Repetition

Repeating the story over and over is one of the concepts of FIAR.  So today, as we were reading Lentil, I decided to just reinforce onomatopoeia.  There are a lot of really good words in the story line, like slurp and shlursh.  Good stuff.  We were also gifted with some phoenic books from a friend that feature Scooby Doo.  We've been having fun reading those the last day.  And in some of them, I say the sound purposefully wrong, for instance ch I say cuh huh instead of the chuh sound.  or suh huh instead of shh.

Katy and the Big Snow

On Monday, we had class again.  We started Katy and the Big Snow by Ms. Burton.  Hannah loves the story.  Our first lesson was on maps and we talked about directions, turns out she knows more than I thought she did.  Either that or she's a good guesser :D 

Tuesday we did vocabulary, talking about things like water mains and steamrollers, but she knew quite a bit of those, too.  And then today, we counted by five.  Turns out I LOVE to count by five!!  Maybe it was one of the few times tables I actually got and so it makes me happy to say them, I don't know.  We'll probably have an art lesson tomorrow leaving science for Saturday.  Or vice versa, considering that we are going to Greenfield Village on Saturday and I'm sure there are LOTS of details in the art to notice there. 

Here's a funny thing for me about Five In A Row, when I don't do it for awhile, I think "This is useless, I need a new curriculum" and then when I start up again and I hear Hannah asking for her class books and lessons, I think "It's kindergarten and she is really learning how to learn"  And that's a good thing.

This morning, Hannah spent some time on Starfall.  It's a great site, it just makes me wish reading would click for her.

A modge podge

Joel and Hannah finished up Papa Piccolo on Saturday by counting pairs.  She really got the lesson, as she was able to count in pairs today.  We have started Cranberry Thanksgiving.  Today we talked about setting and created a couple of play settings during class.  I think we are going to have one big lesson day where we do math, science and art buy making some bread or a pumpkin pie.  We also got to see a replica of Bleirot's plane that flew over the English channel at the Henry Ford Museum.  I totally wish that we had gone after reading the book, as she would have enjoyed the reality of what it was much more, but all the same, we had a great time at the museum, as it was Macy's 2nd Mondays and there were a ton of children there, and Hannah adores crowds.

Sing Songy

We were reading Papa Piccolo today.  Hannah was making more connections between the show we watched on Venice and the pictures in the book and the location.  Pretty cool.  We decided to make up songs or lullabys for different things.  I think Hannah sang one for Scooby-Doo, one for Ralph our cat, one for me, and one for Papi.  But I'm pretty sure she liked the Scooby-Doo song the best.  I'm thinking tomorrow we are going to break out the water colors and have some fun doing our own waterways.

Four all together :D

We've been reading Grandfather's Journey this week.  We've done some simple origami for art, looked at our map for social studies, talked about the days of the week for math, and even discussed poetic prose for language arts.  I haven't been on the actual computer much lately, which explains why I haven't been keeping the log up. We did skip the last lesson in The Glorious Flight this past Saturday.  And things have been crazy good here lately, what with Presbytery meetings, monthly Bible study, costume making, trick or trunk decorating and pondering on NaNoWriMo plots. 

Crack! Boom! Swish!

Today we had a very fun lesson on onomatopoeia ( had to spell check that word numerous times before I got it right!).  Our book this week is The Glorious Flight, which I should have known I would love because it's set in France!.  I think we will have to have a trip to the Henry Ford this weekend to look at the planes, as well as the new Lego exhibit.  
Hannah did and excellent job of coming up with other sound words and we had a fun time acting them out and saying them.  I slurped my coffee, we roared and stomped and pitter-pattered.  Quite fun! 

Reminiscing

Just last weekend, I did a lot of reminiscing.  I was in my homeland, with my entire family, during a time of year I normally love and celebrating something amazing, so how could I not?  I told Hannah a couple of stories about Halloween parties that my parents held and ones that I had with just my friends.  She loved it.  She keeps asking for them!  So, with a language lesson from A Pair of Red Clogs on flashback, it was pretty simple to illustrate.  Hannah loves to hear stories from when Joel and I were children and has even given some of them names. 
In other news, do you see that button over there on top of the column?  The one with the crazy image and the funny word???  Well, that's my project for November, I'm going to try it again, NaNoWriMo has seduced me once again.

Personification

In our house, personification is second nature.  We are always making up stories of things that aren't humans doing human type things, we talk about our car TeDI all the time, so the idea of personification isn't a new one, though the word itself is.  We looked at the pictures of Mary Anne in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel so that Hannah could see that not only is it words but pictures as well.
Since we talked about stewardship yesterday and Hannah couldn't remember the word, I am making sure that I ask her often time through out the afternoon what we talked about in class and what it means. 
We've already had a busy day, with breakfast out and a trip to Cokesbury and the library.  I found the best deal at Cokesbury, they had the music from our VBS on cd for half off! And we picked up some new books for FIAR including The Glorious Flight:and A Pair of Red Clogs.  I'm looking forward to them both.

Blanket Stories

The language arts portion of The Rag Coat included talking about stories and encourages making a quilted pillow top.  We, however, have house guests coming and stuffy noses.  Instead I told Hannah some stories about her beautiful "Blankie."  Her Grammy, who is coming to visit, knit it for her when she was in the womb and none of us had any idea of her gender.  Joel and I were pretty crazy about the fact that neutral meant yellow and NOT green.  I know first time parents are allowed  to be whack, but we were fanatical.  Becky was so kind to make a yellow blanket in the pattern that she had made for Hannah's cousins (I think).  About the time Hannah could walk she started taking that blanket to bed with her and it has been a constant companion since.  I told her how that blanket has traveled to Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Washington, Canada, even Hawaii.  She said Hawaii was her favorite.  It was quite wonderful to think about all the lovely adventures that blanket has been on.  And it's a topic of great sadness to realize that the blanket will not be able to stay with her forever.  She immediately breaks into to tears when the future of her blanket is discussed.  She has lovingly decided to keep it at the house or in the car to prolong its life.
I wonder though, what other adventures await Hannah.  I know that God is watching over her and protecting her.  He has been so kind and gracious to her these past five years.  It has been wonderful to see His love poured out upon her.

A legend

How do you explain "legend" to a five year old? The Clown of God is the story of a legend by one of our favorite authors, Tomie dePaola.  We've read numerous stories by him and always enjoy them, especially the Strega Nona series.  To reinforce the idea of "legend" we are going to be watching some Mythbusters and Tales of Legends from Shelly Duval.
We're going to take things easy this week, as a LOT of stuff is happening.  The one I am most excited about is the start of our Community Bible Study class about Revelation!

Where does my food go?

Vocabulary was on our agenda today.  The words in Madeline are appendix, solemn, and disaster.  We had a little body geographyin order to find Hannah's appendix and talked about the digestive system along the way.  And the other two vocabulary words gave a perfect oppurtunity for context guessing of a meaning.  And given the context and illustrations, Hannah guessed correctly the meaning of the words!
I had a magazine about France out on the table this morning and as we talked about what is for breakfast in France, she started to flip through it.  She noticed the statue of liberty, which was gifted to us from the French.  In the end, we had not only vocabulary lessons, but history and geography and health lessons as well!
After the lesson, Hannah wanted to dance, and Michael W. Smith's A New Hallelujah was in the player.  We got to rock out to some Jesus songs! 

Five and counting

My itty bitty baby girl turned five on Sunday. She has always been a real sweetheart, which I guess is to temper that stubborn streak that runs a mile wide.
This past Monday, she and I started kindergarten. I had gone to the library and checked out The Story about Ping We read it yesterday and tried to realize how long ago 1933 really is. In fact, it is old enough that my grandparents probably read the book as children and one of my grandparents was probably 33 the year it was written. Hannah hated. She thought I talked far too much, and just wanted me to stop.
Today, I pulled the book out again and sharpened a few pencils and dusted off some plain paper from the play room and set at it again. She did much better, and for that matter so did I. We talked about drawing water, she loves to draw. And since she was so interested, I snuck in the letter W on her. She makes a beautiful W.
And now, she is off with some friends having a lunch. And here I am, writing to you. I love being a mommy and I am ever so grateful that God is not through with me yet. He continues to mold me and teach me, instruct and encourage me. He helps me and shines a light on paths that will lead to his mercy.