Lessons @ Our House

I post a lot about Tot School and Preschool but seldom mention what E and A are working on.  E is in 3rd grade and A is in first. So let's take a look.

E is working on her times tables and this great game idea came from a book called Games For Learning by Peggy Kaye and is called count your points.  E picks 2 cards and has to multiply them to find the product.  She takes the first card and draws the corresponding amount of vertical lines and then takes the 2nd card and draws the corresponding number of horizontal lines and what she is left with is a grid as shown above, then to find the answer she counts the # of intersecting points on the grid and whala, the answer.  The explanation may sound confusing but it isn't and it is a great tool for figuring out times tables.  i have seen E use it many times during math lessons.  In case you wanted to kno, our library has many of Peggy Kaye's books, so check it out if you need a pick me up for lessons.

This was a game A and I played many times this past fall.  A is working on addition and subtraction, so a pair of dice, a number line and a coloring page make great practice.  A rolled the 2 dice and I decided if he needed to add or subtract the 2 numbers, he found the answer on his number line and then colored in the correct number of apples.  A and I played this together and we each colored in the apples.

Another great addition game from Peggy Kaye's book.  This game is also played with a pair of dice and a self-drawn rainbow.  I remember playing this one with E and we always had fun.  Draw a rainbow and label it with 12 segments, then take turns rolling and coloring in the corresponding number, the first one with a completed rainbow wins.

Yep, my baby is ironing.  E is in a Keeper's of home club and she was introduced to the skill of ironing and she truly enjoys it.  She always asks to iron her dress for church and is willing to iron Jay's shirts.  Next to work on laundry skills.

Another Keeper's skill E is working on at home is cake baking and decorating.  E made a maple cake and decorated it using a leaf tip and pastry bag (don't ask why a quarter of the cake is cut off, all  I will say is my pretty cake plate is gone). This was also a cooking project as a follow up to our study of  Snowflake Bentley and Vermont.

E and A have both been working on compound words.  Here A is copying them into his notebook.

A is using our moveable alphabet and 3 letter objects to spell and read.

A is working on identifying beginning sounds of 3 letter words.

 In addition to these things we have been studying Abraham Lincoln and U.S. History, biblical character traits, fractions, poetry, cursive, grammar and piano. I hope to finish up our school year with a unit study on oceans and Harriet Tubman.

What our your children working on these days?