Day 71

It's Field Trip Friday again! We headed out early this morning to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. We were looking to learn more about Native American art, food, dance and presence in New Mexico.

I love the quotes we've found on our outings the last two weeks.
We got lucky and made our visit during American Indian Week which meant we got to see this Zuni dancer along with his wife, who is a Native American flautist and singer.
Madelyn and Chloe joined the circle dance. Madelyn is holding the dancer's hand and Chloe is on the left.
I've been thinking since we left about how children learn about culture. I work hard to choose books that I feel are authentic, accurate portrayals of our learning objective, in this case, Native Americans in New Mexico. We went to the museum today to see and feel culture (art, food, religion, history, etc.) But it wasn't until Madelyn was holding hands with that Zuni dancer did she 'get it'. She needed a person to relate to, to serve as an example, to make it real and give her experiences context. I'm so thankful to not only be able to give our children these experiences but also to share them together as a family so that we all grow and learn.

Oh, and the girls took their arts and crafts class today too!

Day 70

Thursday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Grammar - Lessons 36 & 37 from Primary Language Lessons for Madelyn.
  

• Spelling - Catherine and Chloe took their weekly spelling test.

• Read aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Reading/Social Studies - Read Coyote and the Sky: How the Sun, Moon, and Stars Began by Emmett Garcia.
  

Day 69

Wednesday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Spelling - Catherine and Chloe wrote sentences for their spelling words.
  

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Social studies - Volunteering at the food bank. This week we labelled boxes for seniors. We labelled close to 500 in our hour and a half.

• Piano lessons with Ms. Linda
  

Day 68

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Reading/Social Studies - Read a portion of And It is Still That Way by Byrd Baylor.
  

• Grammar - Lessons 34 & 35 in Primary Language Lessons for Madelyn. She also did some cursive and even completed today's dictation in cursive. It was beautiful!

• Spelling for C & C - Pretest and cards with flair

• Piano practice

• CROCHET!!! Madelyn was taught how to crochet last night by a crafty grandma at C & C's dance class. Now all three girls want to do nothing but chain.
  

Day 67

Monday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Reading/Social Studies - Read Coyote Tales by William Morgan.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Piano practice

• Science classes at Explora - Catherine & Chloe learned about plants. Madelyn tested a variety of foods for vitamin C, fat, protein and carbohydrates.

• Arts & Crafts at the community center

• Ballet lesson for Catherine & Chloe
  

Day 66

It's FIELD TRIP FRIDAY! Hooray! We've been so busy the last couple of weeks, okay, month, that we haven't taken a field trip on Friday. Well, we're back on track.

Today we headed to Petroglyph National Monument to explore signs/characters made by Native Americans hundreds of years ago. We got a late start but we had a lot of fun trekking through the sand in search of cryptic characters among the thousands of volcanic rocks. After missing the first one on the map, we hit our stride and found the remaining petroglyphs with not much trouble. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of graffiti/replicas on the trail we took so it was hard to know what was authentic and what was not.

Our petroglyph scavengers at the turtle looking petroglyph. It's to the left of Mark in the photo but difficult to see.
A bird and man petroglyph
Our soon-to-be Junior Rangers. The girls are busy working on their workbooks now!

Day 65

Thursday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Grammar (Madelyn) - Lessons 33 & 34 in Primary Language Lessons. Also cursive practice.

• Spelling - Catherine and Chloe took a spelling test. The new strategies seem to work better for Chloe than Catherine at the moment. Also journal time.
  

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Reading/SS - Read Arrow to the Sun by Gerald McDermott. The girls saw the parallel story of Jesus in this book.
  

Day 64

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Cursive practice for Madelyn and spelling (as described yesterday) for Catherine & Chloe.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Social Studies/Reading - We are focusing on the Native American history, culture and influence on New Mexico first. We read some history and Earth Daughter: Alicia of Acoma Pueblo by George Ancona.

• Reading - We are starting family independent, silent, pleasure reading time. Everyone will cozy up with a book for at least 20 minutes.

• Science - We talked more about our inquiry into vegetable gardening. Madelyn is going to investigate watering techniques by comparing the trench method with a direct watering method. Catherine is going to investigate soil quality and it's impact on growth. Chloe is going to investigate whether raised beds offer any benefit to growth and crop quality or not. I can't wait to get started!

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Piano lesson with Ms. Linda
  

Day 63

Tuesday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Writing - Edited and published autobiographical event stories. I will post these later.

• Grammar - Madelyn completed Lessons 29-32 in Primary Language Lessons. She also practiced cursive.

• Spelling - I'm trying a new spelling program with Catherine & Chloe thanks to what I learned at the Homeschool Convention last week. We are studying high frequency words ten at a time. On Monday, we'll do the pretest. Tuesday, we write the words on cards with flair. Wednesday, the girls write a sentence using the word in context. Thursday is the post-test.

• Social Studies/Reading - We are going to close out our year with a study of the state of New Mexico. We employed our non-fiction reading strategies (Thank you, Family School) to read from Library of the States: New Mexico. We also read together The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor.

• Science - We took a field trip to the Botanical Garden to see what was blooming. We found hydrangea (not native nor outdoors) which were beautiful. We also enjoyed the colorful display of bulbs throughout the park.
  

• PE - Catherine had soccer practice and everyone else enjoyed time at the park.

Day 62

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Mandarin practice

• Explora Classes - Madelyn observed insects under a microscope and discovered symmetry. Catherine & Chloe observed fruits and vegetables and discovered what great stamps they make.

• Arts & Crafts at the community center

• Reading -

1. Madelyn - Biography of E.B. White. I always get so inspired by these biographies, however my sweet Madelyn still has no interest in being a writer. Her plan is to be a veterinarian (who I get to train to communicate).

• Piano practice
  

Day 61

Today's Activities:

• Writing - The summary activity for our author study is writing an autobiographical event. We were most inspired by the books that related to the author and/or their families. Each girl spent time today brainstorming their event and writing a draft. Next we will revise and publish. For our last end-of-unit writing, I guided the girls through the completion of a graphic organizer to get their thoughts in line. Catherine and Chloe dictated their letter to me and then they copied what I wrote. This time, I allowed them to do everything for the pre-writing and first draft. I have to always remind myself that the girls are just in kindergarten. They really push themselves and are too cute, if I say so myself.

Chloe's event:

Catherine's event:

Madelyn's event is tucked away on her hard drive.

• Singapore Math

• Piano practice and music discussion with Dad

• Family Inquiry - Our next family inquiry relates to our vegetable garden. More later...

• Ballet lesson for Madelyn
  

Day 60

Wednesday's Activities:

• Reading

1. Madelyn- Chapters 19-21 of The Trumpet of the Swan. What a wonderful story! Madelyn decided this was her favorite E.B. White book.

• Singapore Math

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Library time - All the girls checked out non-fiction books. We spent the afternoon reading about wolves, coyotes, cheetahs, jaguars and chihuahuas.

• Piano lessons with Ms. Linda

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.
  

Day 59

Today's Activities:

• Reading

1. Madelyn - Chapters 17 & 18 of The Trumpet of the Swan. We talked about decision-making.
2. Catherine & Chloe - Read Children's Authors: Tomie de Paola by Mae Woods. We learned about Tomie's life and checked out his website. Catherine's favorite book from the author study was Grunt and Chloe's was Big Anthony and the Magic Ring.

• Singapore Math

• Madelyn - Cursive and Lessons 26-28 in Primary Language Lessons. I really want to use this book more with her.

• C & C - Spelling with high frequency words. I really need to find a spelling program I like for them!
  

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Field trip to the Zoo: We saw a wolf today for the first time in a very long time. Seth had expert animal spotting eyes today.

• Soccer Practice for Catherine and park PE for everyone else!
  

Day 58

Today's Activities:

• Reading

1. Madelyn - Read Chapters 15 & 16 in The Trumpet of the Swan. We talked about what we'd do for money.
2. Catherine & Chloe - We read Tom by Tomie de Paola. I love his autobiographical books.

• Singapore Math

• Explora Science Classes

• Arts & Crafts at the community center

• Ballet lessons for Catherine & Chloe
  

Day 57

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math
  

• Volunteer at food bank - Today we did the most undesirable job of sorting through rotting onions. We love the food bank and the sense of 'lending a hand' we get from the work. We were however pretty grossed out by the onions and the fact that we were asked to save all those that were 50% bad or less. The girls really had a tough time putting molding onions in the 'keep' pile. Today was such a change from the last few visits when we sorted and labeled canned goods. Anything with a dent was tossed for the sake of the food bank's liability. The litigious society that we live in really misses the mark sometimes. The purpose of a food bank is to help those in need and the fact that our food bank has to worry as much about getting out the food as they do about being sued is just plain wrong.

• Arts and Crafts for the girls at the community center

Bonus lessons: Mark brought out his trumpet to show Madelyn what reveille and taps sound like since she read about them in her book. Also, Catherine & Chloe learned to ride two-wheelers today. It was no trouble as they were more than ready! Great PE on the cul de sac.

Day 56

Thursday's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Reading
  

1. Madelyn - Chapters 13 & 14 of The Trumpet of the Swan. We're ready for a trip to Boston after reading about the Swan boat rides and the Ritz Carlton.
2. Catherine & Chloe - Read Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie de Paola. Such a touching book about a grandfather recovering from a stroke.

• Ballet lesson for Madelyn
  

Day 55

Today's Activities:

• Singapore Math

• Reading

1. Madelyn - Read Chapters 10, 11 & 12 in The Trumpet of the Swan. We remarked today on how endearing the characters are in spite of the fact that their actions are fantastic and unlikely. Good job E.B. White.
2. Chloe - Read Tony's Bread by Tomie de Paola. We looked up Italy on the map and talked about folktales.
3. Catherine - Read Big Anthony and the Magic Ring by Tomie de Paola. Catherine has such a great sense of humor and I enjoyed watching her read this book as she studied each page and made observations and predictions.

• Read Aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty

• Piano lessons with Ms. Linda
  

Day 54

Today's Activities:

• Piano practice

• Singapore Math - Madelyn started a unit on fractions and C&C started one on time.

• Grammar/Spelling - Madelyn did lessons 22-25 from Primary Language Lessons. Catherine & Chloe did a word sort of long-e words with an r-influence.

• Reading

1. Madelyn - Read Chapters 7,8 & 9 (to try to catch up) in Trumpet of the Swan. We talked about her favorite character who is ironically the cob. The always rolls her eyes when he starts on one of his 'speeches' but she finds him funny and interesting.
2. Catherine - Read Strega Nona's Magic Lessons by Tomie de Paola. I asked her to make predictions about this book based on the Strega Nona book we read last week.
3. Chloe - Read Big Anthony and the Magic Ring by Tomie de Paola. She also made predictions based on the original Strega Nona book.

• Read aloud from A Faith Like Mine.

• PE - Soccer practice for Catherine. Park time for everyone else.
  

Day 53

Monday's Activities:

Today did not go as planned. Seth woke up with a stomach bug. I spent as much of the morning tending to him as possible so the basics were not accomplished, but we did do the following...

• Explora science class - Madelyn learned about acids and bases. Catherine and Chloe learned about animal camouflage.

• Arts & Crafts class at the local community center. After a month off, we're back! The girls enjoyed painting Easter-themed pictures.

• Ballet lessons for Catherine & Chloe
  

Day 52

Wednesday's Activities:

• Reading -
  

1. Madelyn - Read Chapter 5 & 6 from Trumpet of the Swan.
2. Catherine & Chloe - Read Big Anthony by Tomie de Paola.

• Singapore Math

• Mandarin lesson with Ms. Kitty
  

• Explora - Mark took the kids to Explora to investigate and explore at their own pace.

• Piano lesson with Ms. Linda