September 8th

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a week. My hand has hurt more than it did when I first broke it. I had also made some new friends in the area that I was pretty excited about meeting. Turns out not so much... Either way. Last week went fairly smoothly. With Todd here on Monday, Coco sick on Wednesday and no class on Friday for a homeschooling group picnic...

Fifi:
For math we did some pattern work with Skittles, added Matchbox cars and then counted how many wheels. This is a good foundation for multiplication. "If I have 6 cars, with 4 wheels each how many wheel are there all together?" The older girls played with us too.
For Spelling we spoke out our sentences using our words, made them with our foam piece puzzle. Todd bought two more kits so we can make words like hill and have both l's LOL.
We are focusing on Eric Carle's work this month so we read The very Hungry Caterpillar and then watched the DVD. Shes so funny, she tried to read along with the movie LOL. We picked up more puzzles at the library and worked with those too.
Fifi has watched Episodes 1 through 5 of Signing Time with Alex and Leah a few hundred times in the past 6 weeks. She wants to watch them everyday and she can do all of the signs on command, YAY!

Coco:
For Math last week we learned our 7's and 8's table. We also started working on Rounding and Estimating Numbers. I let Coco play on www.aaamath.com with the rounding. I think by today she may be getting it.
For Science we worked on the Earth and its relevance to the sun and moon and other planets. Todd has been teaching after school all last week.
For Geography we have been working with Arkansas. My wonderful friend Jenn lives there and she sent us our Arkansas magnet, a booklet, and a postcard with a map on it. We filled in our own maps, did a crossword, learned about the silly named cities in Arkansas... (let me tell ya..WOW) and we learned the basics of the state. Since Jenn is my friend, we will be making her a booklet like we did for Melinda.
For Language Arts we have focused on Adverbs. We are also starting our study on types of writing. All of the children (Lola, Nacho, Fifi and Coco) are learning about Legends this month and have to do a creative writing project weekly.
For ASL, Lola has taken over the teaching. She has three or four books and she surfs the web for ideas on how to teach. Mimi has repeatedly express that she doesn't want to learn Sign Language so we are now doing it after dinner. Coco has also expressed an interest in learning about Braille so Todd (who is blind-ish) is teaching her.
For Home Ec, she made puddings and whipped cream for dessert.

Lola:
For Math, we have been doing addition and subtraction with regrouping of 6 and 7 digit numbers. That is what aaamath had set up for her so I went on www.theteacherscorner.net and made my own sheets.
For Science, we have had the worst time finding printable worksheets on the Muscular System. So we made our own together (Lola and I) She has read quite a few books on the Muscular System as well. Her Mima in Connecticut also sent us some books on Anatomy. We love them!!
For Language Arts, we are used our CC book more last week. We looked at Learning New Words , which is making compound words and exploring suffixes and prefixes. Lola is also doing legends. She also completed Geography with the younger girls.
Lola is still writing her original Creative Writing project about Homecoming and Dicey's Song. My philosophy is as long as shes writing and thinking about it, there doesn't need to be a deadline. Why rush her?
Lola also head up the art projects this week. My hand hurt alot and I had to cook and bake for two picnics and a pot luck supper. Oye. She helped the girls make Grandparents Day cards and birthday cards for my friend who turned 40 Saturday (yup I said it YOU'RE 40 LOL)
Home Ec for Lola was Sausage and Ziti Bake, but she also helped with the Orange Cranberry Coffee Cakes and the Pork Roast with Sauerkraut.

Nacho:
Nacho didn't so much have a schedule last week but he officially got bored with summer so he jumped onto aaamath and started with a few assignments from there. He also read The Fire Thief by Terry Deary and started reading the Comprehensive Guide to Classical Mythology. Hey, I take what I can get!
Nachos Home Ec was making homemade pizza and wings on Sunday for the whole family while we watched Nim's Island.

We ended up only going to one picnic and one pot luck dinner. We attended an herbology class at www.spiritapothecary.com which was FANTASTIC. Matt Stewart is a genius.