As usual, we are enjoying lots of reading together. We finished The Wizard of Oz and Just So Stories, the books that Caleb and I take turns reading aloud to each other, and have started Charlotte's Web. Caleb has a selection of seasonal books he is reading to himself and we are reading poetry books together as well, including the favorite, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Caleb is putting together his own collection of favorite fall poems, which he is copying and illustrating.
Smiley also enjoys reading these books with us, as well as stories he picks out from the library; right now he is enjoying a large collection of Mo Willems books. We continue to read fairy tales together, as they make the basis for our alphabet writing and review.
The boys also work on handwriting, and Caleb works on spelling and grammar.
Social Studies is taking us through more Ancient Civilizations, after Egyptian and other African cultures, we began reading Native American stories. Caleb works with world maps, while Smiley is being introduced to maps, by mapping his bedroom and making 3D maps out of blocks.
Caleb is catching on to multiplication, applying math to story problems, finding the area of squares and rectangles, and reviewing multiple digit addition and subtraction. Smiley continues to work on the basics of adding, so far covering digits 0-2 and 8-9, and counting by 10's and adding 10's and 100's.
Caleb's math samples:
Smiley's math samples:
Science continues to cover a range of things in the natural world. In addition to reading and drawing, both boys spent some time using charts. Caleb charted an experiment about water evaporation and Smiley charted his observations of the weather.
Every week the boys enjoy a variety of outdoor group games, jump roping, hiking, and more with their friends at Riverwood Community School, in addition to the art and Spanish classes they are taking. We've had a few more field trips to help on different farms, enjoyed seasonal fun like pressing cider and carving pumpkins, and worked with volunteers who helped teach the kids a variety of outdoor skills like fire building (without matches!), plant identification, and shelter building. At home, we have found time to make applesauce with bushels of apples donated by a friend, and made many quarts of tomato sauce with the abundance of tomatoes we grew in the garden. Making bread and cooking together is also part of our weekly routine, as well as cleaning, playing and practicing instruments, reading, crafting (usually drawing for Smiley, knitting for Caleb) and whatever else the kids find fun and interesting that week!
