Homeschool Days at Avalanche Elementary

A glimpse of our days at Avalanche Elementary!  I can't believe we have already been homeschooling for 2 1/2 months, it seems like we just started.
 Here is a look at our weekly schedules.  This shows what we do with each of the subjects.  Scott teaches both kids math and I do the rest of the subjects.    

Avery:

Reading

1. Workbook pages from Sing, Spell, Read and Write
2. Independent reading from books he chooses at the library
3. Journal Writing
4. Dictation- I read him a story and he has to dictate the story back to me.  This is great for focus!
5. Listening to a story- usually some science book or a chapter book
6. Spelling
7. Sight words
8. Bible Story

Math

1. Workbook pages from Progress in Math
2. Problem of the day
3. Flashcards
4. Timed math facts

Handwriting

1.  A Reason for Handwriting workpages
2. Memory Verse of the week

Computer- various educational games

Music- piano practice

Art- I pick a different artist or topic to learn about each week and then we recreate simple art. 

Exercise- All things outdoors, biking, hiking, taking walks, playing at the park, swimming

Library- library day is his favorite.  He loves to pick science, architecture and weird books out to read with Scott.

Enrichment- Every week we pick a different topic to study in depth on Fridays.  It is usually in science, history, and geography.  This week we are studying life cycles of animals.  We bought mealworms to watch their metamorphosis.    

Alia:

Reading

1. Letter stories- I start the story highlighting a letter and she finishes the story and draws the picture.  The story for the letter K was Kangaroos like to kick when they.......Alia finished by saying "are mad.  They get mad when people pull their tails."  The stories come from the website called Enchanted Learning.
2. Letter picture book- I made a book with one letter on each page.  She comes up with a word or two that can begins with the letter.  Today was "d" and she drew a dog and wrote the word dog.  
3. Blending letter sounds- I do various activities here.
4. Writing letters and saying their sound names.
5. Bible story

Math

1. Problem of the day
2. Number picture book- She has a book with numbers and she has to write the number and add stickers or stamps on the page to match that number.
3. Counting and recognizing numbers using flashcards
4. Shapes
5. Problem solving strategies- creating math problems for her to solve.

Free play- this usually involves playing her favorite game, Baby and Mama or going outside to make soup with various sticks and rocks she finds around the campground.

Library- She gets to go to the library twice a week.  She goes once a week with Scott to a program called Jumping Beans.  It's a story time and music and dance time.  I'm so happy Scott is getting to take her to this program.  He always felt left out that I got to do all those fun things with the kids.  She also goes with the family when we pick out books.  It's fun to watch her try to lug the massive book basket around, picking books.

Exercise- same as Avery 

Music and Art- She usually joins Avery and I on our various art projects and I try to work on piano with her but she seems to have her own idea of how the piano should sound.

Enrichment- She joins Avery on enrichment day.

Themed Activity- on Wednesdays she does special projects.  I have a theme for each month.  This month it is all things winter.  Last Wednesday she learned about polar bears and penguins and we had her cover one hand in lard.  She put both hands in ice water and we talked about how the lard hand felt.  This helped her to see that the blubber that polar bears have keeps them warm. 

 She made this horse on her library day. 

We learned about Thomas Edison and his inventions.  Avery made a homemade compass.

 
 Playing at the park.

 Playing tag.

 Here they were learning about the laws of motion and Newton.  They made an inertia zoom ball to demonstrate the first law of motion.

 Art activity- We read about Eric Carle's life and made our own pictures using the same techniques he used. 

 Painting with snow- a shaving cream and glue mixture.

 She wanted to play in the snow.

 We made paper-mache globes on the Friday we learned about the 7 continents. 

 This was a messy project in the rv!  We did part of it outside in the pouring rain, under the little awning. 

 Instead of baby and mama she wanted me to be her horse.  It's a good thing the rv is so small and I only had to trot a couple of feet at a time.  Those things in my eyes are sticky eyeballs that you throw at the wall.

We enjoyed a 6 mile hike this weekend at the Tamoka State Park.  The kids were amazing and no one complained that they had to walk that far!