September Update

We ended up not having school for the first two weeks of September. The first week because of schedule, and the second week because the kids were sick.

Last weeks our theme was apples, apples and more apples. On Monday we took the kids to the apple orchard to pick apples. Tuesday I taught the girls how to make applesauce.
Wednesday we learned how to make apple butter. Thursday and Friday we enjoyed drawing pictures of our trip to the apple orchard. To See Pictures click here

This week because both Kara and Lydia had dentist appointments (click here for pictures), our theme for the week was Visiting the Dentist. We started by going to the Library on Monday. We checked out three books about going to the dentist -- My First Dentist Visit, Show Me Your Smile (a Dora the Explorer Book), and At the Dentist. Of the three books, both girls seemed to respond best to the Dora Explorer book. Kara also had her violin lesson with Miss Abigayel on Monday. She did a fantastic job reading her music and getting her fingering correct. Now we need to work on her bowing on the correct string.

Tuesday we started school with the usual violin practice. Kara did lessons 12 and 13 in Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. Tuesday began working on actually reading sentences and picture comprehension -- being able to relate the picture with the words she read. We also had art class on Tuesday with their friend Noah. They each had to cut out a picture of a sheep, and then they glued cotton balls to the sheep body. Again we read the dentist books and talked about what the dentist was going to do.

Wednesday was our trip to the dentist. So once again we read the dentist books, and both girls did amazingly with the dentist.

Thursday and Friday were typical school days Kara completed lessons 15 - 18 in Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. We have been doing two lessons a day since Kara has been catching on so quickly. This week Kara was learning to write the letters /d/ and /i/. She has also been reviewing writing the letters /a/, /s/, /e/, /r/, and /t/

I have also come to the conclusion that Lydia is not quite ready to begin reading lessons, so I have discontinued working on reading with Lydia and will probably wait until next January to try again. Instead, I have Lydia working on tracing circles and lines, coloring in the lines, and learning how to cut with scissors. I am also working on basic counting and number identification.