The kids have had a fun week, with lots of celebrations in addition to schoolwork.  Their dad's birthday celebration included a trip to the pool in Colville where Caleb practiced swimming across the pool by himself and Smiley made some big steps dunking his head underwater.  A Mardi Gras party included dancing and visiting with friends and making masks.  And two Valentine's parties (one at Riverwood School and one at Greenwood Institute d'Art) included more crafts, games, friends and fun.  We still had lots of time at home to work on other things.  Here's a bit of the fun and learning we've been up to:

In Language Arts, we are all reading Doctor Dolittle together, Caleb practices reading aloud, and we read from a variety of other books too.  Caleb practiced writing paragraphs, including a page he did about Doctor Dolittle; he made a list of sight words (words that cannot be sounded out), and has been writing in his journal.  In his journal he gets to write about whatever he wants; the emphasis is to enjoy expressing his own thoughts.

Smiley continued to practice recognizing and writing letters.  Alot of what we do is oral, for example making up rhymes and playing games to lear the sounds letters make.  He also began putting letters together to make words.

Caleb finished his math lesson on subtraction with borrowing.  As with everything he has done in math so far, he became quite proficient once he learned the concept.

Smiley's math work was done mostly on the whiteboard, adding and writing numbers.  The kids together continued to work in their cultural coloring books and we read some stories from Africa together.  The kids worked together with an insect kit, identifying the parts and different types of insects.
The kids also did lots of crafts this week.  They learned about Cajun music while making Mardi Gras masks, decorated cookies, made Valentines with markers, stencils, and marble painting, played games, took walks and exercised on trampolines, made birthday cake, and lots more!