"So let's pretend Teagan is being really bad today, and mommy is taking notes. Every time she is bad, she gets a tally mark."
I used the personal white board and continued:
"Teagan just emptied her plate into the toilet instead of the trash can. She gets a tally mark."
"Oh no! Teagan drew aliens all over daddy's work papers! She gets another tally mark."
Then Neely got the idea, took my marker, and said, "Teagan just hid all the toilet paper!"
Neely gave her that tally mark. We talked about how to put tally's in groups of five and she did some practice. She liked the teaching for that day. It's always good when we share some laughs.
Something that she is beginning to enjoy more and more is journal writing. She already loves to write, and at this point, I'm not heavy on the writing work because of that. She always coming up with new songs in her song book. She is always writing a new story and illustrating it, and she writes in a prayer journal at night. I have not stressed so much on her writing any certain way because I want her to naturally like to write the first few years. We talk about the stories we read and she writes what she wants....mostly. The journal writing is about two weeks new. It's different from the prayer journal because in these, I give her prompts. I try to keep it lively. I know what she likes and as her teacher, I am able to cater it to her personality. She LOVES to read me her journals when she's done. She is proud of her work, and so am I!
We are on chapter 11 in our Little House in the Big Woods book. The girls are still enjoying it. On Monday, I gave Teagan a little scare. When I finished the chapter we were on I said, "the end." She was laying in the floor at the time, coloring. She whipped her head around with fright on her face and said, "What?!" LOL I had to tell her not to fret; it wasn't the end of the book, just the chapter. That tells me she likes it. I was so happy to find a Little House on the Prairie show on TV this week. The family was a little older, but Teagan LOVED it. Mine have never, ever seen Little House on the Prairie, so Teagan and Neely were so into the show. They were excited to put real people with the story, but sad because it was the one where Ma gave birth to the boy and he ended up not making it later on. That pulled on Teagan's heartstrings.
I have had a hard time containing my desire to use some of our goodies I have stored away for the next school year, but this week I broke out some of the Math-U-See materials. I LOVE it. I started planning a little in my spare time while the girls play on the playground and decided I'd go ahead and use the cubes that go with the curriculum. I would like for Neely and Teagan both to learn the blocks and their colors and how much each is equal to. So Neely spent Friday playing around with those.