It’s taking awhile to get back into the swing of things after Christmas vacation, but we’re slowly easing our way back into our work. We’re having a hard time maintaining a routine/ schedule but we get things done!
Math
We did Saxon Lessons 60-65 (in some form or another, at least). This included:
Covering a design with pattern blocks in several different ways (which proved to be a little challenging for L but she liked it once she got the hang of it):
Practicing addition & subtraction facts… We played this cool game we got for Christmas. It has ALL the facts in there, but I took out what we haven’t learned yet and will add them back in as we get to them. After awhile she got bored so we stopped putting ALL our cards back when we got the POP cards.
We learned the subtracting zero facts using math blocks.
We learned number words, which I didn’t push too much because we’re still working on handwriting & reading, which I consider this.
Even Little Brother did some math, practicing patterns with our teddy bear counters.
Reading: Long Vowels
I feel like we’ve really progressed in reading since we’ve hit Long Vowels. To me, that’s more like 1st grade stuff. She seems to be getting it, as far as sounding it out and understanding the basic rule. So we’ll press on as I’m going to be adding in some new reading and spelling stuff very soon (more to come!)
We’ve done lots of different games, rather than just reading the words from the book.
We played some of the Long & Short Vowel Sorting Games here.
I wrote some words on our dry erase board and had her add the “Magic E” magnet to make the vowels long.
We did the “Under the Sea” E Word Sort.
And the Long/ Short I Sorting Game from the same site (although I made my own word cards because I hate using so much color & ink for only 4 words to a page when I can do it myself for cheaper).
Science
Since our focus was on cold weather and ice, we did a few Snow & Ice Science Experiments. Here we “raced” our ice cubes to see whose would melt the fastest. We put salt on one. Supposedly, it was supposed to melt faster with ice but it didn’t really work right. We also put a bunch of ice into a bowl just to see how long it would take to melt. L and Little Brother ended up eating half of it. 
But they learned about the states of matter a little.
We talked about our Five Senses to learn about Winter.
Literature
This book was full of great learning extensions. This packet had a great measuring activity to go along with our math and it had a great social studies idea, drawing a map of our neighborhood, including important buildings and places we need. Little Brother loved driving his cars on our maps. We also did a “What I Learned About Katy” report for reading comprehension.
Around the World Geography: Antarctica & India
I don’t have a lot of pictures but we studied two different places these past weeks. First we learned about Antarctica, which of course isn’t really a country, but seemed fitting to include in a unit about snow & ice.
I found the unofficial flag on the internet for her passport:
We colored a picture of the continent and explored pictures of it at CoolAntarctica.com. We also looked at this book from the library and learned about what scientists are doing there and the various animals that live around there.
The second week we visited India. We read about “Meena” in Children Just Like Me. We learned how to say “Hello” in Hindi and explored the TimeFor Kids website. We colored a picture of the Taj Majal and then one of a Peacock, the national bird of India. Two other things I planned to do but didn’t get to: Make Naan Bread and color or use colored rice to cover a Rangoli design.
Snowy Crafts
We made snowflakes from coffee filters.
We painted a snowman picture with fluffy white paint (1/2 school glue & 1/2 shaving cream). You have to apply a lot of paint in order to get the desired texture!
Teeny Tot School
My littlest one is now really starting to enjoy doing things right along with us. I’m pulling out a few of my old tricks for her to play around with when I need to occupy her. She’s really BUSY right now and doesn’t stay entertained long by one thing, but she is starting to be interested in more of the educational toys. We got these pattern block puzzles for Christmas.
We played with teddy bear counters. (By that I mean threw them all over the floor.)
And she’s getting the hang of the fine motor skills. She did so well with her little musical piggy bank that I made her the Pringles can/ popsicle stick toy I made when Little Brother was her size. She loves to put things in other things!
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