unpacking sweaters and learning the seasons

What a great time to teach Gabi more about the seasons when we are getting out sweaters, jackets and jeans.  We played a fun dress up game.  I filled a laundry basket with items from all seasons.  We had umbrellas, rain jackets, sunglasses, swim arm floats, sun visors, baseball style hats, hoodie jackets, a couple Halloween masks, winter hats and gloves.  I called out a season and both girls had to hurry and dig through the basket and put all as many things they could find that would be worn in that season. 
    We also did a little art with Gabi about the seasons and weather.  We drew a picture of each season and Gabi's were fairly common with rain, flowers, a pumpkin, but her picture of winter puzzled me.  She drew paw prints.  I asked her to tell me about her picture and she said "they are rabbit prints in the snow."  It was a very creative idea I thought.  For weather we drew on index cards, one for each common weather condition.  We have a card for sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing, storming.  Now each day Gabi can look out the window and pick which card fits the weather and tape it to the window.
   I try to overlap topics with both girls, it makes creating a lesson plan easier since some things they can do together.  So Lili spent time this week learning about the different types of clouds, what clouds are made of, what creates thunder and lighting and about tornadoes and hurricanes. 
   We also made a weather vane or wind vane this week.  We made one just like this.  Both girls enjoyed taking it out everyday and checking the wind direction.

We started using an online source for some of our math last year and are continuing to use it this year.   It is khanacademy.org   I believe it is mainly just math and science.  They keep you practicing until you have mastered the skill you are working on.  So Lili currently started adding negative numbers.  On her page that skill will not change to mastered until she completes all practice problems without missing any.  We both enjoy using this site and it is FREE!

I never thought Lili would enjoy learning cursive writing so much.  She asks almost daily if we will be practicing and learning a new letter.   And she is picking it up quickly and pretty easily.  I wasn't sure if I was introducing it to soon but she was interested so we gave it a go.  Here are her papers from today.

I need to send a big THANK YOU to a friend of ours for telling us about a website to check out.  It is ABCya.com  They have games for Kindergarten through 5th grade so both girls are enjoying it but I am mostly excited for Gabi.  I have been trying all sorts of ideas to get her to practice her letter sounds and they have a letter sound BINGO game that she really enjoys playing and as a reward after that she gets to play a fun game on the site as well.  Great games for practicing skills through games. 

Lili has weekly spelling tests and this year I am using spellcity.com  They have games as well which we have not tried out yet but plan to.  So far I have just been using their sample spelling word lists for 2nd grade and choosing her words for each week from that list.

Another week under our belts.  On my list of ideas is to find some ways to take our school work outdoors.  Not just taking books outside but incorporating learning with outside activity since it won't be long before it is to cold to spend as much time outside.  I'll be saving and posting what we find.