School Time: Week 20 (Ee concluded)

Surprisingly we actually accomplished some things this week.  I say surprisingly because we had two doctor appointments squeezed in.  On Monday, Hannah had her 9 month check up, and though she is still gaining weight slowly the doctor is not concerned and she is doing fine in every area (I will be posting some more on Hannah's development in another post).  The most we got done on Monday was Muffin Tin Monday.  This week's theme was favorite foods.

On Tuesday we actually had lesson time.  Tuesday is usually Play Group day, but when I heard the school had a two hour delay, I decided I wasn't going out on the roads.  This worked out well because I had lost Monday.

The girls got to use the new Starfall site, more.starfall.com .  We have always liked using Starfall for the cute interactive lessons on learning the alphabet and the sounds, plus beginning reading.  When I saw that there was a new site I had to check it out.  They offered some of their lessons for free so you could get a feel for it, but they charge a membership fee to be able to use the entire site.  What I had sampled impressed me, so after talking it over with hubby I was able to pay the low membership fee ($35 for the year) to open up everything for the girls to use.  Oh, my goodness.  I am amazed at everything they have available (and best yet, the girls love it)

On Tuesday they wanted to "learn" their colors I guess.

I know Tabitha knows all her colors.  I think this will help Amelia to learn the ones she doesn't know yet. 

We still have all the old Starfall lessons.  Here is the alphabet menu page.

But there is sooooooo much more:

Tabitha was really intrigued by the Word Machine.  On the sample you only get to try out "a", but now that we purchased it we can make 3 letter words for all the vowels.

Here is what the machine looks like (reminds me of the Leap Frog DVD "Talking Words Factory"):

Here it is after you press "on"

It sounds out each letter separately and then says the word and out of the machine comes the "object" being spelled.

Then you get levers to click on:

Voila, the word has changed.

(You can also click the red button to change the first letter)

It was quite fun. 

There are also math lessons.

Numbers:

Addition and subtraction

When we sampled this only a couple of each was available.  We enjoyed the "Adding Machine" and "Bowling." We have yet to try out any of the new lessons.  There is just so much.

Of course they still get to enjoy their stories which they enjoyed from the original Starfall.

Not only did the girls get to use the new computer to play on Starfall, we also spent a lot of time focusing on Elmo and Elmer this week.

On Tuesday, when they were done with Starfall, they colored an Elmo picture

I had them color Elmo red

Then they traced the E and I put glue on on their writing.

So they could attach elbow macaroni.

Tabitha took it upon herself to write the sentence:

On Wednesday we started our project based on some really cute "new-to-me" books.  I am not sure how I never heard of Elmer the Elephant by David McKee, but I saw someone on another blog somewhere out in blog-land do a project with her child based on these stories recently.  When I saw them I knew I had to look into them as we were going to be starting E lessons.  I put them on hold and they were available for this week, our second week of E.  We read Elmer, Elmer Again, Elmer's Friends, and Elmer in the Snow.  The original book was written in the 60's and is about an elephant who is very different than the plain old elephants who are gray.  He is patchwork colored.  He feels the other elephants are only laughing because they are laughing at him because he is different.  Turns out he is a real prankster in each of the books, but it is nice to see that he is accepted for who he is.

The girls made their very own patchwork Elmers on Wednesday by fingerprinting.

We had to wait for the paint to dry to finish our craft, so we didn't do any more that day.  The girls did watch a lot of Elmo though.  Well only one (or was it two) that day.  They usually get one show a day while I am making lunch, but the Elmo's World shows are shorter than the other shows they like to watch, so I think I let them watch 2

And on Thursday February 3rd we celebrated Elmo's birthday with a party. 

We made him a party hat and wrapped him a present and got out the tea party stuff and invited a few friends.

And because mommy gained weight from Tabitha's birthday cake, we didn't make a real cake.  I had planned on it.  So he was served tea party cake.

Elmo even got to go in the van with us to my doctor's appointment on Thursday.  Of course, he wore his seatbelt.

We continued the Elmer project on Friday.  I cut a sponge into an elephant shape, using the Elmer as a guide, though I had to make it a bit smaller to fit the sponge.  Then the girls sponge painted gray elephants on green paper.  When that was dry we glued on Elmer.

After talking to daddy, I have started doing our State Lessons again.  No new pictures right now as we just reviewed Delaware.  Focusing on where to find it, the capital, the bird and the flower.  We also talked about directions and the fact that we would have to drive south and east to get to Delaware.  Tabitha can tell me what the capital is and find Delaware on the map!

We also talked about the concept of empty using our egg carton counting from the summer.  First I asked the girls if the egg carton was full or empty

When they told me it was full I took one egg away at a time, each time asking if it was now empty.

Finally it was empty.

Then we worked on some subtraction.  I made up some equation cards from 1-12.  We got to about 6.  I would put the card above the egg carton and the girls had to put the correct number of eggs in the carton.

Then I asked them how many they would have to take away to make it empty again, to equal zero.

They found the right number. 

Took away the eggs and put the numeral card in the equation.

Amelia really enjoyed counting the eggs.  She recognizes the numbers up to five now and is working on counting out one-to-one.

This week daddy had a few days off in a row and he spent some time helping the girls learn.  I'm linking this up to Daddy's Time Friday, a cool weekly link up over at Patricia's blog, Welcome! My Tot Learning Time.

I almost missed the opportunity to take these pictures as I was upstairs getting dressed and doing laundry.  But I heard daddy telling the girls words and asking them to get something.  I had to sneak down the stairs to see.  When I saw what was going on I hurried to get my camera.

They are using Hannah's new foam letters.  As I said, daddy would say a word and the girls took turns hunting for the letter it started with.

Then we made Elbow macaroni macaroni and cheese for lunch.  The girls were both supposed to help but Tabitha wasn't interested for some reason.

While you are here, I invite you to check out my giveaway for World Wide Montessori Online.  You could win a Free Montessori Course for Pre-Primary Children (Ages 2-6).  This course includes her 12 albums/training manuals, plus interaction on Yahoo Groups with fellow students and lectures on Montessori.  The value of this fantastic course is $240 and you can win it here to take the 2 year course for free.  After the completion of the course you will receive a certificate. 

So, if you have ever been interested or remotely curious about Montessori I would recommend checking out her course and the giveaway which ends February 19th.

I'm am linking up to