E is for…Eyebright fairy and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.  After reading Serendipity’s Flower Fairy story, Joseph and William colored pictures of the Eyebright fairy.  Joseph also did some copywork from the poem that is in the Flower Fairy book (which he did while listening to the Flower Fairy CD).  Then we looked up the actual wildflower in our field guide.  We read about Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in our Alphabet of Catholic Saints.  Joseph did some copywork.  We also used the picture from the book to practice the letter E formation. 

E is for…the letter E.  We practiced letter formation using the Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book, Do A Dot, Salt Dough letters, and Pin Punch letters. 

E is for…the short vowel e sound.  For phonics review (and phonics introduction for William!) and for our word box, we focused on the short vowel e sound.  We did some Explode the Code, added some short e words to our word boxes, and made words with play-doh. 

E is for…earnings.  We started Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Jr. University this week.  Joseph listened to Junior’s first adventure and we talked about earning commission.  Unfortunately Joseph was more enamored with the idea of doing wrong and being fined, so we shelved the commission chart for now.  We’ll revisit a little later.

 E is for…envelopes.  Joseph practiced writing letters and addressing envelopes this week.  He chose to write a letter to his friend Belle and to Grandpa Gary.  Both were pleased to receive his letter.

E is for…electricity.  I had great plans to read Switch On, Switch Off and The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip, but we never got around to it.  We have a few weeks later on that don’t have a science theme, so we’ll fill in those weeks with these plans.   

E is for…Albert Einstein.  We read The Odd Boy Out, which Joseph and William had absolutely no interest in.  In hindsight Amelia Earhart probably would have been a better choice here.  On the positive side, I did learn a new tidbit of information that I was able to share with Daxson.  Did you know that the man who performed Einstein’s autopsy put Einstein’s brain in a jar and traveled across the United States with it?  He even wrote a book about it called Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across the United States with Einstein’s Brain.

E is for…eat nicely.  We’re still using these great coloring pages and we’re including one each week along with a virtue story. 

In our book baskets this week (I’m choosing one book from each basket to have Joseph do a narration and illustration of):

History (Albert Einstein): Odd Boy Out  

Science (electricity): Switch On, Switch Off; The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip

Favorite E Books:  Every Friday; Emily’s First 100 Days of School; Even Firefighters Go to the Potty; Every Autumn Comes the Bear; Each Peach Pear Plum