Little Oaks

Monday, October 6, 2014

Swim Lessons

The three oldest kids have started swim lessons!

Keiran goes first. He is in Sea Turtles and ended up being the only little sea turtle.

Gemma and Aiden are together in Swim Kids 1.

Easing in.

Just a little shared Social Studies and Science:

Aiden, Gemma, and Keiran made a native shelter with their friends. This is like the shelter that the kids saw at Hat Creek Ranch.It is a great precursor for starting Native Studies.

Just for fun, we picked up some table place mats to learn and review Canada.

We have started out with our "Ask Me" books before we get into our curriculum for this year.

And a little about gravity.

Next up.... Math.

September Math:

Keiran:

Keiran knows how to count to ten (or more), and is now learning number recognition and how to print his numbers.

Ordering.

Gemma:

Gem is adding doubles 4+4 and 5+5.

Gemma is in Primer 16.

Aiden:

Aiden is learning to round to the nearest ten.

Aiden is in Math-U-See Beta 4.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Core subject, morning learning.

English.....

Aiden:

Aiden's first spelling test. Way to knock it out!

Some spelling words- Aiden writes on the left because he is left handed and it erases the words when he writes the other way.

Weekly words.

An assignment from our mentor teacher.

And, Aiden's reading material. He has read five books from his Sonlight curriculum and has also been reading "The Imagination Station" chapter book series on his own time.

Gemma:

Gemma's first spelling test ever!

Practicing spelling words.

Printing practice.

Ooooooooo.

Explode the Code work. Gem has been doing so well. Her Sonlight program this year is stretching her, and she is rising to it.

.... And, more Explode the Code work.

Keiran:

My newest little schooler....

Keiran has been learning letter sounds. This is our "Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" book- it works.

Practicing printing the letters that he learns.

Fun!

A friend gave us an "I Can Cut" book. It is really helping Keiran with his fine motor control.

Fun projects too.

And we can't forget some extra pics of Finn Benjamin:

Finn loves to pull out all the books.

Reading already. Haha.

Aiden reading to Finn from the library books (Keiran listening too).

We have been reading through our new bible library each morning to start school off. This day was great because the kids got to see a picture of Bethlehem as it looks nowadays, and then they were wondering if they could go see it. It was fun to see the realization that the bible stories are not just imaginary stories.

This week we read about Jesus' first miracle. These resources are really good as they have a character trait to talk about, lots of illustrations to depict life now and then, and discussions questions too.

While I (mom) read I often let the kids doodle and then give them enough time after the stories to freely color, journal, etc. This is one of Aiden's first journal entries. He also decided that he wanted to learn to write his name in handwriting, and so he did!

Gemma has been drawing people lately. This is a drawing of Mom, Dad, and Gem camping. (There is always a theme to her drawings- camping, 19 Kids and Counting, Horton Hears a Who, and more...)

One morning Aiden made a secret code and mom had to decode his message.

Aiden also made a comic about a ram.

Our little darling, Gem, drawing more people :)

*Keiran is not into the free drawing time yet and usually just listens and helps mom out with Finn.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Family History. Hat Creek Ranch.

On their Dad's side, our kids have history at Hat Creek Ranch. In fact, Great-Grandma Pat has stuff on loan there and the record books trace part of our lineage. Amazing stuff really. We took a day trip out there with Grandma Brookes to explore and find out more:

The Lodge