Just 2 Days....

Esme has read many Halloween books, done some cool crafts and fine motor skill activities, and even our annual outings have become field trips! We're taking the end of the week off to eat our Halloween candy prepare for our new Ocean unit, which we'll begin next week.

this week in homeschooling

This week's book of the week is A Very Brave Witch. We're using it to compare and contrast, and to learn about fiction versus non-fiction. Esme is also starting her very first addition lessons! Words of the week are you and love.

the start of Halloween lessons

Ethan and Esme started studying Halloween this week. They are reading a book about the history and traditions behind the holiday, and the words of the week are in and out.

Eric Carle Museum

To celebrate finishing our bug unit, we visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art today. In the last six weeks we'd used The Grouchy Ladybug, The Very Quiet Cricket, The Very Lonely Firefly, The Very Clumsy Click Beetle, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so we thought this would be a fitting tribute. We saw the process he uses for his illustrations, saw some work by Leo Lionni, heard Rosemary Wells speak, visited the library, and made our own magical creatures in the art studio.

This was a wonderful first unit for all of us. Using the bug lessons by The Mailbox made planning the lessons easy, and we were lucky to have so many books we love on the subject. We're taking two weeks to study Halloween, and after that we'll move on to studying the ocean - Esme let us know that is what she is interested in next.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us in our homeschooling adventure so far!

Esme can count to 30!

We've surpassed our first kindergarten goal. Before we started homeschooling Esme could count to 10 or 12. The kindergarten goal is to count to 20. Since we decided to do most of our counting practice at calendar time, we decided to go for 30. I am so proud of her!

Amazed by Butterflies

We ended our study of butterflies last week with a trip to the butterfly conservatory. What an amazing place! We saw many different kinds of butterflies, and got to reinforce all the interesting things we learned last week. Esme and I were delighted that one landed on Ethan and started to walk around on his head, until it walked into his eye. Shouldn't have taken those glasses off! Ethan has recovered but I think he may have been a little traumatized and I'm not sure we'll get him near any kind of bug conservatory anytime again soon.

This week we are studying Spiders. Our book of the week is The Very Busy Spider and our words of the week are to and said.

Week 4

Our book of the week this week is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We are doing two review words - she and not. Esme is progressing very nicely. She knows eight sight words and spots them in almost every book we read. She knows all her letters and their sounds and is in the early stages of learning to sound out words. We are working on her fine motor control so that writing will be easier for her. We are in our fourth week of our bug unit, and we're concentrating on butterflies. We're hoping to visit the butterfly conservatory near here at the end of the week. Since we've been using so many Eric Carle books, we're also hoping to visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art at the end of this unit.

Esme learned the story of creation in Sunday School this week. Her teacher was impressed how fast she picked it up. The class has 7 pictures representing each day of creation, and Esme learned their order almost immediately. She will get her first medal for learning this story.

We are also hoping that our Daisy Troop will start up soon! Esme is really looking forward to being a Girl Scout and I am really looking forward to being her leader!