Genre: Newspapers

A major form of communication in our society is through the newspaper.  Our verse to go along with this study is:  "All scripture inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" 2 Timothy 3:16
Let us compare that to how our media uses the paper to teach, reproof, correct and train us and all generations.  Since we just finished learning about Comic Books I introduced newspapers doing a Venn Diagram of "The Daily Bugle" and "The Daily Planet" (Spiderman & Superman). We used our story elements to help us fill in parts of the diagram (who; what; where; etc.)

On The Edge Gallery

Micah's Saturday acrylic art teacher, Mrs. Amy Whitehouse, is part of a new gallery that had their grand opening today (11/1/12).  She invited us down to visit and so we took a roadtrip this afternoon to Old Town Scottsdale. 

All of us (Micah, Lilly & I) were interested in the entire gallery.  It was neat to walk around (from beginning to end) and read the names of the artists, talk about the materials & mediums they use, and see the detail so close-up.  It was a most terrific lesson!!!

More information:  www.ontheedgegallery.com
40 artists from the Phoenix Metropolitan area and 15 artists from the Fountain Hills Artists' Gallery are represented.

Predictions

I Love teaching, but it's moments like this that make me laugh so hard and appreciate the differences between my kids.  It is such a priviledge to be their teacher, to watch their lightbulbs go off, to reach milestones ... and to hear comments like these come out of their mouths.
In Language Arts, Micah and I have been working on the main idea and details.  Today we did an activity with 'prediction'.
Here is the lesson:  Read the following part of a story, think about what might happen next, draw a picture of what you think will happen next, and write about what you think will happen next.
Here is the story:  The puppy knows he should not sit on the new chair.  He has been told many times.  But one day the puppy is home alone.  He wants to take a nap.  The chair looks so soft.

While Micah is working on that, I go over to do an activity with Lilly.  I come back over and look at Micah's responses.

Micah's drawing.

He wrote:  but sidny sits on the floor.

So, knowing their personalities (Micah respects 'the line', Lilly tests 'the line') I had Lilly come over.  I read her the story and then asked "What do you think will happen next?"
Lilly immediately responded (with a look of 'of course') "the puppy's going to jump up on the chair and take a nap."

Candy Math

November 1st, the day after Halloween, is our traditional "Candy Math" day.  Today was no different.  It is fun to me when the kids work on one project continuously for hours.  There are no breaks, no interruptions, no asking for snacks - it's full on concentration.  My favorite kind of learning - when they don't realize the extent of their "fun inquiring" as one task leads to another question and digging for an answer.
They each dumped out their bags of candy and sorted them out in bowls.  Then they compared what each other had - same, different.  Of course they have to know 'who had the most' and 'how many total pieces of candy' were collected.  As they sorted, counted, calculated, and categorized they also read, alphabetized, recognized letters (Lilly), multiplied (Micah) and divided (Micah).  Their teamwork got them to the grand prize answer:  131 total pieces of candy!
Then they each got 10 for their special bowls.

My favorite activity:  They alphetbetized the 'candy bar' category.  Then Micah divided the white board into 10 equal sections and then wrote the names that Lilly spelled out (Lilly ready the letters of all 10 types of candy bars).

Halloween Night

We had our traditional trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with the Meigh’s and Kaplan’s – Kevin, Kaitlyn (Scott Meigh) and Aaron, Ben (Jessica & Joel Kaplan).  Afterward we had pizza and playing at our house until 9pm.

Costumes this year:  Matt – Spiderman; Jodie – Dorothy; Micah – coffin; Lilly – Tooth Fairy