Apple Pickin'

We visited a local orchard and picked apples today. The weather was gorgeous!

Our girl was in quite a playful mood.

She was hamming it up for all of the pictures.

The boy was much more serious about his apple picking.

She loves her dolls

This doll's original name was "Naked Baby"...aptly named because she was always naked - Abby loved taking doll clothes off but could never seem to put them back on. It seems she has finally mastered the ability to dress her dolls on her own - but her name remains - Naked Baby.

learning notes - Monday 9/10 - Friday 9/14

Maybe I'll switch to once a week updates on what we're learning...

L/A - This week we worked on the letters "o" and "n", practiced handwriting both upper & lowercase of both letters, reviewed their sounds by verbally doing workbook pages in Get Ready for the Code and Jump Right into Reading, made lots of words with our letter cards - some I made for Ryan and I had him read them, other times I would ask him to make a word...and his favorite - he made some words for me! Math - MUS Primer lessons 6 (circles), 7 (number recog), and 8 (triangles) - pretty much review for Ryan. Other - We did a cool activity from Science Play called "Inside Dirt" (p.82); made farm animal riddle book. Read Alouds - Horses by Gail Gibbons, Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit, Beren Bears Forget their Manners, Beren Bears and the Sitter (Abby is on a Beren Bear kick right now), Henry and Mudge and the Snowman, Calling Dr. Amelia Bedelia, Walter the Baker by Eric Carle, September 2007 High-5 magazine, Picnic Farm by C. Morton & S. Barringer, One Whole Day: Wild Ponies by Jim Arnosky (very sweet book), finished Ch. 3 in Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm, The Brementown Musicians, What is Love in Happy Days Treasury and Poems: "The Cow", "Humpty Dumpty", "Hey Diddle Diddle".

Pure sweetness!

Can a baby get any cuter? I guess there have been at least two other babies that could rival the cuteness of this one...

learning notes - Friday 9/7

Another day of mostly read-alouds: finished The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by R. Dahl - very cute book; The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County; part of ch 3 from Mrs. Pigglewiggle's Farm; and Seven Little Postmen. We also practiced drawing horses based on directions from Sing, Play, Create. After drawing a couple horses, Ryan drew a farm scene with all of the animals we've learned to draw so far: a rooster, a hen and a horse...and he also went ahead in the book and drew a cow! He is definitely eager to learn!

learning notes Wednesday 9/5 and Thursday 9/6

Wednesday: sounds for letter "p" - we pretty much speed through most of the phonics pages because Ryan already knows most of his letters and their sounds...we did spend some time using letter cards for letters we've already reviewed to make the following words: bake, rake, fake, take, make, fat, mat, rib, me, rat, bat, fib, kite, bite, bike, am, mike, pit, pet, pat, sit, at, sat, sam, bam, pam

Thursday: Last night was not very restful for me so we took a break from "school" but we did do lots of read-alouds: BINGO by Rosemary Wells, Stone Soup by Ann McGovern, Berenstain Bears Week at Grandma's & Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room, Daddy Kisses by A. Gutman, Biscuit Meets the Neighbors by A. Capucilli, Wibbly Pig is Happy by Misk Inkpen, Good Habits for God's Kids: Good For You by Laura Derico; Seven Special Days by H. Gambill (JOI selection) and Tanglefoot by Richard Scarry (JOI selection).

learning notes - Tuesday 9/4

letter "p" - Get Set for the Code pages 1-14 (verbal review); Italics handwriting; played "What Am I?" game from WOW! I'm Reading (WP RTL) - I read some clues and the kids drew pictures of what they thought the answer to the riddle was...Ryan loves riddles so he really enjoyed this game, Abby doesn't quite get the concept yet - she just drew whatever she felt like drawing, for example, one of the first clues was "I keep you warm" and Abby drew a cat?? ; MUS Lesson 6, page 6A; Read Alouds: God Gives Us Seasons by Dot Cachiaras, The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race.