Thursday & Friday

Yesterday I worked a while with Alex tracing her letters. She is still very shaky but tries very hard and is doing better. Then we played with blocks and practiced in/out, on top/under, beside/front/back, full/empty, etc. Emma is the one that really needs help with this. Alex is moving on to learning more complicated spatial terms in speech therapy... through, middle, etc. Then we spent some time pretending with blocks and Disney characters. I was Minnie, Alex was Mickey, and Emma was Daisy Duck. We built a house of blocks and spent some time doing make believe. That isn't my strong point and I think they miss out on that with Drew being gone. He is much better at the the fun silly stuff, but it is very important. We also practiced what does NOT belong in a group. When Emma hears, "Which one is not a block?" she only hears the block part. We are trying to learn what 'not' means. She didn't get it at first, but got much better with a little practice.
Today we spent the morning in Fayetteville and the afternoon taking Dad to doctor appointments in Rogers and Gentry. In the car we spent some time with speech worksheets to practice what does NOT belong. This one was actually Alex's homework from speech because it was more complicated groups. Not 3 of the same thing and one that was different, but 3 that belonged to one group and one that didn't. For example... 3 pieces of fruit and 1 airplane. She had to notice that the airplane didn't belong. I just assume that they know this stuff, but they don't automatically. So we work on it. We are all 3 exhausted from our day out, so I don't imagine we will get much more homework in today.

Tuesday

Time keeps getting away from me when it comes to school blogging. Drew came home this past weekend and we went to Branson. Among fun stuff we also visited the Butterfly Palace. The girls weren't terribly impressed, but it had to be educational in some way.
He is back at Ft. Sill and the girls and I are back to our usual. We spent about an hour on homework this morning. Alex traced letters Dd-Zz and did great. About 11 letters in (2 uppercase and 2 lowercase of each letter) she switched from her right hand to her left hand. She was getting pretty shaky with the right. I'm really proud of her for working through the alphabet. Then we did some random stuff that needs work... 'what is this for?' 'what are these for?' etc. I worked a little bit with Emma on identifying parts of objects. We need to start working on picking out objects that do not belong. That is hard for her.
This afternoon Alex has ST, OT, PT and Emma had ST & PT.

Tuesday

The girls and I did some homework this morning, Alex traced letters Aa-Kk. Her hand was getting tired and she had already switched from right to left, so we stopped there. Then we played with the pattern beads. It is good fine motor stuff for both girls to put the bead on the dowel. Alex can match my pattern by color, but the beads are shaped slightly different and she doesn't get that yet. It is also great for working on Emma's colors, because when you ask her what color something is she still says ,"Yellow." Then we did puzzles. Alex is doing really well with that and hardly ever needs help with the 4-6 piece puzzles. Emma needs help with those.
Then we got dressed and went to vote. We talked about why we vote and how important it is. They both went in with me and sat in my lap was I filled out my ballot. Then Emma got to drop the stub in one box and Alex dropped the ballot in the other box. I'm not sure that they get it, but if they grow up always seeing me vote then maybe they will come to know how important it is.
Alex has ST, OT, PT this afternoon and Emma has OT & ST.

Monday

I haven't posted on school stuff for a few days. Friday night Drew surprised us and came home. The girls were so happy. Saturday we took them to the Wild Life Safari in Gentry. Drew said, "We're doing school stuff." That made me happy that he was thinking in that respect. Yes, it was for fun... but it was also a great field trip. We saw so many animals and the girls had a blast.
Nothing yesterday, it was Sunday and we spent the first half of the day with Drew and after he left we hung out with my dad, Kathy, and Casey.
We did some school work today. We laid in the bedroom floor and that seemed to work a little better than on the couch because we had more room to move around. Alex traced circles and curved lines by herself and then traced Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd. That was really great. Lots of times she resists that work because it is difficult for her. Then we did some counting and circling the correct number. Still trying to work on letter & number identification. It has to come at some point. Repetition I suppose. Then we read some nursery rhymes. Lisa had said that part of the entrance exam for Mary Grace to get into first grade is nursery rhymes and she felt they hadn't worked on that enough. Once I pulled I the book I realized that we already know many of the common ones, we just sing them instead of say them.
Alex has PT this afternoon and Emma has OT.

Wednesday

This morning the girls and I went to Fayetteville to see my grandparents. The girls were pretty good there. I'm glad they are witnessing the different stages of life. This afternoon Alex had PT with Cheryl (filling in while Alissa is on maternity) and Emma had OT. This evening we played outside for a bit and then did some homework inside. We are trying to learn left and right. Did a few pages on looking for differences in pictures that are almost the same. That is hard. It is also hard to decide which picture is different when the only thing is the position of the object. We identified objects and the letter that begins that word. Alex did a few connect the dots. We've been reading for a little while and I am counting down the minutes til bedtime.

Tuesday

We did a little bit of learning this morning. We sat in the bedroom floor and played Thomas Tic Tac Toe. We tried taking turns to get 3 in a row, but it really turned into more of just putting their pieces in the playing board until they both got 3 in a row. Then we played the Candy Land Castle game. Each of the girls has a gingerbread game board with 4 shapes on it. They took turns pulling the candy cane lever and the castle shot out a shape. They had to see if that shape fit on their board. It was good for matching shapes and taking turns. Oh, and it was fun. then we played with the Disney figures. They probably have about 40 little figures of princesses, princes, and other Disney characters. We found characters that were the same or had the same colored dresses. We put characters on top of the box, under it, beside it, in front of it, and behind it. We put characters in the box to make it full, then dumped it out to make it empty. So, we got to work on spacial terms while playing princess. We even did a little make believe with the princesses (pretending they were dancing and talking to each other). Then we picked our favorite out of the pile. It was play time, but also learning time.
This afternoon Alex has speech, OT & PT and Emma has PT and maybe speech.

Monday

Alex spent some time on her own this morning practicing writing her name. She is doing well with that. We spent some time with the workbook this morning also. Visual discrimination, picking with item in a group is different or doesn't belong, left & right, connect the dots, trace a dot picture, and traced letters G-L. When we got to L she said, "Like my name!" She's getting it. Also named items and circled the letter it starts with. She can't tell you which letter it starts with, but we sound it out and identify the letter and she circles it. Then she likes to point out the other letters on the page that are the same. Also did a few pages on rhyming words.
Emma sat with us on the couch while we did workbook pages.
We still spend time each evening reading books, as well as at random times throughout the day.
The girls also help me pick up when I clean house. We put toys where they belong and put books back on the shelf.
Alex has PT this afternoon and Emma has OT.

Friday

No formal homework today. We visited my grandparents in Fayetteville, picked up some lunch and went to the park. The girls played a little while and then we picked up Dad to take him to the doctor in Rogers. While he was in his appointment we sat in the car and went over some of Alex's speech homework. "What is this?" "This is a ball." "What are these?" "These are socks." Working on forming whole sentences instead of one word answers. Also, "What is a fork for?" "A fork is for eating." etc.
Home for a nap, then the girls played with sidewalk chalk in the driveway while I cleaned the garage a bit. Nothing formal, but a good day.

Good Stuff

We had a few good hours of school work this morning. We started with some workbook pages. Tracing shapes, etc. I am making a big effort to help Alex speak in full sentences. Instead of saying, "What shape is this?" and letting her answer, "Cirlce" I am making her say, "This is a circle." The same with all different answers. "What is Barney doing?"... "Barney is holding a ball." Things like that. We did a few pages of connect the dots. This helps with fine motor skills but also with sequencing of numbers. Having to look for which number comes next.
Then we spent some time in the floor doing puzzles. We started with at Melissa & Doug puzzle that is fairly simple as far as putting shapes into the puzzle boards. Alex does great with this, needs no help. Emma is getting pretty good, but I focused my attention on helping her with this activity. Then we moved on to harder puzzles. Alex is really quite good at puzzles, but when you get into puzzles with 5 or 6 pieces that have to fit together Emma gets flustered and wants help. Help means, mommy you do it.
Then we laid in the floor and read a few books. Alex took to counting the squares on one page and got to twenty before she needed help. After you say 21 then she realizes that 22 comes next. She can then make it to 29 before needing more help. So, we counted to 37. Funny, that book wasn't even about counting, but the opportunity presented itself and we went with it. Ahhh, the beauty of home schooling.
Now they are listening to kid music and playing kitchen in their room.

It's been a while

Drew was home this past weekend and we didn't even think about school work. Getting back into a routine has proven difficult while trying to get used to Drew leaving again. We are all three having a hard time.
This morning Alex & I did some work while Emma strangled the puppy. The workbook was colors and shapes. She knows her colors and can name her shapes, but tracing them was good fine motor practice. She still loves to do mazes, but won't use colors to do workbook pages... she needs a pen. She's a big girl, you know.
Monday Alex had PT & Emma had OT. Tuesday Alex had speech, OT & PT and Emma had PT and finished her speech eval. On that language test she scored average and didn't qualify for therapy. I was thrilled about that, but she did qualify on another, so she will start getting a day of speech next week. Today Alex had PT & Emma had OT.
Mary Grace & Hannah came over to play tonight while Ross & Lisa went to look at a house. The girls are getting so used to each other that they are beginning to treat each other like sisters. Mary Grace is big enough to be the 'little mother' and takes care of everybody. I think that MG & Hannah's imaginations and pretend play are good for my girls.

A little much

We continued in the phonics workbook today, but it was a little much. The next section began with a short 'a' sound. I think we need to get better at letter identification before we move onto something like that. So, we changed books. We worked some on big, medium, and little. Big and little are no problem, medium is confusing. If she does big and little first then medium is obviously the only one left. I don't know if that helps her understand or not. I did a little bit of counting practice with Emma. She counts great, but I'm trying to help her get better at identifying each number with each object she is counting... so that she won't just keep counting even when she runs out of objects. She is getting pretty good. I did some more work with Alex on letters. She got really frustrated with one page, but we kept on and eventually finished. She had to identify a picture and pick which letter started the word. She can make the sound, but isn't quite relating that to the letter that it starts with. We did it together and I helped her pick which letter to circle. Once we decided on the letter (ex. 'T') she would go over the rest of the page like a word search puzzle and find every other 'T'. She is great at that. We also did some work on rhyming words.
Alex had speech, OT & PT today. Emma had a co-treatment of PT & OT.
We spent about 45 minutes reading tonight because they were really overly tired and needed some extra winding down time. Lots of times Emma wonders off during a book and tonight Alex wondered with her. I was curious if they were still paying attention even if they were sitting right there with me, so I kept reading. I was reading 'Horton Hears a Who' and I got to a part that Alex usually pipes in and finishes my sentence. She was standing at her play kitchen and not even looking at me, but when I got to that part she finished my sentence anyway. So, they must be listening even if they aren't completely focused in on the book.