Day 36

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Cursive and Grammar Lesson 18 from Primary Language Lessons for Madelyn
  
• Spelling test on long-e and short-e for Catherine & Chloe

• Reading -
  

1. Madelyn - Allen Say author study. Today she read Grandfather's Journey and completed a story map.
2. C & C - Kevin Henkes author study. Catherine read Kitten's First Full Moon. Chloe read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Both completed a story map as well.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine
  

Day 35

Friday's Activities:

• Piano practice

• Singapore Math

• Volunteer at Food Bank - We labeled cans of red chile enchilada sauce this week.
  

• Arts & Crafts class at community center
  

Day 34

Today's Activity: We took a field trip to Albuquerque's Recycling Facility. We got a great tour by an intern from Keep Albuquerque Beautiful! and the facility supervisor Frank. Albuquerque started recycling in 1993 and the facility hasn't received much updating since then. The recycling that comes in is hand-sorted by men and women from a local homeless shelter, who are paid minimum wage for their efforts. The different materials are then baled, much like hay, and sold to the highest bidder. The supervisor boasted that the facility generated $160K last month alone. Who knew recycling could be such a profitable enterprise?

Plastic jugs awaiting pickup. These are shipped to the east coast to be turned into carpet fiber.Newspaper recycling is done in a closed loop. It only takes three weeks for a newspaper to make it back to the recycling facility after traveling through the paper processing plant, the printing press, and the coffee table.
Shredded paper brings higher bidders than newsprint or cardboard so it's baled separately.
A week or two of recycling in Albuquerque.
The mounds of crushed glass were everyone's favorite. The glass was very smooth and a second pile was crushed so fine, it was almost like sand.
Always something to do! There's a huge amount of glass yet to be recycled.

Day 33

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Reading - We started an inquiry into authors today. We will be exploring who and what authors write about. We started with Patricia Polacco. We read My Ol' Man and The Keeping Quilt and then completed a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two texts. Catherine and Chloe also insisted on continuing their Puppy Place books, so each read a chapter to me.

• Social Studies - I feel like most of what we do falls into some strand of the social studies standards. Today, we looked at two websites specifically for their social studies content. Catherine and Chloe read about our nation's presidents on http://millercenter.org/president. Madelyn took some geography quizzes on the National Geographic for Kids website.
  

Day 32

Tuesday's Activities:

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine. We looked up Sri Lanka on the map while reading about the Buddhist's Festival of the Tooth.

• Reading -

1. Madelyn finished Thimble Summer.
2. Catherine and Chloe each read me a chapter from their Puppy Place books.

• Writing - The girls finished their friendly letters sharing their learning from our inquiry into what makes a book great. I'm really proud of them for their thoughtful reflection.

Chloe's letter:

Catherine's letter:

Madelyn's letter (with an upside-down page 2):

• Grammar lessons 16 & 17 for Madelyn. Catherine and Chloe did a word hunt for short-e and long-e words from various magazines and books.

• Singapore Math

• Science field trip to the zoo. We had so much fun last week, we decided to go again this week. Chloe took some great pictures with my camera. The girls are especially interested in the Cat Walk these days.

• Soccer practice for Catherine. Everyone else gets to enjoy some exercise on the playset at the park.
  

Day 31

Today's Activities:

• Explora classes - Madelyn explored optical illusions and Catherine & Chloe played with wheels.

• Singapore Math

• Reading -
  

1. Madelyn read Chapter 9 of Thimble Summer. She organized her thoughts for her inquiry findings on Great Books. She started her letter to Mark and I sharing these thoughts.
2. Catherine & Chloe each read a chapter from their Puppy Place books with me. They completed a sandwich organizer to share their thoughts on Great Books.

• Dance Class for Catherine & Chloe
  

Day 30

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. Madelyn - Chapter 8 of Thimble Summer.
2. C & C - Both girls chose a book from the Puppy Place series to read until we wrap up our Great Books inquiry. Catherine read a chapter from Buddy and Chloe read a chapter from Snowball.
   

• Singapore Math

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Handwriting

• Piano practice
  

Day 29

Today's Activities:

• Bowling - We had a multi-disciplinary lesson at the bowling alley today. We provided an economics lesson by arriving at 9 a.m. to take advantage of the $1/game deal. (NM State Benchmark IV-A). We did P.E. while bowling. And we did a lot of math. We made combinations of 10 over and over again. We explained to Madelyn how scoring for strikes and spares works. It was a good mental math workout.

• Reading -

1. Madelyn read Chapter 7 from Thimble Summer. She relates so much to the main character.

• Word sort of long-e/short-e words for Catherine & Chloe

• Singapore Math for Catherine & Chloe

• Cursive for Madelyn

• Ballet lesson with Ms. Tina for Madelyn

• Science - We had an unplanned lesson in simple machines today. Our well needed some maintenance and repair. The kids got to watch the pulleys and lever work together to pull up our 200 ft. well and put it all back together again.

Day 28

Wednesday's Activities:

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Piano practice
  

Day 27

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. Madelyn - Read Chapter 6 of Thimble Summer. Discussion: Feelings of frustration and embarrassment and how to handle them.
2. C & C - Read library books for last time.

• Singapore Math - I'm trying to use the base-10 blocks more with Catherine and Chloe. They have not had a lot of exposure to subtraction and the blocks seem to help tremendously. Madelyn took another test.

• Grammar lessons 14 & 15

• Field trip to zoo - We observed a spotted leopard stalking its neighbor, a black panther. We also observed the cheetahs and a very large hyena. The girls looked like the paparazzi taking pictures of all the animals.

• Visit to Family School - C & C exchanged valentines with their old class and some of Madelyn's classmates joined us at the park for a playdate.
  

Day 26

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. ME - Chapter 5 of Thimble Summer. Discussion: Do you relate more to Garnet or Citronella?
2. C & C - The girls picked a brother and read him a library book.

• Singapore Math

• Explora Class - Madelyn explored string vibration and Catherine and Chloe observed chemical changes.

• Arts & Crafts Class at Community Center

• C & C Ballet Class
  

Day 25

Friday's Activities:

We've decided to make Friday into 'Field Trip Friday'. We want a less structured day to explore new things or reinforce what we're learning.

• Volunteer at Roadrunner Food Bank. This was our second time volunteering. Not only is it a great social studies lesson but we also did some serious counting and scientific exploration of decomposition. We sorted through more than 3000 oranges that had been sitting in the warehouse for three weeks. The girls were good sports.

• Arts & Crafts at Community Center

Other News: Even when they're not being 'required' to learn, our girls are studying hard. Madelyn is working on researching cheetahs so she can write her own book. Catherine and Chloe are the research assistants.

Day 24

Thursday's Activities:

• Coop Valentine's Day Party: We had a great time playing with other homeschooled children at Monkey Mania.
  

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine

• Reading -

1. C & C - Finish Sarah Noble.
2. Madelyn - Chapter 4 of Thimble Summer.

• Spelling test on long-a words for C & C. Grammar lessons 11 & 12.

• Singapore Math

• Ballet for Madelyn
  

Day 23

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. ME - Read Chapter 3 of Thimble Summer.
2. C & C - Read Chapter 10 of Sarah Noble. The girls decided that Sarah reminds them more of Madelyn than themselves.
   

• Read aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Singapore Math

• Mandarin Lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Writing - We finally finished writing the text for The Grey Lady and The Strawberry Snatcher. We will share it with Dad tonight.

• Piano Lessons with Ms. Linda
  

Day 22

Today's Activities:

• Reading

1. ME - Chapter 2 of Thimble Summer.
2. C & C - Read Chapters 8 & 9 of Sarah Noble.

• Singapore Math

• Grammar - Madelyn did Lessons 9 & 10 in Primary Language Lessons. C & C completed and recorded a word sort focusing on long-a words from Words Their Way.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine
  

• Journal Writing

• Library - This also doubles as our science lesson because our daughters love non-fiction books about animals. We've been reading about flamingos, horses, and cheetahs this afternoon.
  

Day 21

Monday's Activities:

• Reading -

1. ME - Read Chapter 1 of Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.

• Singapore Math

• Explora Class - Madelyn learned about sound and Chloe learned about rocks. Catherine stayed home sick.

• Arts & Crafts Class at Community Center
  

• Ballet class for Chloe
  

Day 20

Friday's Activities:

• SS/Art - We read Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith. We then made fortune cookies out of cupcake liners and paper lanterns.

• Writing - We continued our shared writing of the The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher by Molly Bang that we started in Week 1. We should finish in one more sitting. The girls are getting better at adding descriptive words to their pages.

• Science - We repeated Madelyn's density inquiry from Explora. This time we gave names to the liquids rather than just colors. Mark and Madelyn also made a list of the materials from least dense to most dense based on their observations.

• Arts & Crafts at Community Center
  

Day 19

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. ME - Finish Homesick. Complete Character Map of Jean based on Chapter 7.
2. C & C - Read Chapters 6&7 in Sarah Noble. Complete 'filmstrip sequencing' to show actions from chapter.

• Grammar/Spelling

1. ME - Completed Lessons 7 & 8 in Primary Language Lessons.
2. C & C - Spelling sort. Focus is long-a blends.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine

• Singapore Math - Madelyn did an amazing job on her cumulative test, especially since she wasn't learning from this program for the first half of the year.

Thought for the day: I am really enjoying our homeschool experience. The primary challenge I face is a lack of motivation to get started in the morning. The girls would much rather play and make me feel like I'm asking a great favor of them to get started. They have started dressing earlier, which I hope is a step in the right direction.

Day 18

It's hard to be motivated when there's snow all around and record cold temperatures. Trying to stay warm and experiencing 'sparkly' snow for the first time has taken priority in our house. We did, however, manage to squeeze in a little bit of learning.

Today's Activities:

• Read Aloud of Caldecott books Noah's Ark by Peter Spier, Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs, Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann and Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully. This is a random assortment of books but we enjoyed them all.

• Singapore Math

• Piano Lessons with Ms. Linda

• Looked up snow facts online -- The largest snowflake was measured at 15" in Montana.

Day 17

Today's Activities:

• Reading -

1. ME - Finish Chapter 5 & read Chapter 6. Complete 'Write & Draw' about setting.
2. C&C - Read Chapter 5 and completed 'Write & Draw' about setting.

• Grammar - Madelyn completed Lessons 5 & 6 from Primary Language Lessons. Catherine & Chloe took a spelling test on the short-a and long-a words they've been studying.

• Singapore Math

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Rotations - 15 minutes each on piano, handwriting and journal.

The children are all outside enjoying the snow. It was a snow day for the public schools but we managed to get a full day of learning in, as well as, some play. They'll thank me in May, I'm sure!