Califoregon Living

Leigh hosted Monday School.  The theme was ‘Thanksgiving’. 

We opened with circle time.  We talked about the Pilgrims leaving England, sailing to Plymouth, MA, and the Indians (Native Americans) helped them with food the first year.  We honor this with ‘Thanksgiving.’

We sang two songs (one with fingerplay) about Thanksgiving.

We divided the kids into four groups.  They rotated through four activity zones, each fifteen minutes.

Zone 1: Story time.  We read books about Thanksgiving


Zone 2: We made the ‘Harvest Blessing Mix’.


Zone 3: We made bookmarks! (Thanks Kathy!)



Zone 4: We traced the kids hands and wrote what they are thankful for, and placed the hands on a tree.



We also danced the"Turkey Pokey" 

Swim lessons in the afternoon, then a friend’s birthday party in the evening…

Bible
We read about Daniel, Esther,  Ezra, and Nehemiah

Memory Verse
Proverbs 15:8 "The Lord delights in the prayers of his people"

Read Aloud
We read from MotherGoose, The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book, Little Golden Books, Children’s book of Virtues, and Animals Animals.  We also read a chapter from Milly-Molly-Mandy.  This chapter covered MMM picking blackberries.  We have an extra activity book that goes along with this.  It had a recipe in it for ‘blackberry pudding’.  I had some frozen blackberries, so we made a batch!

Language Arts
Continued with Developing the Early Learner, and covered ‘families’ and ‘food’ in both the english and spanish versions of "First Thousand Words" (I do not expect the boys to remember spanish words at this time.  My intent is to get their ear accustomed to hearing it.)

Science
We read abut two simple machines: the lever, and the wedge.  We looked up videos online that showed examples of how these work. 

Art Appreciation
We looked up different pictures from the "Book of Art"

Social Studies
‘Things People Do’-The Veterinarian

Life Skills
We are currently reading from ‘A Little Book of Manners for Boys"

Math
The boys are working on the concept of ‘greater/lesser than…’

Reading
‘A’ finished ‘Willy’s Wish’.  We are going to review some of the earlier books before moving ahead.

Physical/Social Activity
Both boys had swim lessons on Monday. ‘R’ stayed home sick on Wednesday, but ‘A’ went to soccer and swim lessons, then F/X that night.  Bible Study on Friday morning.

As the boys start to pick up activities, it is becoming increasingly difficult to document the daily lesson.  I will continue to highlight special activities through the week, but instead of a daily documentation of the lessons, I will do a weekly synopsis of what we are learning. 

Last week we read many Bible stories about, Elijah and Elisha, and many of the different kings.  We read Mother Goose, and stories from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book, Milly Molly Mandy, The Children’s Book of Virtues, and Eric Carle’s Animal Animals.

We are continuing to work in ‘Developing the Early Learner’.  There was one interesting activity where the boys heard two words and had to decide of they were the same or not.  Some of  the two words rhymed.  ‘A’ knew immediately that they were same or not, butit took ‘R’ a few tries to recognize that even though the words rhymed, they were not the same.

We finished the nature section of the Berenstain bears Book of Science and Nature and will begin the Science section this week.

We looked up four pieces of art.  Here they are:
Georges de la Tour, 1640, ‘Cheater with Ace of Diamonds’

Thomas Eakins, 1876, ‘Baby at Play’

David Inshaw, 1972-3, ‘The Badminton Game’

Rosso Fiorentino, 1520, ‘Putto Musician’

The boys were interested in the artist who painted the angel and wanted to see more of his work.  We found a detail piece of this painting and had a good talk about what the painting was about.
Rosso Fiorentino, ‘The Descent from the Cross’

I then took the four dates from the works of art (1640, 1876, 1972, 1520) and asked the boys which picture was the oldest and youngest.  They quessed and got them wrong, but something very cool came out of this.  When I said that some art is only 40 years old, other art is 800 years old or even older,  ‘A’ said, "800 is 8-0-0".  I was so surprised!  I had no idea he knew this concept; we are still working on 1-10 in math!  I asked how he knew this and he said, "one time, you said that 300 is 3-0-0, so 800 is 8-0-0."  I love that he figured that out.

We finished the book called ‘Manners’ by Aliki and began a new one called ‘A Little Book of Manners for Boys’.

For math, we are continuing to work on writing the numerals 1-10 using worksheets from Singapore Earlybird.  ‘A’ can easily count items in this range, ‘R’ still needs help from 6-10 (he loses his place).

‘A’ is working on reading the Bob Book ‘Willy’s Wishes’.

Bible
We read where Elija met up with Elisha, and became friends.

Memory Verse
Proverbs 26:23 "Pretty words may hide a wicked heart."

Read Aloud
Mother Goose- "If all the Seas"

Language Arts
DEL-The boys had to look at a set of shapes and decide which shape was not like the others.  Some were kind of hard.  The difference was very subtle.  Both did well, once they got the hang of it.

First Thousand Words-We looked at the page dedicated to sports and exercise.  Then, we went to ‘You Tube’ on line and looked at videos of: sumo wrestling, archert, ice skating, windsurfing, and skiing.

Science
We read about landcape terms: rocky coast, island, marsh, inlet, bay, lagoon, mountain ridge, large boulder, natural bridge, rapids, falls, creek, rolling hills, etc.

Social Studies
Things People Do- Policeman (Oh, ‘A’, was so excited!  He is convinced that is what he will be when he grows up.)

Life Skills
Manners Lesson 5 and 6: Phone etiquette

Math
Practice writing 0,1,2 on the dry erase board

Reading
‘A’ read the "E" page from Dr. Seuss’ ABC

Memory Verse
Review verses to date and added new verse
"Pretty words may hide a wicked heart." Proverbs 26:23

Read Aloud
Mother Goose-‘Hark!Hark!’, ‘My Love’, ”The Man of Bombay’
"The Saggy, Baggy Elephant"
Eric Carle’s Animals Animals-"Butterfly"

Language Arts
DEL- The boys looked at a set of three pictures and had to decide which picture was best suited to go at the end of the sentence. (comprehension)The boys had to draw x’s in boxes, then draw a path along a bunch of footprints (motor skills)

Dr. Seuss’ ABC- "E"