Chasing Vowels: August 2014

Well, we had a great summer but we needed to get back into our school routine. Despite being slow to going back we have hit the ground running. I have decided to do the alphabet again with the girls. We are doing a few things different this year. Instead of going in alphabetical order we are going through with the easiest letters to write first because we are going to focus a lot on writing and reading. To help with this I took a composition notebook for their journal. Each week we have one page with space to draw something that starts with the letter for the week. The next page has the number and whichever color or shape we will be doing. For the number we draw so many of an object they choose. For the shape or color I have them incorporate whichever one into that drawing. After they explain to me what they have drawn I write out what they told me.

So, for our first week back we started with the letter T. The books we read this week were: Big Truck and Little Truck by Jan Carr, Tony'sTrip and the Letter T by Cynthia Klingel and Robert b. Noyed, Freight Train by Donald Crews, Two Little Trains by Margret Wise Brown, and This Train by Paul Collicut. Our vocabulary words for the week were: top, tip, tomorrow, trolley, train, tomato, and today. We did the Teddy Bear poem like we have done previously and the girls still love it.

We used the same Bible verse from last time. I will praise the with my whole heart. Psalm 138:1

For math time we practiced reading a clock. I have a giant clock with movable hands that we used a bit. We also read a book called I Can Tell Time with a Rhyme! By Tracy & Kompelien. It was a good start to introducing telling time. We also did a little with triangles and read Triangles by Sarah L. Schuetz. This also helped us jump into using our tanagram puzzles!

E trying to work on a tanangram project.

For science our vocabulary words were tiger, tucan, tuna and tulip. We read about the Bengal Tiger by Edana Eckart. It Could Still Be a Tree by Allan Fowler and Trees are Terrific! ByLisa Trumbauer were great for learning about trees. We found a free ap for our iPad called Leafsnap. This ap lets you take pictures of a leaf. It loads up a list of possible tree species along with pictures of fruit, bark,seeds, etc. to help you identify trees around you. The girls had a lot of fun walking around and finding out what trees we had in our yard.

A and E looking at the leaf picture on leafsnap.

A looking at tree bark to try and identify a tree in our yard.

For social studies we read about Harriet Tubman by Wil Mara and Trains by Mary Lindeen. We wanted to start looking at states and found Exploring the States: Texas by Kristin Schuetz. The book was a little advanced for A and E so I just skimmed it a little.

We did two craft projects this week. We made tigers with the letter T and we did a seasons of the trees. I found both of these project ideas over at themeasuredmom.com. She used tissue paper for her trees. I didn't have any tissue paper so I cut out different colored triangles for our leaves, flowers and snow.