2015_02_27 Friday

I have gotten completely locked out of work today, so I'm dealing with tech support (as they prioritze me). ugh!

From Reading Club: On Monday , we worked on the booklet I Saw a Very Little.. Some friends also helped me out with an addition assignment along with Price from Ms Sasha's class. On Tuesday , we all continued to read Harold and the purple Crayon. X worked on CVC words with me with short e in the middle. 

From Elise's teacher: Hello and welcome back from our little hiatus :) Today we had calendar time in the morning and played with playdoh after that. Then we had center time. Some friends completed a puzzle, worked on the kindle or the computer,read books, played Legos. We talked about tap dancing and watched a video and then we tried to tap dance. I read a book about Ella Fitzgerald. We also talked about Rembrandt and read a book about him. Then we finally enjoyed some time outside. 

What did you do the past 2 days off of school? 
Elise- I played with my brother and stayed up till midnight 

Have a great weekend everyone! Have fun at the art auction! Look out for our grade's artwork ;) 

From her teacher: Hello and welcome back from our little hiatus :)  Today we had calendar time in the morning and played with playdoh after that. Then we had center time. Some friends completed a puzzle, worked on the kindle or the computer,read books, played Legos. We talked about tap dancing and watched a video and then we tried to tap dance. I read a book about Ella Fitzgerald. We also talked about Rembrandt and read a book about him. Then we finally enjoyed some time outside. 
What did you do the past 2 days off of school? 
Elise- I played with my brother and stayed up till midnight 

Have a great weekend everyone! 
Have fun at the art auction! Look out for our grade's artwork ;) 

2015_02_26 Thursday

Well, I sure had a terrible day! I got into my first car accident just a few blocks away from home. I'm ok, just a bit shaken up. Not sure yet, but we are guessing that Dave's car is totaled. Passenger side airbags deployed; rear passenger wheel is crooked. Luckily, the kids were not with me. the only up-side, I think.

2015_02_24 Tuesday

From Elise's teacher: Today we put on the play Goldilocks and the 3 bears. What great actors we have! We set up a bedroom and kitchen table and used props from our classroom! Everyone took turns playing the 4 parts so we rehearsed quite a few times and then Ms. X's class came to watch us. We worked on our set for Thursday's play of Peter and the Wolf. They had Spanish. We also talked about museum rules for tomorrow.

Peter and the Wolf characters: 

Elise- Duck 

What do you want to ask or learn about tomorrow at the museum? 

Elise- I want to know if the Mona Lisa is at the high museum

2015_02_23 Monday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about fairy-tales and plays. We talked about the setting, characters, plot of a story. We will be doing Peter and the Wolf this week. I read the book to them and we made masks. They had Mandarin and talked about the Chinese New Year. There are auction booklets being sent home! Or they are in their cubby. 

Name a fairytale: 

Elise- my favorite is the Little Mermaid 

2015_02_20 Friday

From Reading Club: Hello! On Tuesday, we all worked on coming up with our own rhyming words and spelling them. They worked on the booklet Where did I go? On Wednesday, we worked on the booklet There Is just One... X and Elise read Sheep Take A Hike to me. X read part of it. On Thursday, X  and I worked on letter sounds with hearts and pictures. X also played on Starfall practicing -ug,-ip,-et, -at words. X also played on Starfall and on a phonics robot. Elise practiced spelling and sight words on the kindle. She even practiced addition with a bowling game. 

2015_02_19 Thursday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. We listened to an orchestra play it and then a little boy who played it on the piano. We made bumblebees and danced around while listening to the song. We practiced handwriting for the letter Ss in our journals. We had show and tell and indoor recess. We discussed the Chinese New Year. Yesterday we also made instruments with various objects and rubber bands. 

Show and tell shares: 
Elise- I brought a smurf and a small star and its sparkly

From Jonathan's enrichment program: This week at school your children and I had the pleasure of making a snow plow. We discussed why this tool is so very important to so many people in the world. We touched on who was the inventor of this wonder instrument and why he decided to make invent this. Without this glorious invention a lot of people would be considered helpless in areas where snow is so abundant. The children had a great appreciation for this tool especially due to the weather up north.

2015_02_18 Wednesday

I had a surprise furniture delivery today! All the PA goodies arrived safe and sound.

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about Beethoven and listened to parts of symphony 5 and 9.  We talked about how they sounded and what they reminded us of like a movie or an opera. We learned about his life.
We had a band come and they performed some songs for us! They played instruments such as the mandolin, guitar, upright bass, banjo... We also played with playdoh and made the letter S. They had French today. Some worked on counting with magnetic gumballs game. X played on the kindle. X worked on CVC words with letter u sound. Tomorrow is show and tell- letter Ss

What was your favorite instrument that the band played? 
Elise - my fav instrument was the guitar.

2015_02_17 Tuesday

From Elise's teacher: Hello! This morning we talked about our long weekend and we had calendar time and then right to Spanish. We then talked about Vivaldi and listened to the Four Seasons. We painted trees while listening to it. We listed many words that begin with letter Ss. 

How do you feel when you listen to Four Seasons or which one was your favorite? 
Elise - the fall part makes me sad. 

2015_02_13 Friday

From Reading Club: On Monday, X and X played I have who has game. And then X and X played that game together. We all worked on Color My Valentine! Worksheet. Elise and X read BOB books with me. On Tuesday, X worked on CVC words while the girls played a game of I Have Who Has. X worked on words and sounds as well. Then we all read 4 or 5 of our short animal booklets with concentration of 2 sight words in each book. Each person read a page until we finished a book. I went over flash cards with each student individually. On Wednesday, we all worked on flash cards. The girls read BOB books and the delirious George books. X worked on the kindle.  Ms Melissa reading club on Thursday! 

From Elise's Teacher: Today we made a craft for parents or any other family member for Valentine's Day. X practiced counting out heart gems for the teen numbers. X and Elise played popcorn sight words. X also played on the kindle. X also played Starfall and practiced popcorn words. X played on Starfall practicing -ip words and the 'th' sound. Oh also you will be receiving something in the mail tomorrow from your kiddo! ;) 

We had both indoor and outdoor ️recess.  I read the book If I Ran For President. 

What do you think the President's job is? 

Elise- I think the presidents job is to write notes to people 

2015_02_11 Wednesday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about cubism and Pablo Picasso. I read an art book called Picasso and we looked and talked about his artwork. Then we did our very own cubism artwork and named it. They had French. I read Olivia and the Perfect Valentine and Did You Know that I Love You? At the end of the day we had music time and we played with playdoh. 

Tell me something you learned about Picasso today:

Elise- I learned that he started to paint people that were real (instead of shapes) 

2015_02_11 Wednesday

Jonathan is home sick today, exploding out of both ends (charming, I know). He's thrown up 3 times since midnight, and it's only 1pm. He thought he had strep, and I explained that he probably has a stomach bug...then he got really nervous that he had an actual bug in his stomach. Oh, for literal childhood!

2015_02_10 Tuesday

I had the very best intentions today to get soooo much of the kids' old clothes consigned (read: $$$ in my pocket), and I failed...epic-ly. I even packed up the car (entire trunk!), drove 20 mins to the place, and waited there for about an hour as they sorted through it all, only to find out that hardly anything qualified. Ugh! I must be missing the secret to selling crap.

I did, however, get a call that my "new" furniture should be arriving on Friday. that's exciting news. Already have someone lined up to buy our current dining room table! shocking.

Jonathan got to go on a field trip to the symphony today. All I can think about is Auntie deciding on her harp. He mentioned something about wanting to watch the second row of violins (?), so I'm glad that Auntie is getting the piano instead of us.

From Elise's teacher: Today we painted like Michelangelo and painted upside down under our table! Whew it was hard work. :) we looked and talked about the Sistine Chapel and David statue. We also practiced handwriting in our journals. They had Spanish. We also read When Everybody Wore a Hat by William Steig, a book about the 20s and we talked about how photos used to be black and white and what cameras used to look like and where music used to be played from -phonograph. We talked about how people wore different hats back then. 

Btw we have 10 students in our class total! 

What is something you learned about Michelangelo today? 
Elise- I learned that Michelangelo painted a ceiling called Sistine Chapel 

2015_02_09 Monday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about the artist and poet Shen Zhou who is Chinese. We painted a landscape picture with only black and gray paint like most of his pictures. We also worked on the new letter of the week Rr and came up with words that start with r. We also played a Spin the Sound game. They had Mandarin today. We had indoor recess. X and Elise played an I Have Who had game. X worked on rhyming tree. X worked on CVC words and X counted heart gems for numbers 11-17. 

Show and tell shares: 
Elise- for my show and tell I brought a maraca and I made it at my house. I made it out of wood. 

2015_02_07 Saturday

Jonathan had a buddy sleep over tonight. We made burgers (that sprayed everywhere). They had a blast together and even went to sleep at about 9pm...until they were up ready to party at 4:30am!!! ugh, I was so not happy.

2015_02_06 Friday

From Elise's teacher: Today we worked on some projects. We worked on rhyming words. They had German with ms Ann's class. They got to read to and pet Biscuit the therapy dog today! They enjoyed playing with the dog. Some also asked questions to the owner ms Gail. They each got a book. We talked about a Paul Gauguin painting that got sold for $300 million.

What do you remember from biscuit's visit? 

Elise- I remember that he let us keep books. 

From Reading club: Hello, On Monday, X worked on the rhyming tree wkst. X worked on words look, play and we read BOB books together. X worked on beginning sounds with picture cards. X and Elise had some independent reading time. On Tuesday, we all read Pete the Cat Play Ball! they each read a page aloud as we went through the whole book. X and I worked on vowel sounds i, o, a, u. X, X, Elise and X also played the roll the dice game with a sight words worksheet. On Wednesday, X and X did partner reading with BOB books. X also worked on words come, make. X and Elise also played on Starfall on my computer.  X worked on 3 letter picture words and counting heart gems on hearts with numbers on them 9-15.  On Thursday, X worked on words here, away. The girls also played a round of I Have..Who has with new words. The girls also took turns on Starfall reading short stories. X worked on the kindle. We all went over sight words flash cards. 

2015_02_05 Thursday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about George Seurat and pointillism. We painted a flower using qtips and by making dots on the paper. They had Italian today. We looked at some art books and talked about what art is and it can mean. We went over sight words flash cards.

What is art? 
Elise- art can be happy 

2015_02_04 Wednesday

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about Vincent van Gogh and painted sunflowers. We looked at an art book full of paintings and famous artists! We worked in our letter folders- we drew queen, quilt, question mark. They had French today. We enjoyed some fresh air. We are also going to start learning our addresses. 
Since Van Gogh liked sunflowers, what is your favorite type of flower? 
We looked up pictures for some of them.
Elise pink roses 

2015_02_03 Tuesday

Shannon and I are feverishly working to find movers so we can help Grandpapa relocate some of his belongings. a wee bit stressful.

For the past few days, I somehow feel like I don't have enough going on, which is frankly insane, because my brain is nearly exploding with different things going on. But, my Honey Do list isn't 2+ pages long, so I'm putting the call out there. dangerous, eh?

From Elise's teacher: Today we talked about Impressionism and Claude Monet. We fingerpainted Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies. Elise shared some quartz with us. We had a luau during music time and tried to do the hula. I read the book Quail Song which they enjoyed. We worked on other little class projects ;) 

What is something you learned today about Claude Monet?
Elise- I learned that he paints during different times or weather. 

2015_02_02 Monday

From Elise's teacher: Hello! Today we discussed the new month and how we will be talking about different art, artists, dance, and music all month long. We also talked about our letter of the week Qq. We came up with words that start with Q. Today we focussed on the Mona Lisa and who painted it and the Italian Renaissance. We looked at paintings from the Renaissance. We also talked about Groundhog's Day and how he saw his shadow.  We read Groundhog Day by Gail Gibbons. We read Polar Opposites! We talked about the super bowl :)
Tomorrow is Luau day! 

What is something you learned about groundhogs from the book?
Elise- I learned that if groundhogs don't see their shadow then spring will be coming soon. 

2015_02_01 Sunday

Elise and I went to a very cool birthday party at a tumbling/gymnastics place today. We are even going to see if she and her friends can take a class together. Her favorite was the rings; she hung upside down and swung with her legs inside the rings for most of the party!!! It was awesome.

Elise told me today that she is a genius. She's a genius because she knows a lot of things, for example:

• adults and big kids (over 19) do not suck their thumbs.
• 5 + 5 = 10, 1+1=2, 4+4=8
• parents don't work on Wednesdays or weekends.
• If you want to have a garden grow, you have to water the seeds (whhaaaaat??).

Jonathan and Dad are at one last wrestling tournament today. I sure hope it went well!!!