Oops...Friday November 2nd, 2012 (a bit late)

This Monday in school Jonas and I began once more with a reading and writing lesson. Lesson 4 in his book was a review of all his previous sounds and an introduction to our two single-letter words: I and a. We wrote a sentence using each of those and he practiced all of the sounds he has learned in lessons 1-3. He also practiced reading words comprised of those sounds: mad, sad, it, did, fist...
Ronan practiced writing his a's and t's (his choice) and made great progress in his handwriting. Then he wanted to draw a rainbow, and he told me that rainbows need water and light to exist (I think he learned this on "The Cat in the Hat, PBS kids." I helped him draw a rainbow with the right amount of spaces for colors and he colored it in with the colors: ROY G BIV.

Also on Monday we talked about the concepts of more than, less than and equal to. I showed Jonas and Ronan the symbols and we used blocks to decide which pile had more than, less than or the same number as the other pile. Then for Jonas I wrote out a page full of pairs of numbers and asked him to tell me which was greater than, less than and equal to it's pair. He breezed through the exercise like he'd known it forever. Ronan did quite well too, although I had to help him figure out which symbol to put he understood the concept.

Both boys practiced their violins.

On Tuesday the boys had riding lessons with Ms Monica and helped clean one really messy stall. After this we came home and they continued their studies on the directions (N, E, S, W). We used a place-mat map of the US and I asked them which state on their map was the furthest in each direction. They both did a great job and wrote the states in their books.

Ronan asked to draw a picture of a spider and, though we have many drawings of spiders from Ronan, I allowed him to draw his best spider in his notebook since Halloween was the next day.

On Wednesday the boys earned Halloween stickers instead of stars after they accomplished an assignment. Jonas began with reading and writing. Lesson 5 in his book covered the sounds r and th. He practiced all of his sounds and then wrote words (but only after reading them to me) in his notebook.

Both boys drew a new picture of their bean plants. Their bean plants were sprouting above the soil!

We also began measuring their bean plants but have since decided to start all over again with a new bean so that we can get a daily measurement.

After school on Halloween we, of course, carved pumpkins. The boys were careful to save the seeds so that we could cook them. And after we returned from Trick-or-Treating I stole their Jack-O-Lanterns back and baked them (as the kids had carved my sugar pumpkins and a squash for baking).

Although we did not put it in their notebooks we also practiced a lot of Spanish on Halloween. Especially Halloween words: Araña, fantásma, monstruo, murcielago...

Thursday the boys had one school assignment and that was to draw a map for their bat to get home. They both drew and owl as a danger for their bat (from Stellaluna I imagine) and told me how their bat had to get home according to directions (N, E, S, W).

The rest of Thursday and Friday the assignments were household clean-up in preparation for Jonas' birthday party Saturday. Jonas learned to sort laundry and began to help me load the machine. Ronan vacuumed the stairs and helped with general pick-up. And both boys helped with several other jobs each day until the party (although somewhat reluctantly, of course).

The party was fun too! :)