Calendar skills- Days of the week months of the year, how many day in a month.
Anna- character analysis, writing a friendly letter.
Quinn- Story sequence, Phonics- digraphs, sh, th. Character, setting and events.

Anna and Quinn had a tough lesson topic today, but they did a great job with it! We talked about the three branches of government, where they are housed, and what their functions are. We also discussed why it is important to have three branches that work together rather than just one. I asked Anna and Quinn what laws they would make if they were members of Congress and this allowed us to discuss the process of law-making in a more tangible way. At the end of class, they watched a guided tour video of the U.S. Capitol building where Congress is housed.

We worked on our Beach Yoga Postures (we will eventually do these on the beach); i.e. crab, dolphin, jellyfish, fish, seagull, turtle. We then focused on arms and shoulder stretches, with and without the hoops (arm hooping). We practiced cow's head pose (shoulder stretch), and also did finger and wrist exercises to rhymes. We ended class with relaxation (corpse pose) to Native American Flute music. Next Thursday, we will make lavender spray as a project. Anna and Quinn received a check today (no sticker). They had to be redirected to stay in their own space too many times. Otherwise, they were attentive and participated fully in class.

Chatted about what we did this summer, did warmup drills and kicked the pad and stretched.

Today we began our class with a 15 minutes chapter 1 review. Anna and Quinn both did practiced problems on the board to refresh their memory and get their brain going before their test. Anna and Quinn both did very well on their tests! Anna got an 80% and Quinn got a 90%. They both missed a question about finding a number between 2 numbers. We will review that topic before we start our money unit tomorrow. Quinn was very excited to reach his highest Mad Minute score yet (11 questions correct in 1 minute)! Anna and Quinn finished their session working on Sumdog in the computer lab.

Today, Anna and Quinn learned about the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence. Anna and Quinn now have their e-studies weekly magazines, so we no longer have to read the material off of the computer. They seemed to enjoy having the paper version in front of them. We read about King George, the Stamp Act, and the Boston Tea Party. All of these events led up to the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence. We added these two events to their timeline. We also talked about independence and what that means. Anna and Quinn listened to some fun reenactments of the Boston Tea Party on the computer. They also learned the significance of a John Hancock: at the end of class they each signed their name to their own personal Declaration of Independence.

Today Anna started painting her horse. We studied the reference photo and talked about cool and warm whites. Anna mixed and created all of her cool and warm whites colors from the three primary colors plus white. Anna closely observed where the light source was coming from and saw how it related to the highlights and shadows on the horse.
Today Quinn continued to work on his mixed media off road course. He added clay to represent a mud pit and started painting around his obstacles. Quinn engineered a bridge jump out of popsicle sticks and is continuing to brain storm for new obstacles.

Quinn-Phonics- End blends and sight words. Read a story and discussed the topic and details.
Anna- Review of blends, vowels and consonants. Writing with more detail.
Worked with vocabulary words.

Today Anna and Quinn completed their Chapter 1 Review. We worked through the free response Chapter 1 test. Tomorrow they will take the chapter 1 multiple choice test. We reviewed ordinal numbers, place value, standard form, word form and expanded form. We will go back to the second grade EnVision text to work on money after the test on chapter one.

We started our yoga charts today. Both Anna and Quinn did very well and received stickers for the day. We turned our "cat yoga" calendar to September and did our "cat warrior" pose, 1 and 3, and practiced other back and leg stretches. We also practiced candlestick to bridge, a difficult transition. Anna and Quinn were both able to do this after some practice. Quinn did very well with candlestick going into a backwards roll. He practiced over and over until he perfected the movement. Anna also worked hard to do the candlestick to bridge. Both children worked hard to challenge themselves today.