Moving up! Moving Beyond the Page Level 5-7

We moved up! Lily was enjoying Moving Beyond the Page level 4-5, but honestly, she was way past the material. I had 5-7 here and waiting, and when I started looking through it, I found that if I waited much longer, she was going to be past that, too! I didn't want that to happen-there are too many awesome things in 5-7 that I don't want her to miss. We scrapped the last 6 units of 4-5, and started 5-7. We are only going to do 2 or 3 concepts of 5-7, and she will be moving right into 6-8 this Fall! Wow!

 Moving up!

The first concept in MBTP 5-7 is Environment. Lily learned about maps, and made a map of her room. We discussed how everyone has their own special place on the map, and read the book Me On the Map, by Joan Sweeney.

 

Lily spent some time talking about her home environment, and how it keeps her safe and healthy. She labeled the different rooms of the house.

 

The next thing we did was talk about different animal habitats. We read the book Animal Habitats! by Judy Press. Lily had to choose a habitat to research and discuss in more detail.

 

She chose the Arctic Tundra-I wonder why?

 

 We made a sensory bin out of the Insta-Snow from one of her science kits and the Arctic TOOB.

We talked about the snowy owl, and made owl puppets!

 

We talked about the Northern Lights in the Arctic. Lily thought they were beautiful. We looked up pictures of the Northern Lights online, then she did the Northern Lights project in the book.

We discussed animal classification, and Lily had to sort pictures into the right category.

 Later in the week, we talked about the Forest habitat, and Lily made some of the crafts out of the forest chapter of the book. This was a Wooly Bear Caterpillar.

She made a caterpillar, a red bat and a dragonfly to go with her forest habitat.

 

Lily started Bible lessons this week. Since she is such a hands-on learner, it was hard to find something that she would pay attention to. I found this Hands-On Bible. It has little activities to do throughout each lesson to really help keep her up and active. The lessons are short, and written to where a child can understand them. It was really fun!

I found a company that sells educational games. Lily LOVES games, and these are great! We played a lot of math games this week. She had to add and subtract numbers up to ten. It was a great way to reinforce her school skills without feeling like I was adding extra work onto her day! The company even has a special deal for homeschoolers, so you can save on games to use as part of your curriculum! You can check it out here:

www.simplyfun.com/tfredo (This is my website-I signed up as a rep because I was SO excited!)

 We got quite a bit of snow this week, so we took some time out to have fun with that, and build a snowman. :)

At the end of the week, our new math curriculum arrived. We are trying out RightStart math. Again-very hands on, and lots of games. This sounds just like what Lily will like. She squealed with excitement when the UPS man showed up. 

We did the first lesson. We will know more about this curriculum next week, but I think it looks like fun!

 

That was our first week with MBTP level 5-7. We are going to continue our animal habitats unit next week. So far, Lily loves it!

Moving Beyond the Page-Rain

This week, we read the book, Rain-by Robert Kalan. It was a very short, simple book. Lily really enjoyed this one. The first thing she noticed about the book was that the rain drops were actually the word "rain."

Our first project was not in the manual. I had been saving this tube for a long time. I knew it would make an awesome rain stick! So, we coiled up some aluminum foil, and poured some rice in with it. I taped the ends on, and let her decorate the tube. Lily worked on the rain tube for over an hour!

For math this week, Lily added and subtracted rain drops.

Lily made a rainbow book, and colored the letter "R" rainbow colors. 

Lily spent a lot of time with the die-cuts in this unit. She made different scenes with them.

Towards the end of the week, she made a more permanent scene.

We had fun with a couple of science experiments. Lily LOVES science, and would spend an entire day doing nothing but experiments. The first one was to put steaming water in a glass cup, then a plate and ice on the top. The cold mixed with the warm water produced "rain" on the sides of the cup.

 Really excited for something to happen!

The second experiment was to put a "cloud" on top of the water. (Shaving cream)  We put "rain" (food coloring) on top of the cloud, and Lily got to see what happens when the clouds get too heavy. It rains!

Lily painted a rainbow. This was supposed to go outside in the rain, but it didn't rain this week. She sprayed it with a water bottle instead. I love how she is holding the plate of paint. She said she was an artist with her paint. :)

I made a fun little "cloud" snack for Lily to eat while she worked. 

Lily approved! Yum! (She is in a silly face mood for pictures all of a sudden)

We have been working on Lily's reading and writing with McRuffy phonics. She is really enjoying the program. We are moving slowly through it, because Lily's fine motor skills just weren't there yet. Her comprehension is great, though!

I did find some pop beads to hep with some fine motor skill development. Lily loves to make jewelry, and this activity doesn't frustrate her like some fine motor activities do.

 

A really exciting thing happened this week! Lily lost her first tooth! It has been loose for a few weeks, and it was finally ready! Such an exciting time for her. :) 

That was our week. I probably could have added some more, but the restoration people were in and out finishing up the repairs from our leak that happened before Christmas. Oh, and I broke my toe by slamming it into a chair, so I really tried to sit as much as possible this week. :)  Next week, we are going to be working on Night in the Country-by Cynthia Rylant.