Week 17: The Letter Q

The letter Q. Q is an interesting letter but not very much to it when it comes to young children. We found two themes this week, queens and quilts!

We had trouble coming up with some vocabulary words this week that A and E knew. We came up with: quack, quick and quarter. We had trouble finding some books but were able to come up with a few: Q by Kelly Doudna, Quack the Sound of Q by Cynthia Klingel and Robert Noyed, and The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. Our poem was the Queen of Hearts:

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,
      All on a summer's day;
The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts,
     And took them clean away.
The King of Hearts
Called for the tarts,
     And beat the knave full score;
The Knave of Hearts
Brought back those tarts,
     And vowed he'd steal no more.

For Bible time we read about Queen Esther. We read a book called Queen Esther the Morning Star by Mordecai Gerstein. The book was a little old for A and E but A enjoyed it and we are still reading it this week. Our Bible verse came from Luke 6:31 - Do to others as you would have them do to you.

For science we were a little lacking with only a quoll (think something like a squirrel) and a Queen Conch for our animals.
 
In math we worked on rectangles. We practiced drawing rectangles, cutting out rectangles and counting rectangles around the house. We also went around and counted how many quilts we have!

Week 16: Letter P

Well, I think we have finally started to work back in to routine which is good since I would like to get through the whole alphabet before we become a family of five!

So without delay, the letter P! Our theme was pumpkins! Some of our vocab words were: stem, vine, seeds, skin, and ribs. It was nice to do pumpkins in the summer becuase we went out to our garden and looked at the pumpkins growing. We also came up with some other words that began with P: pizza, pancakes, push, pull and Peter Pan. A had to make sure we included Peter Pan because it is her favorite. We made pizza and pancakes this week too, which was a lot of fun. Our poem for this week was:

I am a bird you know quite well,

All dressed in black and white.

And even though I do have wings

They’re not designed for flight.

I waddle, waddle, waddle. 

We found some fun books this week: Hey, Pancakes by Tamson Weston, My P Sound Box by Jane Belk Monclure, Pink Takes a Bow by Christianne Jones, and Pink by Rebecca Rissman. We also decided to take some time and use the letter P to work on manners (saying Please, Thank You, etc.) So our wonderful librarian found some books to help us: Thankyouplease by Winters and Ortelli, Time to Say Please by Mo Willems, Manners at the Table and Manners in Public both by Carrie Finn

For our Bible time we read about Peter and our verse was from Romans 3:23 - All people have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

In math we worked on patterns and the color pink. 

Science time we looked at penguins, poppies, pandas, and a puffer fish. We also read about Pets by Gardner, Giant Panda by Edana Eckart, Penguins: Life in the Colony by Willow Clark and Platypus by Ginjer Clarke.

E really took to Pocahontas by Schaefer and Rosa Parks by Will Park during our social studies time.

For our art time we had a lot of fun working on puzzles, painting and or course playing with play dough!

 

Week 15: Letter O

After many weeks of taking time off for the summer and vacation we restarted school a few weeks ago. But, we have been busy with other things...we are getting ready to have our third baby! Yup, we will add another little one to our wonderful world. So, in an effort to catch up with our lessons that we have been doing lets jump right in.

We did the letter O a few weeks ago and we looked at oceans. Our vocab words for the week were: wave, reef and beach. Our poem for the week was "Once I Saw an Octopus." We really enjoyed this poem because it had hand motions to go with it.

Once I saw an octopus
In the deep blue sea. (Point downward)
I called, "Mr. Octopus,
Won't you swim with me?" (Cup hands around mouth)
Then out came his tentacles,
So very long and straight, (extend eight fingers.)
One and two and three and four,
Five and six and seven and eight. (count on fingers.)

I don't remember many of the books we had because it was so long ago. I do know that we read Ox-Cart Man by  Donal Hall. I usually find the letter alphabet books by Jane Belk Moncure, so I imagine we used My O Sound Box too.

For our Bible time our verse was - John 5:3 This is love for God: to obey his commands.

In math time we talked about octagons. We practiced drawing and counting the sides. We also used some foam pieces I have to make an octagon along with a rectangle, triangle, square and hexagon. We also practiced saying opposites. I would say off and then A and E would say on, or vice versa. I tried to think of many as I could: up and down, high and low, hot and cold, open and closed, etc.

Our science time looked at ostriches, an ochagavia flower, otters, and octopus. We found a book on otters that A and E liked to read a lot too.