Holiday Week

 This week for our home school the theme of our week was holidays. It was a fun one to plan though this week was a bit stressful for me. The couple whose house we are staying in while they are on their mission are coming home early because of the corona virus. So this week along with school was packing and cleaning. There were good days and bad days but we got through it and my favorite part of the each day was art time. Both girls like doing it together and I love seeing them create at their different levels.

Each day had a holiday to go with it. Monday was Christmas. Paige did her math worksheets and then we did a Rudolph craft.

 Then for writing, Paige did informative writing for the day. She learned about the origin of a candy cane and wrote a paragraph about what she learned.

 For science, it was simple and quick but the girls enjoyed it. We saw how water and oil don't mix and then Paige dropped some green and red food coloring on top of the oil. It didn't mix in the water because of the oil. Then both girls got toothpicks and mixed the food coloring into the water.

 Tuesday's holiday was Valentine's Day. For math she did her clock worksheets and the times she had to figure out had to do with her day at school on Valentine's day. Baylor even did some of them for her. :)

 Art- Paige just did this one by herself. Baylor was pretty whiny today and this project was a little more complicated with dipping each tissue paper in glue so I was fine letting Paige create by herself.

For writing she did noun and verb worksheets. They turned out pretty cute. After that for P.E. we did some kid's yoga. It was fun to do with Paige and was actually really nice for me to distract myself from moving. Baylor just crawled around us and Paige is really flexible and I am super NOT flexible.

Wednesday's holiday was Easter. For math, Paige did a money worksheet about things that you need from the store for an Easter egg hunt and then we did this fun activity. Both Paige and I enjoyed it. We did a few different times and first we wrote on our papers 30 jellybeans. The point of the game was to see who could "eat" all their jellybeans first. We took turns rolling a dice and what number you got you had to subtract from the number you had. We did a few times with subtraction and a few times with addition.

 Then for art the girls did finger painting to decorate their Easter egg.

 Finished product!

 For cooking, Paige learned how to hard boil some eggs. While the eggs were boiling she did this worksheet about different cooking utensils. She knew pretty much most of them and learned a few things too.

Once the eggs were cooled, the girls got to peel the eggs and we had some egg salad sandwiches for lunch. I was surprised how determined Baylor was to peel the egg and she did a pretty good job.

 Thursday's holiday was Halloween. Paige did a bar graph for how much Halloween candy she got trick or treating and a dot to dot. Then for art we did coffee filter jack-o-lanterns. I colored one of them with the girls and then I left to do some packing while they colored. Paige came and got me after awhile and told me to come look what Baylor did. Baylor had quite fun coloring all over her arms and legs. Then she tried to wipe some off with a wipe and then wiped her face with it so she looked like she had a beard. :) She was not happy that she had to be done coloring after that and went to time out. It is funny but I really hope one day it will stick in her head that you color on paper and not your body.

 Our cute jack-o-lanterns!

Her writing for the day was about sentences and fixing the Halloween sentences. With moving and cleaning we didn't get around to doing music today and I know that sewing won't happen tomorrow since all the sewing stuff is packed away.

Friday's holiday was St. Patrick's Day. For her math she did some worksheets while Baylor colored. Then we did art and for writing, she did a little opinion writing on what her favorite holiday is. Then she wrote a letter to her teacher. Her teacher had written an email to her earlier this week so she wrote her back. 

 For art the girls painted a rainbow plate with a pot of gold at the end of it.

 All dried!

 Next Week: Food Week

Animal Week

Our first week of home school because of school closures was a success! It was a fun week and I learned some things along the way on how to do it better for upcoming weeks. We have for sure 6 weeks of no school so last weekend, Paige and I sat down and decided on themes for each week to focus on and center that week of learning around. This week we picked animals. There are lots of ideas online and I set up a loose schedule that works for us. No time schedule just a schedule of sort of the order. I have loved having the schedule and it puts some structure in my life right now when most other things are uncertain.

Once we get up and get going we have breakfast and Paige chooses 1 chore from the chore jar to do while I clean up the kitchen from breakfast. Then we start our school work. I have always wanted an old school desk and we found one at the thrift store for a really good price a few months ago. Little did we know that we would be using it for our own home school. Then we do math and I decided to focus on certain things on different days of the week. I will probably make some of the problems more challenging as we keep going. Then we do an art project. I love doing the art projects with the girls. Paige loves art and I love that Baylor wants to be involved and see her own creativity shine through. Then we do writing. This week I just did some simple worksheets and word searches. I got an email from Paige's teacher with some ideas of what they have been doing so I will implement them next week. Also she writes in her journal every day with different writing prompts. Monday through Thursday the prompts are related to the topic for the week and then on Friday she gets to pick whichever one she wants from a list her teacher sent home. Then we do a different activity each day of the week- Monday is Science, Tuesday is P.E., Wednesday is Cooking, Thursday is Music, and Friday is Sewing. This week since it was so nice outside every day we went on a walk where Paige rode her bike and I pushed Baylor in the stroller. Then the girls rode their bikes until lunch time. After lunch they have free time and can just play until Baylor's nap. During nap time, I read one story to Paige and she does a story map about the story and then she reads for 1 hour. While Paige is reading I do my own church studies and work on lessons, worksheets, activities for next week. Then she can go on an educational website for 20 minutes. That pretty much is our day until Nate gets home from work. It worked really great this week and I have loved this more focused time with my girls.

 First day of home school! Pretty much whenever the camera comes out Baylor does her cheesy smile and it is the cutest and silliest thing ever.

Paige did her math at her little desk and I set up Baylor's own work area where she gets crayons to color with. And of course she wanted to show me her work and get a picture of it and then insists every time to see the picture- "I see!"

Our art project for Monday was doing animal tangrams. It is using shapes to create something. We did lots of different animals on our papers. 

 Then we decided which one or two we wanted to glue on our paper. For Baylor she would pick what shapes she wanted and then point to where I should glue them on her paper. She helped push them on the paper to get them to stick and then colored on it with marker.

Here's Paige's journal entry for the day.

Our science for Monday was talking about the life cycle of a frog. We watched a YouTube video about it and then Paige filled out a worksheet about what she learned. Then we went to Covington Community Park and went on a walk and then looked in the pond for a tadpole sack. We didn't find any but Paige loved riding her bike up and down the hill while Baylor picked dandelions and we decorated the rocks with them.

We went back on Thursday after Nate got home and he found one for us to get. It is amazing how fast they change. When we got them they were all these perfect little balls and within 2 days all of them have little tails starting to form. Monday night for our last activity for the day, as a family we all made origami frogs. Paige's jumps the best, mine does really good flips, and Nate's moves a little bit at a time.

Tuesday pictures-

Some of the worksheets are probably too easy for Paige but with time hopefully I can figure out more things to challenge her but here is an example of some of the writing worksheets she did for Tuesday.

Our art project for Tuesday was a fox. For Paige, I just show her a picture of the finished project and she creates it. For this project for Baylor I learned that she doesn't have the fine motor skill of tearing up small pieces of paper. So I did that part and put glue on the plate and then she really wanted to do the glue stick herself so she could dab the pieces of paper with glue and then stick it on her fox. Once hers dried she got to color on it with some marker. 

Today's journal entry.

Then for P.E. I wrote a whole bunch of animals on little slips of paper and put them in a bowl. We did charades where you had to act like the animal without doing any sounds. It was fun and Baylor joined in on a few that she knew what to do and would follow what Paige was doing.

Then we went on our walk and the girls played on their bikes. Mount Rainier was out today and it was gorgeous!

 Wednesday's pictures-

Baylor wasn't much into coloring at her desk and instead played with toys while Paige did her worksheets.

Wednesday's art project was a mouse. Again I just showed Paige a picture of the finished project and she created it herself. For Baylor I cut everything out and she helped me glue and would point to where she wanted things. The thing that surprised me with Baylor with this project is that we have a whole bunch of googly eyes- lots of different sizes and colors. She picked 2 matching ones though which I didn't think she would.

A picture of the beautiful blossoms that line the road on our walk for the day.

We did cooking after lunch today since we needed more time. For Paige's lesson I wanted her to know how to read a recipe. So I had a worksheet with a recipe on it and asked different questions about the title, ingredients, and directions. Then we went through my cook book and she would pick a recipe out of it and I would ask her questions about it and she would have to read the recipe to answer the question. Then we made some brownies. The girls love cooking with me and I hope to pass on the love the cooking to them.

 This is the worksheet that I am using for Paige's story mapping for the book that I read to her before she does her own reading.

Thursday we changed things up a little. After Paige did her math, we did animal bingo. Last weekend when we decided that this week would be animal week, Paige created this- the most adorable animal Bingo card ever. 

Baylor liked having her own bowl of fruit loops. She had a paper to put them on with empty squares. She put maybe 4 or 5 on but then was just happy to eat them.

 Thursday's art project was a bird hand print. I let Baylor paint her own nest part and then I helped her with the hand print part.

Baylor was done a lot quicker than Paige was. So once Baylor was done and her hand was cleaned up she decided to do some finger painting. Paige had drawn these cute animals on the back of one of her math worksheets and it was so cute that the first thing Baylor did was put cute little fingerprints right on all their cheeks.

Another example of some of the writing worksheets that Paige did for the day.

And her journal entry for the day.

 Friday the schedule kind of got thrown out the window. Nate gets off work at 10 on Fridays. So in the morning before he got home Paige did her math and writing. Baylor colored some and played with beads. Then once Nate got home we went to the temple to get some pictures of Paige in her baptism dress with all the gorgeous spring flowers that are up there right now. And because of our schedule for the day we didn't get around to doing sewing so hopefully we will get to it next week.

 That evening Paige and Baylor did their art project of a rhino. I was busy with dinner so Paige was the student and the teacher since she helped Baylor with hers along with doing her own.

 All of our art projects for the week!

 It was such a fun week and I'm excited for next week's theme: Holidays!