We took a break from the Before Five In A Row manual this week to focus on the election. I thought this would be great as I believe this will be the first election the boys will remember. As such, I decided to do a patriotic themed week. Since the boys do not know the pledge, I thought this would be a great book to row. The Pledge Of Allegiance published by Scholastic worked wonderfully as they can both now recite the pledge. The book is illustrated with real pictures to help translate the pledge. You can see them say it below:
{best part, wiping the snot on your hand afterward...ick}
We had a discussion about what the stars and stripes represent. Fifty stars=Fifty states (they'll be ahead of our president on that one!), although I hear we may have 51 soon. We read the book Meet Our Flag Old Glory by April Jones Prince and made our own Old Glory. Construction paper + Qtips + White paint!
They both got to participate in Tuesday's election by going to the polls with hubby and me. They were very excited to get to push the buttons and look at the names. I wanted to let them vote at home, but I knew they would choose the candidate that hubby and I would be voting for. After much research, I found, "Your Vote Counts", a lesson plan by Kathleen Carpenter. It uses Cookie Monster and The Count as the candidates. They are campaigning for an imaginary position as a classroom helper. The kids have to decide who would help the most. Their campaign posters:
Cookie's idea of helping is making people feel better about whatever problem/issue they are having by giving them a cookie. The Count will help by offering solutions to the problem. Both candidates left gifts for the boys in hopes to persuade them in one direction:
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| A helpful math reference sheet to use with our new colored Math-U-See blocks from The Count |
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| A cookie from Cookie Monster |
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| Enjoying the treat from Cookie Monster! |
I didn't tell them who they should vote for and encouraged them not to announce who would get their vote. Although, they proclaimed loudly to one another who they thought would be the best helper. They were so excited to vote and counted down the days. We read Vote by Eileen Christelow and Amelia Bedelia's First Vote by Herman Parish so they could learn a little bit more about the voting process. Then, Election day finally arrived and we all got to vote:
Signing in & Voting:
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| A whole lot of privacy going on here..."C" trying to sneak around to see "B". |
AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!
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| The only vote for Cookie from "C". What can I say, he's a man after my own heart. I think the treat from Cookie swayed his vote. |
We watched this video showing Cookie & Count cooperating. It was a great wrap up. We also read America the Beautiful by Katharine Bates and America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney. From these we discussed America's special dates, places, people etc. We made the White House, fireworks and a Bald Eagle (see here for patriotic crafts!).
The White House:
Bald Eagles (made from hand prints and a foot print):
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Fireworks (made from Q-tips)
As a side note, the website suggests drying these in the microwave if you don't have time to let them dry overnight. Word to the wise, take them off the paper plate before putting them in the microwave. Otherwise, it turns into a science experiment and you get real fireworks. Ahem...
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| Ta-Da! |
BIBLE
This week started our lesson in Daniel. We focused on 3 P's this week: Prayer, Praise & Promises. We learned about Daniel trusting in God no matter what and continuing to praise Him even in hard times. Our memory verse this week was Jeremiah 33:3:
Call out to me. I will answer you. I will tell you great things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3
We started the week by reading the first part of the story of Daniel in the Lions Den. All the way up to the point that he was thrown in the den. We came up with our own prayer requests to pray for and put them on our bulletin board. Our board also includes the other P's. The prayers will move to the praises section when answered and the promise section will contain our Bible verse and other truths that we are learning for the week. They colored a picture of Daniel in the den:
We read Lion by Caroline Arnold and Lion's Lunch? by Fiona Tierney. The next day we finished up the story and talked about praises as Daniel praised God for keeping him safe. We also had a "lion hunt." I printed out lions and wrote words from the story on them. Hubby hid them in the house and they had to find them:
That day, they had lion sandwiches for lunch. It was a roarin' hit...get it, roarin'...sigh.
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| Sasquatch face? |
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| Listening to Daddy to see where to look to find the last one! |
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| After they found them, they had to match the word up with the correct picture...King Darius, lions or Daniel. |
We wrapped the week up with some songs/fingerplays and making the story from pages in our workbook:
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| "C" retelling the story with his mini-book. |
Mommy's learning moment of the week: I suppose this just continues to go along with last week and that cute little sheep with a smile on his face. What are the lions that you face? If Daniel was able to keep praying to God in a of real, raging, ravenous lions, why don't I? I need to work on my faith and trust as I clearly don't seek Him as I should when a "lion" is in my midst.
MATH
The boys started using colored blocks this week. Instead of using green units (1 block) to count, the colored ones represent the units "glued" together to form a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 block. The course recommends making up names to help you remember the color associated with the number. For example, the 3 block is pink- so he recommended the 3 Little Pigs. The boys ran with the animals idea...2 orange tigers, 5 blue whales, etc.
HANDWRITING
We finished up C & O and worked on writing some words. They did great! Although, I think I need to start integrating more writing into our day. So, we'll see what transpires of that next week :)
PHONICS
As promised, readings from "B" & "C":
"C"
"B"
Praises:
The boys are back to their healthy selves...just waiting for the next illness to come our way! Oh how I love the winter season. Baby J's croup is gone. She still has a slight cough every once in awhile, but is for the most part back to 90%. She has her first tooth popping up as well, so that is likely adding to the fun!
I would love to hear your prayers, praise's, comments etc!
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