Letters From the Homefront

Well, it's been quiet on the blog, that is. Usually, when it's quiet on the blog - it's anything but here. However, a lot of it has not been in the school room. Which  might be because we currently don't have a school room anymore! Our house has been in a state of transition this past week, which has resulted in not a lot of school time, or time to take pictures and blog about all the things we haven't done! We have moved our materials, and shelves, out of what was our school room, and converted it back in to a dining room - it was just too necessary to have one. I have also found that our children loved having things all together - they would choose their work.... and then migrate back in to the living room or other parts of the house to do their work. So our room had just become a holding tank for all the shelves and materials.  We have been working on reorganization this week, as well as some bigger changes around our house. I will do my best to get a post out ...

As most of you know that have been reading the last couple of weeks, Little Mama has been getting a review of parts of speech. Most she already knows - or doesn't realize she knows, but knows. :) Confused yet? Anyway, we don't have to take it as slow as I would, were I presenting this to Hoss, or Miss Priss, because this is just reviewing before we start on the advanced parts of speech and sentence analysis. I wanted to get the verb presentation in this week, and begin to teach her about the different types of verbs in a sentence, some of which might be a little new to her. She has been trying out sentences to show other parts of speech, and linking verbs and helping verbs pop in there, so I know she has the correct usage down, just needs to know what she is doing.  On Wednesday, I had prepared to give her the verb review presentation. Then, she woke up wanting to sew. My little girl wants to sew on a machine badly, and I will admit I just need to MAKE myself sit down a...

Now that our color study is over, we are moving on to some loose learning of shapes. I am hoping to purchase a good, albeit inexpensive, set of geometry solids here soon, and will be going over them again with him - for a good sensorial lesson on the solid shape. Since Valentine's Day was right around the corner, we started on hearts! I have two weeks worth of Valentine's/Heart trays to share, and then will show them in action. Week 1 - The Heart Matching heart shaped cookie cutters to traced, laminated cards. A great lesson for Big , Medium ,  and Small . Clipping Clothespins I made these last year, and put them in a glass heart shaped bowl. This was a favorite! (and yes, he did clip them on his fingertips more times than I can count - he's still a boy!) Sticker tray This was post play - the original tray had blank paper where the used paper is now, and sticker sheets cut in half (to fit) in the bowl. I found the stickers at Walmart last year,...

We actually have been finished with colors for a few weeks now, but I realized I never shared our black and white color week. I had so little for both that I needed to do them together, and I think it worked out well, since they both highlight something important in the color study - the absence of color, and the culmination of all colors combined. I will start with our trays and sensory box. I only made two additional trays this time to go alongside our box. In our Sensory box we had: White  decorative marbles Black   pom poms Black  and  White  zebra striped notebook White  key chain (stretchable) Black  key chain (stretchable) Black  and  white  mini's - gorilla, cow, sheep, felt dog and cat, monkey, zebra(s), and miniature bowl.    One to One correspondence tray -  white  painter's palette and  white  marbles Zebra puzzle Buddy Boy enjoyed this tray, an...