School Time

Sam is working on making sentences. There's a card with a simple picture like a man in a van. Then he has to pick the correct words from a pile of word cards to create the sentence. He reads it and then picks a new card. That card might be a cat on a van. Then he just changes the appropriate words to create the new sentence. He really enjoys this game which could be homemade. Mine is not, it's Happy Phonics from Love to Learn.  I first bought this back when Nick was learning to read.  I used it consistently with him and played many of the more advanced games with Emily at the time, too.  I played a few games with Amber, but now am back to using the complete program with Samuel.  It's a very easy program to use and I'd recommend it to anyone with pre-readers.

Amber is working hard on Language Arts.  She's learning about synonyms, words that mean the same in her Language of God book from Catholic Heritage Curricula.

Emily and Nick are working on science.  Currently they are using the Usborne Science Encyclopedia to study botany, the study of plants.  Today they were learning about seed dispersal and germination.  They are using a free study unit from Homeschool Share.

And Little J is reading in daddy's Lazy Boy.  He loves turning pages.  The problem with that is if I give him traditional books with paper pages he has a tendency to tear them when he's turning them.  And if I give him traditional board books the pages are so thick that he has a hard time getting his fingers in between each page to turn it.  The perfect solution is to find board books with nontraditional pages.  For example, many Eric Carle books have staggered pages.  The first page is short, then the next is longer and the next longer and so on making them easy to turn.  Today he's reading The Grouchy Ladybug.  Also the Touch and Feel Animal books are great because the added textures make the pages stand apart a bit so he can turn them easily.  Today he's reading Touch and Feel Farm.

There you have it another look at our school day.