When I think about mothers in movies, Queen Eleanor is the first person who springs to mind. I love this movie and haven’t seen it in quite a while, and look forward to sharing it with Dragon. Hopefully she’ll neve turn me into a bear.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type – in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials
Virtual school started out a bit rough – Dragon was unfocussed and not able to listen well for the regular morning routine. But then they did an exercise video, which Dragon adores, and she was much more focussed after that.
Then they did printing words that begin with the letter ‘G’ and she did very well.
After recess, they did a short reading, and then the teacher had set up a powerpoint with images that the students used to “read” a sentence. There were some very funny sentences made. My favourite was “Le Tyranosaur mange les enfants.” Dragon’s was “Le docteur pleur parce qu’il a pincé le doigt.”
After lunch, they were split into groups to talk in French. I don’t think that it went particularly well, because the kids don’t know what to talk about with each other AND they don’t know much French. When it was led by the teacher, it went okay, but when she left, not so much. Maybe if they had a goal like doing math like last week…
They did not do math because too many kids were tired.
Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises and the practicing showed, she was doing well even with the hard one. She did lessons 4 and 5 were almost perfect, and then they did lesson 6, and she did such a good job. Then they started lesson 7 and she did the first row very well (other than mixing up D and F on her right hand). Then they did chopsticks, and it’s going well, so she was introduced to the next part. She focussed and tried hard and did really well.
We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google mini, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
We did not do any crochet this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 70.
Math went well this week with no tears.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Make a movie – We put together the last prop and then set up for taking pictures. Dragon did an excellent job in directing me to move the characters. She used the storyboard she had drawn to help keep us on track. This movie, we decided to record her voice, rather than do it in the Silent Movie style that we did for the other one. We did include the dialogue in the background of the movie. She recorded the music for the movie as well.
The “murder board” for Scene 2. She drew, by herself, the bad guy (top middle), the floor plan for the bad guy’s lair (bottom left), and made “lists” of details.All set for making a movie!Director of photography hard at workRecording her voice
Learn how to draw a 3-D box – This went super well. I queued up the video and we watched it, and then we went through the video slowly, pausing after each step for her to draw it. She needed a little bit of help with one or two lines and about which lines to erase, but she did all the work. I was very impressed.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials
Storytime
Activity
Build a house mood board – cut out inspiration from magazines like IKEA etc Plant beans – link to activity Write personality characteristics
Virtual school was a bit rough in the morning. There was a misunderstanding when Dragon was stretching, not raising her hand, and then when she was raising her hand, the teacher called on someone else. Cue tears. I think she prefers one-on-one lol
They learned the letter Q today. Dragon loves printing because she’s good at it.
They were read a story about the beginning of Spring, and asked to describe what they saw on the page. Dragon raised her hand (yay) and said “des fleurs”, but then when she was asked if she saw anything else, I prompted her with “do you want to say more?” and she raised her hand and said “more”. I said, “No, more words in French.” and she raised her hand again and said “more words in French.” And I honestly think she wasn’t doing it to be funny! She got really upset when I asked her to describe the pictures in French and didn’t want to say anything else.
After lunch, they did math in small groups (I guess the teacher is feeling more comfortable with the technology now?) and Dragon was put in a group with two other kids that she’s familiar with. One of them presented their math first, and then Dragon presented (addition), and then the other one said that they couldn’t do it. Dragon reassured them that it was alright. (sweetie). Then when they went back into the main class, she presented her math again. Her teachers were very impressed with how well she did. (So am I, but I knew she could do it.)
Totoro was a big hit this week. Dragon watched the movie twice on Monday; once in French for homeschool and once in English at night.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week.
Music
Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises and the practicing showed, she was doing well even with the hard one. She did lessons 4 and 5 no problem, and then they started lesson 6, and she played the first two long lines very well. Chopsticks sounds like chopsticks now. She was focussed, paid attention, and tried hard.
We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google mini, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
We did a few rows of crochet this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We took it easy this week, as it’s the first week back after the break, for the out loud counting, and only counted to 20, 30, and 40. Dragon found it easy.
Math was interesting. On Monday, she decided that she didn’t want to draw it out, and decided to use her toes. Great problem solving skills. Then the more complicated math had a series in letters, and she didn’t like that, so I changed them to numbers, which went much better.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Make a movie – Dragon is EXTREMELY excited about her movie. She’s done a dry run twice already. I wrote out her plot, she drew the storyboard, and I wrote out her dialogue. She then transcribed the dialogue onto pieces of paper that we can insert into the stop motion movie next week.
Make a soot sprite – Dragon enjoyed this and is very proud of the result. She was able to do most of it herself, too, which made her happy.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials
Storytime
Activity
Make a movie – take stop-motion pictures, stitch pictures together, make music Learn how to draw a 3-D box – link to video
The Aurora Awards are awards “for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy works and activities.” They are administered by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.
It’s a fan voted award in the vein of the Hugo’s, but with way more awesome people.
You’ll have to join the CSFFA for a pittance of $10 before you can nominate anyone. Once you’ve paid, you can nominate 5 works in each category. You can nominate works from now until May 18th.
The extra bonus of joining the CSFFA is you’ll get a voters package that includes most of the works that make the ballot. That’s 8-10 novels plus a bunch of other awesome stuff.
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials
Storytime
Activity
Make a movie – write script, storyboard script, write out text (if any) Make a soot sprite – link to activity
Dragon had a rough morning this week in virtual school. The teachers asked everyone to speak one sentence aloud in French, and one student said multiple and Dragon got completely overwhelmed. Then she was called on next and she froze and wasn’t able to say anything at all.
They learned the letter K, which she was excited about. (because her name starts with a K) They had the kids make a K out of playdough…which seems to be a stumbling block for her for some reason. Then they had them write K words, which Dragon very much enjoys.
After lunch, they did math (subtraction). Dragon did extremely well and thoroughly enjoyed the lesson.
Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises during her lesson, and the practice is showing. Then they did lesson 3 for the last time. Lessons 4 and 5 both went very well. Clapping and counting is going much better. Then Dragon played chopsticks at speed!
We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
She did not do any crochet this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 72 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a small amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s. We continued counting by tens. She is still having trouble remembering 80, but once she gets that one, she’s fine for 90. It’s a work in progress that’s getting easier each week. Something I find interesting – she forgets 75 and 95, when she used to forget 16. (say them in French, and you’ll see why I think it’s interesting)
Math went very well this week. She is really grasping concepts. However, there was a bit of an issue with drawing a star for the pattern, so that is not in the picture.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words! We’re done the second season and have to wait until season 3 airs on Disney+. Until then, we’re going to watch Raiponce (Rapunzel series).
Activity
Make a fairy door – We glued the door together, painted and sparkled it, and then glued on a doorknob. We did not add any other decorations because Dragon didn’t want to cover up her painting.
Make a hair clip – Dragon chose to do the third style of hair clip, the bow. We cut up some material and glued it, and then sewed it to the clip. Dragon did a bunch of the pinning and sewing.
Make a miniature room – Rather than make a full room, we just made a bed. The bed itself is made out of cardboard, and the pillow is made from scrap fabric. Dragon did all the sewing on the inside edges and stuffed it, and I did the hidden seam.
The Aurora Awards are awards “for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy works and activities.” They are administered by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.
It’s a fan voted award in the vein of the Hugo’s, but with way more awesome people.
You’ll have to join the CSFFA for a pittance of $10 before you can nominate anyone. Once you’ve paid, you can nominate 5 works in each category. You can nominate works from now until May 18th.
The extra bonus of joining the CSFFA is you’ll get a voters package that includes most of the works that make the ballot. That’s 8-10 novels plus a bunch of other awesome stuff.
This comes a couple weeks later than the end of second semester, but I have an empty week here, and I don’t have one earlier, so here we are.
This post was originally set for the March Break, but as that got moved to April, so did this.
I am extremely pleased with how well homeschooling went this semester. There were a couple weeks that we were not able to complete all the activities, but overall, we had a lot of fun and Dragon didn’t miss the activities that we didn’t do.
The worksheets were a great success, and I won’t be changing how they worked. Dragon loves the math worksheets especially. If I could remove one, I’d get rid of the counting worksheet, but since that’s her favourite, I won’t be.
The biggest struggle we’ve got is convincing Dragon to speak French. She seems convinced that she can’t do it. Although she knows individual words, but can’t seem to pick them out when people are talking to her, and she doesn’t try to meld them into sentences on her own either. We’re just continuing to soldier on.
