Our Homeschool Week in Pictures

 Both of these girls LOVE doing math lessons. 

Meghan is currently reviewing 3rd Grade math (and mastering those multiplication and division facts) using three sources: Master Books Practice Makes Perfect 3, Multiplication and Division Bingo (from the Measured Mom), and Wrap Ups. 

Katie has started into Master Books Math Lessons K and is absolutely LOVING her lessons. She is also practicing math concepts and basic addition with some montessori shelf activities that I rotate out for her to work on. 

During some math free play, Meghan discovered that as the number on the bottom of the fraction increased, the length of the fraction bar decreased. She was quite pleased with the pyramid she managed to build. 

Meghan playing division bingo - this particular day, the dice would not let her win :) She was one away from a bingo in multiple directions. Two weeks ago she insisted that she couldn't do division and didn't want to try. Now, she begs for multiple games of division bingo each day because it's so fun!

Katie loves these addition locks from Lakeshore Learning. They were a toy Meghan asked for last year for her birthday - I'm telling you, these girls love math!

They were being cute and adorable sitting together :: a huge perk of homeschooling is the relationship that they are building. 

Silent reading time. Meghan is reading chapter books at a third grade level during silent reading and is working on reading picture books from the library in the evenings before bed. You can't miss Frog & Toad, or Henry & Mudge, or Berenstain Bears, or Little Bear, or, or, or.....just because you learned to read so quickly! She loves reading! 

Katie is learning to read phonetically! She is also learning to read these simple Level A Nonfiction Readers. It makes me so happy to see her smile and hear her giggle as she reads these books to herself. 

Firb LOVES silent reading time :) 

Look who was willing to try sounding out and writing a whole sentence! Dyslexia and dysgraphia have made learning to sound out and write difficult for this girl - but she is doing awesome and I am so proud of her!

We read about plant and animal cells in science and how the tool required to see something so small is a microscope - so, since we take any opportunity to pull down the microscope, we looked at a bunch of slides of small things. 

More division bingo - she loves playing division bingo. 

And, practicing cursive - this has been fun for her to try learning. It's tricky - but she's trying hard!

Katie is learning to read - she's doing really, really well. Especially when you consider that she isn't five yet and has a language based disorder (autism).

Working on her parts of a flower puzzle. Because of her autism, she does not learn primarily through words and reading (as Meghan does - Meghan learns so well through conversation). Katie needs to build and manipulate what she is learning about. So, we work this puzzle and are becoming intimate with the parts of a plant. We use bee toys to pollinate the plant. We look at other flowers and find the same parts in them, etc. Everything is tied to something that gets her hands involved - and she thrives! 

Daddy built this "work" for her shelves for her - there are a variety of different ways she can use nuts, bolts, wrenches, and screwdrivers with this block to build hand strength and to work on perseverance. She has been enjoying it a lot this week - phillips head bolts and a phillips head screwdriver. 

We have been reading about seeds and plants recently - so we planted some carrots in our root viewer this week. Hopefully soon we will be watching our little carrots grow in the dirt!

Our family is diving into The Kind Kingdom together. We will be exploring European History from the Middle Ages to the present alongside the Chronicles of Narnia Books. This week we looked at the United Kingdom in our map book and found things we already know and love that are from the area. 

The aftermath of a school day - whew! Meghan is coloring in her Chronicles of Narnia coloring book after we read from The Magician's Nephew. According to our curriculum plan, we are to be reading that book until the end of February - we have one chapter left. I don't know how that happened......

I said above that Katie learns best with physical items. That's less true about Meghan in many areas of learning. But in math, she's all about the manipulatives! A few weeks ago, money was impossible. She couldn't keep straight which coin was which or count mixed groups. Some time spent playing with some money and that skill was mastered. I am pretty sure that all I need to do to teach her math is expose her to manipulatives and she will teach herself the concept. Pretty cool to watch!

Because we were, in The Kind Kingdom, reading about seeds and plants and soil this week, we made Kansas Dirt for dessert on Friday night. Yum! 

I just love working in the kitchen with these two!

That was a little glimpse into our school week - we are busy and we do so much learning and living together. There is no way I could document everything that we do. But these little snapshots of memories from our week just make me realize what a wonderful gift this learning together is for our family!