MFWK Unit 4-Apple

Apple was a fun unit. We have been dragging the units out, so now, we are into the right time of year for the apple theme. Since we have taken so long to complete our units, I am really noticing a difference in Lily's handwriting and drawing skills from one unit to the next. Her reading has really improved now, and she can actually read small sight word books on her own. She is sounding out words that she is not familiar with without help.


We kicked off (and ended) the unit with mini apple pies. These are the easiest things ever to make! Just take refrigerated biscuits and flatten them out. Add some peeled, chopped apples. Sprinkle with sugar/cinnamon. Close the biscuits, and sprinkle more on the top. Bake according to biscuit directions. Done!

We worked on counting and graphing our different kinds of apples. We got to taste different kinds, too. I think that was one of Lily's favorite parts of this unit-eating the apples. This was our apple grid. I told Lily to cut the apples out, and I would be back to explain the paper. This is what I came back to. She apparently didn't need my help on this. :)

 

Apple printing was one of our favorite activities. Lily loves anything that involves paint. 

 

Apple cake-we found this recipe for an apple cake, so we decided to try it out. 1 box of yellow cake mix, 1 stick of butter, and lots of apples. Just peel and cut apples-cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle cake mix on top of the apples. Melt the butter, and drizzle on top. Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes. It turned out better than I expected!

Lily's drawing pages are starting to take more shape. I love that everything she draws right now has a face. :)

We are continuing with the Ready2Read program I mentioned in the last post. We have started a word wall, and we are building it up. I also got Unifix letter cubes and cards to help with word building and spelling. 

 One of the the most exciting things for Lily the last couple of week was that we started Pee Wee soccer. Since Lily is home most of the time, I wanted to get her out with some other kids, and she is really enjoying it!

Now, we are ready to move on to the Nest unit!

MFWK Unit 3 -Leaf

We have had a busy Summer! I got away from keeping up with the blog, so I will try to catch up a bit. It takes us a LONG time to get through some of our units. I am supplementing our Math and Reading, so I have been stretching things out so Lily won't get overwhelmed. Some days, she doesn't feel like doing school at all, and that's ok. She's 4. She has plenty of time. :)





 We kicked off our Leaf unit with a trip to the Botanical Gardens. Lily loved it! We spent the day walking through the gardens (or the Forest, as she called it), reading about the different plants and picking different leaves. Some were almost as big as her!

We turned our Play Stand into a tree for the next few units. We cut out Fall colored leaves, and added 

 them to the play stand. Lily spent lots of time under her "tree".

We have been working on handwriting. Lily gets frustrated with the writing part of her school work, so I let her pick what she would like to write with. She has regular pencils, crayons, markers and colored pencils. Markers are her favorite right now, so I let her use them.

We took some of the leaves we collected on our trip to the Botanical Gardens to make some leaf rubbings.

We made a tree with leaves made from sponge painting:

We also have a little art set that I had stuck back for later use. It had a very cute picture in it, and Lily was to finish painting the leaves. She really enjoyed this project.

Lily asked me to teach her to read in the middle of this unit, so we started on that. We are using a couple of things. The first thing we are using is the Ready2Read program from the Moffatt Girls blog. It is FANTASTIC! http://moffattgirls.blogspot.com/p/products.html  It is very hands-on, and it keeps Lily's attention the entire time. She is actually reading small books by herself, and has learned to sound out her letter blends while using this program.

We are also using Hooked On Phonics. www.hookedonphonics.com  Another fun program! It uses DVDs, workbooks, books and computer games to teach. If your child is a hands on or multi-sensory learner, both of these programs are great!

Overall, it was a great unit. It took us a while to get through it, but I think once I get on a schedule with the reading and math, we will be able to get through our units faster. We are really enjoying MFWK so far!

MFWK Unit 2- Moon

It has taken us a while to get through this unit. We got started on it over a month ago, but the weather got nice, so we took a long break. Since we got about halfway thorough it before we took a break, we reviewed. Lily is really good at remembering what she has learned, though, so it didn't take much review-wise. This was a really fun unit. Lily did lots of fun things.

We went over the phases of the moon. Then we demonstrated on Oreos. This was a favorite activity this unit!

We read the story "The Moon Might Be Milk."  In the story, there is a recipe for sugar cookies, so we decided to try to make those. They turned out pretty good.

We discussed the surface of the moon, and how it is made of craters. We discussed how asteroids and comets hit the surface of the moon, and make these big craters. To give a good visual demonstration, we put flour in a pan, and dropped coins from above. This caused the once-smooth surface to be full of holes and "craters."

We purchased a Waldorf play stand. I love that this can be anything that the child wants. It's very open ended. Kids don't get a lot of toys like that anymore. This was what it looked like when it first got put together, but it wasn't long before we turned it into a spaceship. Lily spent lots of time in the spaceship playing and reading books on her Kindle.

We are supplementing math this year. Lily loves math, and I don't feel like My Father's World has enough to keep her satisfied in that area. We are using Singapore Earlybird math. She loves it! She will do a week's worth of math in one sitting.

Lily has been a little behind with her fine motor skills, so I have been working on some cutting and pasting activities to help her out. She is getting much better. She was able to complete the activities in MFWK this unit without me helping her at all.

I love to add little extra activities in whenever I can. Another MFWK user posts some fabulous printables on her blog at  http://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/   She has so many cute extra activities, and we do a lot of them.

 Bingo dauber painting:

 Mini number puzzles:

Handwriting worksheets:

 

 Cutting and pasting upper and lowercase letters:

 Mini flip book:

We made a moon cake. This was fun-we put some baking soda, and added a little vinegar to it to make a volcano on the moon's surface.

We started a Flat Traveler exchange. This is Flat Sarah-she is on her way to Scotland right now for some adventures. The host family will take her wherever they go, and take pictures and keep a journal of their activities while they have her. We are taking their flat into our home while Sarah is overseas. 

Lily finished up her unit with a lapbook about the moon. I really like the lapbooks, because they wrap up the unit nicely with the highlights and tidbits of information based on what she learned during the whole unit.

That's it! Our moon unit is officially wrapped up. Next up-Ll-Leaf!