I am so thankful that the Peterman’s are here this week and I am getting lots of visit time with Jessica! WOOT!
Wordless Wednesday
Pirate School – arrrggghh!
On the Christmas crafts post I told you about Jolanthe’s blog called Homeschool Creations and I just love it! She has all these pre-school unit packs that she has put together. She shares all the things she did with her kids. The best part is that she allows you to download her PDF’s for your personal use. I was able to only print the skill’s that I thought Nadia needed to work on. And as a side bonus I got to use my laminator again. I got all the books she suggested from the library. The Bible Verse Nadia learned was Matt 6:21 “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.”
Here are the items we started with:
I made the folder for her to work out of – the front with her name and book details, the back with a game.
Practicing sizing with the ships. Smallest to largest and largest to smallest. You can see a couple of our crafts in this photo too.
Some more crafts we did becuase you know I love crafts.
I found these great lowercase letter tiles at Staples and each day I put out vocabulary words for her to spell.
Nadia decorating her workbook.
So the main book that we worked out of was “On a Pirate Ship” by Sarah Courtauld and Benji Davies . After we read that a couple times we talked about the story and I asked her to tell me what happened in the story and then what her favorite part was. I wrote that on the cover of her folder. Then we read another book each morning when before we started our lessons. Some we read multiple times like “How I Became a Pirate” and “Pirates Don’t Change Diapers”. Nadia thought that one was especially funny since we are going to have diapers in the house again with little sister.
Other things we did for “Pirate School”:
- Vocab from the main book and pirate words from the printables. The letter tiles were great for spelling. Nadia’s favorite word was doubloons.
- For math we used the counting sheets to count the bags of gold. She was really getting hung up on 6 and 9 so I mixed them all up each day until she could do it.
- We played the pirate game on the back of the folder with the dice.
- Practiced patterns with “jewels” (I used heart shaped pony beads).
- Talked about the animals in the various books
- Talked about the weather -what happens with the stormy seas and calm seas.
- The pirates drank steamy drinks and I asked her what this meant. She said, “Tea like mommy!”
- I made her “walk the plank” on curbs and at the gym.
- We talked about personal hygiene – because the pirates don’t brush their teeth, take baths or brush their hair. Nadia said, “EWWWWW!”
- We played with the puppets from the PDF and Nadia had a whole host of different voices.
- We got all the blue crayons out of her crayon holder, sorted them from light to dark based on the wrapper and then colored with them in order. Then I told her that was like the ocean, all different shades of blue.
- We looked for stripes and dots on all the pages of the main book.
Then almost every day Nadia did her reading lesson with Daddy and I did some of her other curriculum. Chinese School started again last weekend so we have homework for that too.
Nadia really, REALLY enjoyed this. She saw me cutting out the stuff for “Fireman School” and asked if we were starting “NOW?!?” I had to break the news to her that I am still getting everything together.
2010 Books Read List
I adore books and reading! I am oh.so.thankful for the public library system in our city! I decided that I wanted to track all the books I read in 2010.
(NF) means non-fiction and then I put the month after it. I also listed if it was my 2nd time through a book.
1) The Cruelest Month – Louise Penny JAN
2) Super Freakanomics – Steven Leavitt and Stephen Dubner (NF) JAN
3) Terrify No More – Gary Haugen (NF) JAN
4) Still Life – Louise Penny JAN
5) A Fatal Grace – Louise Penny FEB
6) Unseen Acedemicals – Terry Pratchett FEB
7) A Hole in Our Gospel (2nd reading) – Rich Stearns (NF) FEB
8) Private Eyes – J Kellerman MARCH
9) The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Agatha Christie MARCH
10) The Secret Adversary – Agatha Christie MARCH
11) U is for Undertow – Sue Grafton MARCH
12) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl MARCH
13) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator – Roald Dahl MARCH
14) The Brutal Telling – Louise Penny APRIL
15) A Rule Against Murder – Lousie Penny APRIL
16) The Man in the Brown Suit – Agatha Christie MAY
17) Murder on the Links – Agatha Christie MAY
18) A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah (NF) MAY
19) The Last Song – Nicolas Sparks MAY
20) Spoken from the Heart – Laura Bush (NF) JUNE
21) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie JUNE
22) The Shadow of your Smile – Mary Higgins Clark JULY
23) The Big 4 – Agatha Christie JULY
24) Walt Disney World with kids 2010 – Wiley (NF) JULY
25) The Private Life of the Cat Who – L.J. Braun JULY
26) The Mystery of the Blue Train – Agatha Christie AUG
27) 4:50 from Paddington – Agatha Christie AUG
28) Death in the Clouds – Agatha Christie AUG
29) Partners in Crime – Agatha Christie AUG
30) Lucky Girl – Mei Ling Hopgood (NF) AUG
31) The Help – Kathryn Stockett AUG
32) Sizzling 16 – Evanovich AUG
33) Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – Grace Lin SEPT
34) Wrecked – Carol Higgins Clark SEPT
35) The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins SEPT
36) City on our Knees – Toby Mac (NF) SEPT
37) Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins SEPT
38) MockingJay – Suzanne Collins OCT
39) 7 Dials – Agatha Christie OCT
40) I will wear Midnight – Terry Pratchett OCT
41) Random Mystery Novel OCT
42) Murder at the Vicarage – Agatha Christie NOV
43) House Rules – Jodi Picoulet NOV
44) Diary of Ma Yan – Ma Yan (NF) NOV
45) The Confession – John Grisham NOV
46) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2nd time) – CS Lewis DEC
47) Elijah of Buxton – Christopher Curtis DEC
48) Legal Tender – Lisa Scottoline DEC
49) Choosing to See – Mary Beth Chapman (NF) DEC
50) How to Train your Dragon Book 1 – Cressida Cowell DEC
51) Rough Justice – Lisa Scottoline DEC
52) Just Courage – Gary Haugen DEC
53) The Borrowers – Mary Norton DEC
Plus I am giving myself a half credit for making it 130 pages through “First Family” about John and Abigail Adams. It was well done, but I couldn’t take any more of his egomania and putting everything in his life above his wife and family.
I also read Nadia at least 60 chapter books since we read every morning and every nap time. We got through 33 of the Magic Tree House books in the fall.
I really enjoy mystery novels and realized early in the year that I had never picked up an Agatha Christie novel. It’s fantastic to read a mystery with no cell phones, computers, high speed travel and security cameras.
Now the question that comes after people hear my total is:
“How do you read so much?”
First off, I can read really fast. Faster than most people probably. I read at least 3 times a week for 45 minutes while I ride the bike at the gym. I read at night before bed instead of watching TV. And now I am finally training Nadia to sit next to me sometimes and “read” her books while I read something of mine.
I don’t see any numbers like this happening again for a long time once we have Amelie and adjust to being a family of 4. And I am just fine with that and so excited about this new part of our life.