by Laura at 11:13 AM |
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