Ok the days are absolutely flying by... I was in shock when my OB told me I needed to start coming in for check ups every 2 weeks since I am in my 3rd trimester. What?! Where did the 7 months go? They booked me appts through December, at which time I need to start going coming in every week to the OB, and we'll have to discuss my C-section (and tubal ligation) date. Wowzers. This is really happening. I've been so busy taking care of the 2 girls I haven't really begun to process having a third (and already super active) child in the house...oh BOY!!
In the meantime... we survived Hurricane Sandy (yay, we never lost power!)... Halloween came and went...and no one has been seriously ill yet (knock on wood). School is going well. I am really tired but we are plowing through to get as much done before baby arrives. Then we'll take a break for a few months and pick up again for the end of Kindergarten for Emilie by May. I plan on starting her in first grade around June and we'll keep going. It is better for us to school year round, doing a little bit every day, then to take huge long breaks. Learning retention is better and it keeps them busy when the weather's bad anyhow.
I was super happy that Emilie's mid-year academic review by our Umbrella school was GREAT.
"Her portfolio looks awesome!" she said. YAY! I probably overdid it, but I didn't know what to expect, since this was my first review. I had pictures and work samples and art projects to document everything we've been doing. At least I now know what to expect for the next review and I probably don't need to stress out as much over it as I did this time. ;-)
Here are some pics in no particular order.
We did a coral unit last month and made a diorama.
They girls had fun with the movable fish
(I strung them from fishing wire with toothpick holders).
I made Em some blend cards with matching pics.
She's moved on from 3 letter words to sounding out 4 letter words with blends.
Some of the coral we found from the Cayman Islands...
Oh it was so beautiful there!
I love the Montessori method of teaching grammar in the 3-6 age group.
This is called the "Grammar Farm" but I've adapted it
to just be the noun farm for Kindy. :-)
We'll revisit this next year in 1st grade when we start talking about
articles and prepositions and such.
Eliz doing some color sorting with planets.
Em reviewing sight words.
We also carved pumpkins and studied the pumpkin life cycle (not pictured).
Eww for PULP!
The kids went to our church's fall festival
for Halloween and they had the "BEST TIME EVER!!".
Mom was a bee and Dad was a pirate (pic is on FB).
:-)
We had a stretch of beautiful weather in early October
so we were outside a lot, at the playground,
going on nature walks, and making leaf window hangings.
Eliz working on her pencil grip!
More sight word practice via a bingo game.
Tally stick math, counting by 5s.
I made up some scrambled sentences for Em to unscramble and write.
Can't remember where I printed the ditto from, sorry.
It was a good month!
