Daily Learning Notebook:
- Jackson: Confessions of a Homeschooler
- Alex: 1+1+1=1
LDS Scripture Verse:
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
-John 3:5
DAY 1
After Calendar Time, I brought out our letter sound box. Letter x doesn't begin many words, so I only had four things in my box. These included a foam letter X, our sign-language card, a xylophone card, and an x-ray card.
Tray 1: Xylophone Color By Number
Tray 2: Beginning Sounds Coloring with stamp pen
Tray 3: Musical Instrument Vocabulary
Tray 4: Roll a Xylophone game with numbered di
I forgot to print out two copies of the color by number page, so the boys split the numbers to color in. :)
We loved reviewing the different instruments.
And with a little prompting, Jackson did quite well with the di game.
I turned on the Magic School Bus sound episode, titled Inside the Haunted House (Or In the Haunted House). This is actually one of their favorite episodes of The Magic School Bus, so they were excited.
While they watched, I set up our (planned) final activity for school...
The Water Xylophone
So complex. ;)
I used five glasses with different amounts of water and a spoon. When the boys finished the show, we reviewed how sound is created by vibrations (the show talks about this). I talked about how hitting the side of a glass causes the water and air to vibrate, creating sound. And that different amounts of water created different sounds. I then played Mary Had a Little Lamb using my "water xylophone."
They were very excited to have a turn, too. :)
We were so excited with our homemade instrument that we decided to make some more! Jack decided he needed his Iron Man costume to proceed...
Our new assortment of instruments. We used an old oatmeal tub as a drum, rubber bands on a loaf pan as a guitar (or other string instrument), rice and plastic Easter eggs to make shaker eggs/maracas, popsicle-stick harmonicas, plastic straw pan flute, and I pulled out my college recorder.
And then...all the noise! Uh, I mean, music!
DAY 2
Tray 1 (Jack): Do-a-dot worksheet with bingo marker
Tray 1 (Alex): Letter Hunt with bingo marker
Tray 2: Letter Matching with wooden nickel letters
Tray 3: Shape and color review pages (torn from a workbook) with crayons
Tray 4: Watermelon counting seeds puzzle (I found it after we finished the letter w, so we used it here, instead!)
Tray 5: Foam pumpkins and leaves for pattern building
Doing the Activities:
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| Alex did this counting puzzle all by himself! I was pleasantly shocked! |
Wanting more, I started doing math problems with Jack on our new easel. He writes the problem himself, too, to practice number writing.
Our addition problems get bigger each time. If he's ever stumped, he consults our wall calendar to help him count it out.
And feeling left out, Alex took a turn at the easel. Pretending to be "Teacher Alex." Which turned out to be some sort of pictionary game. :)
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| "Okay guys! Who thinks this is a donut?" |
DAY 3
Tray 1: Alphabet mazes (taken from a workbook) with bingo markers
Tray 2: Letter poke pages with toothpicks
Tray 3: Handwriting pages
Tray 4: Name writing wipe pages
-when I first made these, I wrote their names on the top and in traceable letters on the bottom and laminated the page so we can use them again and again
Tray 5: Upper and lower-case alphabet puzzle
Tray 6: Pom-pom size-sorting activity
- I included tweezers and mini-tongs to use to pick up the pom-poms. The goal was to sort by color (green in green cup, red in red cup, and white in the ice cube tray)
Doing the Activities:
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| Jack does such a good job writing his name! |
After sorting the pom-poms by color, the boys and I decided to sort by size: small, medium, and large.
We soon realized, however, that the medium group included 2-3 different sizes. So we sorted them even further into all the sizes.
And we finished off the week by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting the letter X on the coconut tree.
