Friday, January 13, 2012

school recap friday!

It's been a week or so since I have recapped our school week.  Although, it really isn't recapping anything.  It is showing you one day, usually Friday's activities.  Details, details!  I think my parents are more than ready to see one of these posts.

I think this is our first full week back to school.  We shorted the past few weeks due to the holidays.  But, it isn't hard to get back into the swing of daily school.  For the most part, the girls are always more than willing to do "school".

The curriculum is set up where I really don't have to decide what we are doing that day.  We just flow to the next page(s) in the workbooks.  It is exactly what I was looking for when it came to what I wanted in a packaged curriculum.  We add things here and there, like different art projects and such.  But, for the most part, we just do what the books hold for us.

These workbooks are great because they gradually introduce new material while mixing it with material that has already been covered.  That way there is less forgetting.  I print printouts from this site that allow you to "customize" a sheet with letters or words.  That way the girls can practice each week what we have already learned. 


Last night was the first time Emily wrote her name all by herself!  I was so proud of her.  Normally I do dot letters and she traces over them.  She had grabbed a piece of paper and started writing.  I looked down and noticed she was spelling out her name!  Such a proud moment.  Here she is showing off that she can do it on her own.


Today one of their workbooks reviewed all the letters that we have learned.  Emily has been stepping up and following along much better than the past.  I guess she is getting into it now.  Maybe she feels more confident that she can do her name on her own now.  Whatever it is, it is nice to see her be more vocal.


Bella, of course, is so studious!  Oh my, talk about a perfect student.  As long as she gets praise, she is into everything! 


 Each of them has even started listening more.  They are following instructions and using their little noggins.  Here the workbook had them color the shapes below to make the picture the same as the one above it. 



Their "I Can Color" workbook has been having them just color in items with specific colors.  Usually Emily just wildly colors over everything, not worrying about where the lines are.  The past few days she has been working to stay in the lines.  You can see how well she is doing in the picture below. 


For Bella, this exercise has been pretty helpful.  She tends to push really hard on the crayon and it makes her hand hurt.  I have shown her how to lightly color so she isn't wearing her hand out.  It took a few days for her to get the hang of it, because she is used to pushing down so hard. 


This moon page is from their "I Can Draw" workbook.  It has been gradually introducing numbers in connecting-the-dot pictures.  Bella has it down pat.  She, as you can see here, does a fairly good job.  The pages without an image, she has a hard time figuring out that you curve some of the lines.  But, this one was more simple since it had the image already there.


Emily is hanging in there.  You can see that from the number 5 to 6 she kind of got off track.  But, she recovered and did a good job.


After we got our work done they played with PlayDoh.  It is always a fun, kind of messy, time. 




We are having a cookout tomorrow and inviting some people over.  Then, Sunday, Jorge is going to paint some more!  I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Hope all of you have a great one, too!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just wow,Valarie.you are so talented,seriously.Enjoy your time in Mexico,(it seems like you are
) you are lucky to be able to h/school,and you are doing it right!8) I like the pink little bench in the background.Erika /TX.

Unknown said...

I love your Friday update posts. Its awesome to see how well your girls are progressing. You're a great teacher.

penny said...

Love it, VZ! Keep these posts coming! Always inspirational. :)

Leslie Harris said...

Awwww! Emily did a fantastic job of writing her name. She should be very proud! Both of your girls are doing a great job and you, my friend, are an amazing mom & teacher. :)

Colin said...

There's such a nice combination here of "Hey, this is inspiring... anyone could do this!" and "Hey, maybe it's just that Val's dang amazing and incredible!" So happy for Emily to write her own name, though. You can see the pride in her eyes!