Tuesday

This morning we practiced writing by pulling out our Christmas cards. It's a great way for Alex to practice writing her name and if we do a handful every day then she will have written her name in all our cards. She's getting more confident with it. It is usually legible, but sometimes the letters are in the wrong order or her 'E' had too many arms. All in all, she is doing great with it. Emma also wrote her 'name' in the cards. It mainly consisted of drawing circles, but she was proud and made her mark on our family cards.
Therapy this afternoon. No more therapy this week because of Thanksgiving.

Gobble, gobble

This morning we made paper bag turkeys. We crumpled paper to stuff the bags, traced their hands, colored their hands, helped cut out their hands, glued the turkey's triangle nose to his face, and taped the body parts to the body. The results are really cute.
We went to Sunday school & church yesterday and then back for the Thanksgiving service last night. Both girls anticipate leaving for children's church before the sermon. I used to have to make Emma go, now they are both raring to go as soon as it's time.
Saturday Alex carried around part of a deck of ABC cards all day. At one point she handed them to me, so I pulled each one out and asked her what letter it was. There were probably 10 or 15 random cards and they were not in order. The only one she missed was 'G' and she said it was 'J'. Easy vocabulary mistake. Her letter recognition is really coming along.
We are still doing therapy 4 days a week and having play dates with the Green girls when possible, usually once a week.

Tuesday

This morning for 'school' we made a Thanksgiving Tree. I cut out a big cardboard tree and construction paper leaves the girls got to tell me all the thing they are thankful for. We talked about why we have Thanksgiving... to tell God how thankful we are for all He has given us. That isn't really a foreign idea since in our bedtime prayers every night we say thank you for...
We've been learning about the seasons... fall to be exact. Noticing the changing leaves, etc. So, making a tree was a good way to merge the two ideas. We decorated the tree with beautiful leaves of what we are thankful for, just like God decorates the real trees with beautiful leaves.
Oh, aside from the concept of it all, they got to use the glue stick and take turns. Emma still isn't very good at taking turns, but we are sticking with it.

Catching up... again

We are still learning, just haven't been posting. The beauty of homeschooling is that we aren't on a schedule and we learn as we go. Since my last post we done lots of fun things. Drew came home when Dad had his heart attack and a day with daddy turned into lots of fun. He turned 2 big boxes into a clubhouse. Very cool, not just a box to play in. They made it into a real house by adding a door, windows, shutters, a welcome mat, front door, porch light, etc. They decorated it by practicing writing their names and coloring.

Poppy being 'sick' prompted learning something new for the day... where your heart is. The girls know that Poppy's heart was sick (and can point to their hearts) and tell you that the doctors made it all better.
Spending so much time in the van the last few weeks has allowed lots of Letter Factory watching time. They are really learning a lot about letter recognition and phonics from that DVD.
We've continued practicing writing their names and Alex is doing even better.
We went to see Drew this past weekend and went to the wildlife refuge again. We went to prairie dog town and remembered to take bread to feed them. There was a 10 or 12 year old girl that went past the fence and was poking down in the holes. We talked to the girls about how the prairie dogs live and how we need to respect their homes. So, we walked a little ways down the dirt rode and threw bread to them and they were getting very close so we sat down in the road and let them come up to us. They were close enough to touch, but we were being respectful and not trying to touch them or scare them. It was great. We could see their little claws and talked about how God gave them long finger nails so they could dig and how they dig and make home in the ground, etc. Great time.
Oh, and all the other Army stuff we continue learning about.

The past week

Once again I'm blogging a weeks worth of school work in one sitting.
On Tuesday we made sugar cookies and decorated them with orange icing and used chocolate chips to make jack-o-lantern faces on them. Both of the girls helped do it all and then we wrapped up half the batch and took them to Lisa & the girls. Alex thought she wanted to keep them all at home, but we talked about how sharing our cookies with them is a great way to show we love them. She was OK with it then. They also each got to deliver a cookie to their therapist that afternoon. They were so proud.
On Wednesday we made paper bag pumpkins and paper towel ghosts in the spirit of Halloween week. We crinkled newspaper to fill the paper bags and then colored faces on them. The girls walked around with their ghosts making ghost sounds all day and expecting me to act frightened every time :)
Thursday after therapy we sat in the drive way and carved our pumpkin. They were each hesitant to touch the 'goop' in the pumpkin at first, but after watching me became more willing and anxious to help. Aside from being a fun Halloween activity I figured it was great sensory stuff. The girls helped to design the jack-o-lantern face (complete with triangle eyes, circle nose, smiley face with 3 teeth, eyebrows, ears and hair). They were tickled with all of that.
Of course each of the girls had therapy throughout the week.
Friday afternoon we went to the preschool for the Halloween party. They played with friends, hit the pinata, played on the playground, jumped in the bounce house, in the corn box, rode the hay ride and had treats. It was lots of fun for them.
Now, as far as academics is concerned we have been practicing tracing letters and identifying colors all last week and again today. They have also been watching The Letter Factory (thank you to Lisa for the recommendation) when we are in the van. It is a Leap Frog DVD that introduces letters and their sounds. It is amazing. Alex is really catching on and making great progress with recognition and beginning phonics. I found some great new workbooks at the Dollar Tree to practice writing skills for Alex and an Elmo workbook for Emma to work on colors. She can match colors with like colors, but still can't really name them. We are getting there though. Tonight in the bath we pulled out the bath paints. Alex remembered mixing colors the last time we used them and wanted to do that again. It seemed to register with her that mixing 2 colors makes another color and she couldn't get enough. "Red & Yellow... Orange!" She loved it. Emma loved the mess, of course :)
Tonight we read a Tiger & Pooh book to reiterate the color mixing and Emma was eager to point to colors and say, "What's this?" Then we read 'Duck For President' (a great book by the way) and I tried to explain why we are going to vote tomorrow. That will be our big school lesson for the day tomorrow. Making civil responsibilities a natural thing is a definite goal I have for them. Now, I must mention that every time I said America Alex would bust out singing... "Oh beautiful for spacious skies..." She cracks me up.