BLACK HISTORY & CULTURE AWARENESS MONTH
And the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
I thought this would be a great unit to do as February is Black History Month, and Little A has been more and more fascinated when seeing people that look like her on TV or in books, and she is really proud and feels special - so I thought it would be fun to study together as a family.
Well - this topic has already brought about some interesting conversations...
After talking about how Big A & Little A have the same birth moms, and different birth dads, and Little A's birth dad being of Trinidadian (East Indian & Caribean decent)... Big A wanted to know more about her birth dad... and unfortunately we have no idea... we have reached out to birth mom for some answers - but not sure if she will tell us anything... or even if she knows... and if she does know... will she tell us the truth? (its complicated)
Big A and mommy have enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and talking about the different countries & flags.
Thanks to all the talk about anti-gay this and anti-gay that on the Olympics - we had a lovely little chat about what gay / lesbian is... not a talk I was ready for at the age of 7 - but it happened none the less. hope that falls under some sort of homeschool curriculum...?
We are looking forward to watching more of the Olympics together.
We enjoyed watching snowboarding & figureskating together.
The week of Feb 10 - Feb 16 - we have Grandma from Manitoba here - so we will be doing less book school and more visiting & field trip type activities.
***WE ARE TAKING THE LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY AS OUR SPRING BREAK TIME***
***WE WILL BE WORKING THROUGH MARCH & ENDING OUR SCHOOL YEAR JUNE 6th.
PE:
Feb week #1
neighborhood walk
Swimming lessons (45 mins)
*Big A was able to float on her back for 11 seconds, and she was able to swim with her face in the water for a count of 3!! for Big A - this is a HUGE accomplishment! I am very proud of her! She is trying so hard.
gymnastics (1 hour)
neighborhood walk
Mill Lake(1 hour) - Mastered crossing the monkey bars for the first time!! another fear conquered. She was soooo proud of herself - mommy was VERY proud too!
here is a link to the video of her on the monkey bars.
Feb week #2
1.5 hours playing at McDonalds Playplace...climbing, sliding, running & making new friends.
30 mins swimming (non classes)
45 mins swimming lessons
1 hour gymnastics class
1 hour gymnastics (non class - just showing grandma all the great stuff they can do!)
Feb week #3
45 mins swimming lessons
1 hour gymnastics
30 mins gymnasium group games (with kids club)
30 mins neighborhood walk
10-15 mins a day working on walking heel - toe and walking on heels and stretching excercises.
- Right foot is a lot stiffer than the left
Feb week #4
Played in snow & made mini snowman
1 hour Gymnastics
neighborhood walk
leg stretches
hopscotch
balance games on balance buckets
dancing
15 mins on mini trampoline (new addition to our home).
The girls got a new bunk bed this week and Big A sleeps on the top, and loves to read up there - so she is doing lots of climbing on the ladder every day too :) not a lot of excercise - but it helps!
MATH:
*Jump Math (35pages)
- Regrouping – 5x – somewhat challenging but was able to grasp the concept
o She especially enjoyed correcting wrong work and explaining as a teacher what was done wrong and how to correct it
- Doubles – 4x
o Using doubles to add –quite confusing for her so we discontinued using this as she is able to add well without this strategy
-Subtraction strategies – 3x
- Subtraction using 10’s and one’s
- She is learning new strategies to do subtraction when subtracting double digit numbers; she enjoys this
- Regrouping for subtraction
- Needed a lot of direction but understood the concept and did well; especially enjoys ‘marking’and explaining how to fix mistakes!
- 3 digit numbers and skip counting to 200
- Did well with help – she had lots of questions and did a lot of self-correction
- 3 digit numbers and skip counting to 200
- Did well with help – she had lots of questions and did a lot of self-correction
Go 10 game
- Getting faster at making multiples of 10
IPAD: READING EGGS (adding correct endings to words... y, s, ed, ing, er, es...)
SOCIALS:
This month we are learning about Black History , and The cultures of Africa, Ethiopia, Jamaica, The Caribean... and more...
We will be reading many stories to explore this, as well as writing projects, art projects, hopefully a field trip, and listening to African Music & Reggae Music.
Learning the Canadian and American National Anthems
We watched a few of the different Olympic Games. Had fun keeping track of the Canadian Medals.
10 gold, 10 silver , 5 bronze.
SCIENCE:
So we really lacked this month in science - but will make this up greatly in March during our unit on Spring and Lifecylces. We also did a lot in January with our Unit on Penguins and the Arctic.
WRITING
Explode the Code – 36 pages
- Silent e – 1x
- Ck and ng – 100%
- Sh – 100%
- Sh and ch sounds
-“tch” “ch” – 1 wrong
-“wh” – 1 wrong
- Works well independently with little direction
Draw and Write book
- Learned to draw an elephant and to write sentences about it.
- Great job at putting all her information into one sentence
Smart Alec Writing book –14 pages
- Proofreading, questions, exclamation, end punctuation, commas
- Commas, writing letters and answering questions about the letter
- Plurals – ‘es’ and ‘s’
- Nouns – person, place or thing – knows this quite well
- Occasionally writes 9 for p
Spelling – great progress!
- Day 1 -15/20 – still trouble with: whale, float, coat, shell, spray
- 10 words she has struggled with before
- 20 words from explode the code
- Day 1 – 17/20 – words with ‘ch’ from Explode the Code -floght for float; friy for fry; sketct for sketch
- Day 2 -14/15 – words with ‘wh’ from Explode the Code – skech for sketch
- Lots of improvement!
Crossword puzzle
- Able to do on her own- just needed some direction with up and down words
FINE ARTS:
MUSIC - monthly total...
Sunday:
*Participated in the singing time during Sunday school and during the church service. x2
Bakerview Choir Practice
8 hours
Violin Lessons
8hours
Northview Childrens Choir
4 hours this month
Listened to much African Music & Reggae Music (Cd's & Galaxy Music on the TV music station)
***FEB 21st - 1st major concert experience for Big A and Little A... Toby Mac, Mandisa, and more...
ART
*-made a hand puppet independently using sewing, glue and placing pieces.
READING:
BOOKS READ THIS MONTH
(week 1)
*What we wear - Dressing up around the world. by MayaAjmera, Elise Hofer Derstine & Cynthia Pon.
*These Hands. by Hope Lynne Price
*I have the right to be a child. by Aurelia Fonty
*We March. by Shane W Evans
*Gervelie's Journey (A refugee diary). by Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young
*Wangari's Tree of Peace (A true story from Africa). by Jeanette Winter
*Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. by Al Perkins
*Put me in the Zoo A book of Colors. by Robert Lopshire
*Sugar Cane A Caribbean Rapunzel. by Patricia Storage
*Bears on Wheels. by Stan and Jan Berenstain
*Have you seen my cat? by Eric Carle
*An Island Christmas. by Lynn Joseph
*Viola Desmond won't be budged. by Jody Nyasha Warner & Richard Rudnicki
*Unspoken. (A story from the underground railroad). by Henry Cole
(week2)
*Monkey and Me. by Emily Gravett
*If you're Happy and you Know it. by Flying Frog Publishing
*God Knows All about Me. by Kate Toms
*What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz
*The Berenstain Bears and a Job Well Done. by Jan and Mike Berenstain
*My Promise Rainbow. by Llyod - Jones / Jennings
THERAPIES & SUPPORTS:
*Physio Therapy (1hour) - We had our first session with physio - and she gave us a lot of home excercises to work on daily for the next 3 weeks. She was concerned about the tightness of Big A's leg muscles, how much she walks on her tip toes, and how weak her right foot / leg is. But she thinks that with a few weeks of regular excercises - it may clear itself up...personally - I will believe it when I see it. She was very happy to hear that Big A was in gymnastics and swimming - she said those were the 2 best to be in. She also thought that if Big A was interested in dance... to look into tap dance as it was great for her feet and to stay far away from Ballet (for Big A due to feet).
Occupational Therapy (1 hour)
- The office has moved 2 doors down; it is a lot bigger
- Aliyah is enjoying her ot time. She especially loves to wear the green stretchy suit
- She chose to end her time in the ball pit with the weighted blanket on top
At Home Therapy
*Theraputty - playing with theraputty - to build up muscle strength in fingers & hands
*Ankel Weights - walking around in the house with ankel weights to practice keeping our heels on the ground (Off tip-toes)
*Feet Excercises from Physio...
OTHER:
Watched movie "Cool Runnings". About a Jamaican Bobsled Team that makes it to the Olympics
LIFE SKILLS:
Big A has now learned how to wash plates, bowls and safe cutlery - she LOVES it! There is more water on the floor than in the sink - but its fun and now I have a helper to make the workload a little lighter and a little more fun :)
Shopping / Life Skills
-Went shopping at MCC and she helped Maryanne pick out items to give to poor children in Mexico
-Is able to make decisions faster; likes to reason her decision out loud!
IEP GOAL #1: Playground awareness & Safety:
IEP GOAL #2: Physical functioning: demonstrate awareness of her own physical strength...
***Made it across the monkey bars for the first time** age 7.5 :)
IEP GOAL #3: Emotional / Behavioural Functioning (trying challenging or non preferred activities)
*The monkey bars is something that has been giving Big A difficulties since Kindergarten. All her friends would play on the monkey bars and nothing else. Big A would always feel left out. With the challenges of having low muscle tone, and the depth perception not being there - she needed much coaching and cheering and now finally 2 and a half years later - now that thanks to OT and gymnastics she has the muscles developing, and the coaching and showing her exactly how far it was if she dropped of fell - it was a matter of coaching her and letting her know ...you did 2, now try for 3. ignore all the rest of the bars - just try for 3...when she got 3 - it was lets try one more - great you got 4 - lets do 1 more... till finally she got all of them!!
IEP GOAL #4: Academic / Intellectual / Cognitive Functioning...(difficulty with new information)
*Math unit on regouping has been a challenge**
IEP GOAL #5: Math...work on sums to 20
IEP GOAL #6 Social and Playskill development...(use 1 strategy to gain another persons attention in a social group or aprox 3 people.)
Apples to apples game
Groundhog Unit
- did various worksheets
Listened to variety of music
-
Caribbaean
-
Inca music
