Week 9 Review -- November 10-14 UPDATE!!

Well here they are the awaited Cactus Desert Lapbooks.

I decided to only put these up this week.  After all how many grammar and math pages do people really want to see. 

Everett's lapbook

Annika's lapbook

Week 9 Review -- November 10-14

We've now reached the end of the our first quarter of school.  It seems to have taken us longer than we had thought, but I'm ok with that.  We had a wonderful month long vacation and not many people can do something like that in the middle of a school year.

Here's the rundown for week 9

Everett

Grammar: He continued on with compound subjects and predicates as well as diagramming of sentences.  Some review of the different types of sentences was also covered.  

Penmanship: Handwriting without Tears continues to be a hit.  Matt and I are both amazed at how much better Ev's handwriting has become.

Spelling: Completed step 11 of All About Spelling level 1, and did our first spelling dictation phrases.  He did really well.  I'm very pleased with this curriculum.

Writing: None this week as it covered "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and we've read and discussed it many times already.

Math:  Lessons 26-28 completed, beginning Multiplication as repeated addition was covered, as well as review of all previous lessons. 

History: We covered "The Age of Enlightenment" with a week on Galileo, Newton, and others of the time. 

Geography: Picturing North America on a map was covered.

Science: We continued our study of the Cactus Desert and will finish up our lapbooks over the weekend.  We have just the covers to finish and that could take some considerable time, knowing my kids.

Annika

Grammar: A review of all sentence types was done.  She did really well and seems to be retaining a lot.  

Spelling: None this week as we focused on Phonics.

Penmanship: Handwriting without Tears is continuing to be a huge hit.  She really enjoys the lessons and her printing is amazing.

Phonics: She is continuing to enjoy Hooked on Phonics and read us a few stories in the book as well as a new "reader" she found on the shelf.  It was a cute story about a worm that got stuck when trying to make his body into different shapes.

Writing: None this week as it covered "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White and we've read and discussed it many times already.

Math: Saxon Math 1 lessons 57-58.  She continued practicing counting by 2's and 10's and although Saxon is working well, but it's not as fun for her as it is for Everett.  She needs more fun in her math lessons and the flashcards and fact practice are turning into nightmares, so I've found Rightstart math and we'll try incorporating some of the math games from that to work on learning our addition facts.

History: We covered "The Age of Enlightenment" with a week on Galileo, Newton, and others of the time. 

Geography: We continued with basic map reading, she is enjoying the fun lessons that Evan Moor provides.

Science: We continued our study of the Cactus Desert and will finish up our lapbooks over the weekend.  We have just the covers to finish and that could take some considerable time, knowing my kids

I've decided to put Latin and Art off until we come back in a couple of weeks.  It's just not fitting in now.  When we start fresh in 2 weeks we'll be able to add that in along with Vocabulary for Everett.  The kids gymnastics and karate classes are continuing to go well.

I'll be back in 2 weeks with our Week 10 review.

I'll be back with pictures once we're done with our Science lapbooks.

Week 8 Review -- November 3-7

This week had it's ups and downs.  Everett was struggling a little this week, but after a nice talk with me things turned around and the week ended well.  We took the 4th off because of the election and spent time discussing what an election was and the kids made some "planets" of their own with craft supplies and Everett wrote up a "speech" about why he'd make a great president for his new planet.  I explained to him that our election here in the US was only for the President of our country not the whole planet, to which he replied "Well my planet only has one country, so I guess I'd be the President of both"  

We have one more week to go and then we'll have time off again.  I know it seems sudden, and it is, but Annika's birthday is coming up, and my mom is coming into town for that.  Then we have Thanksgiving the following week.

Here's the rundown for week 8

Everett

Grammar: Compound subjects and predicates were covered and he did very well with them.  He finished the week by starting diagraming of questions. 

Penmanship: He is really enjoying Handwriting without Tears Cursive.  I like that he's starting to write very nicely with it and it's not too much on a page.

Spelling: Completed steps 9-10 of All About Spelling level 1.

Writing: "Caddie Woodlawn"  copywork and narration.

 Math:  Lessons 23-25 and Test 4 completed, Solving for missing addeds and subtrahends were covered.

History: We wrapped up the unit on France by learning of the rise and fall of Napolean.  Next week we start the "Age of Discovery" 

Geography: Reading of Map scales was covered this week.

Science: We began our study of the Cactus Desert.  We're reading One Small Square Cactus Desert and began work on a lapbook for the study.

Annika

Grammar: The exclamation was introduced as the next sentence type.  

Spelling: Completed Step 6 of All About Spelling Level 1

Penmanship: She is really enjoying her Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book, began lowercase letters with c and o.

Phonics: She is continuing to enjoy Hooked on Phonics and has been reading us the first book as well as one of her Bob Books each night, sure they are the same ones each day, but it seems to be working for her.

Writing: "Caddie Woodlawn" copywork and narration.

Math: We have returned to Saxon Math 1 and completed lessons 53-56.  She covered counting by 2's and 10's, learning about cup and teaspoon measurments (although we skipped on making peanut butter and she just helped me make bread this week) and finished the week with an introduction of reading time to the hour on both analog and digital clocks.

History: We wrapped up the unit on France by learning of the rise and fall of Napolean.  Next week we start the "Age of Discovery" 

Geography: She covered the important parts of the map this week.  Learning to recognize the title, map key and compass rose were highlighted.

Science: We began our study of the Cactus Desert.  We're reading One Small Square Cactus Desert and began work on a lapbook for the study.

Art and Latin just didn't happen this week.  We'll definitely try to fit them in next week, but we'll see what happens.

  I'll be back next week with our Week 9 review.

Week 7 Review -- October 27-Nov 1

We've finally gotten back into the swing of things after our long vacation back to the midwest. It was a really good week for the kids and I. We had lots of fun and can't wait to start again on Monday.

Here's the rundown of what we did.

Everett

Grammar: Continuation of Subjects and Predicates, differenciating between simple and complete ones, as well as diagramming of them.

Penmanship: He began Handwriting without tears Cursive.  He has worked on mastering the letters C and A.

Spelling: Completed steps 6-8 of All About Spelling level 1

Writing: "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter copywork and narration.

 Math:  Test 3, Investigation 2, and Lessons 21-22 completed, these included learning about radius, squares, circles, and rectangles as well as perimeter.

History: Continued learning about France and the French Revolution, we will wrap up the unit on France next week.

Geography: Reading of projection maps was covered.

Science: Covered Creepy Crawlies.  Learned about land invertebrates. Next week we'll start in on the Cactus Desert Habitat.

Annika

Grammar: The question was introduced as the next sentence type.  

Spelling: Completed Step 5 and began step 6 of All About Spelling Level 1

Penmanship: Started Handwriting Without Tears My Printing Book, she covered a review of capital letters.

Phonics: She began Hooked on Phonics Yellow book.  She's made great progress and read her first HOP story.

Writing: "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter copywork and narration.

Math: She completed unit 2 in the Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners book and week 2 of the Daily Math Practice which focused on simple graphs and basic addition facts..  Next week we'll return to Saxon 1

History: Continued learning about France and the French Revolution, we will wrap up the unit on France next week.

Geography: Reading a Map Key was introduced.

Science: Covered Creepy Crawlies.  Learned about land invertebrates. Next week we'll start in on the Cactus Desert Habitat.

Next week we'll also add in Song School Latin, and may start Artistic Pursuits.  The kids have also started some classes at a place not far from the house called The Little Gym.  Annika has started in the non-competitive gymnastics class.  Her teacher says she's doing great and has the gift of being ambidextrous when it comes to cartwheels, which apparently is quite rare.  Everett has started non-competitive basic Karate and is loving it.  He's the tallest boy in his class but is very gentle and patient with his smaller and younger couterparts.  He teacher says he's showing great skill and promise.   Lucas has joined the toddler gymnastics class which they call funny bugs.  He's now mastered forward rolls and is almost able to walk the balance beam unassisted.  His teacher really enjoys having him in class and says he's a great listener and she is very impressed at how quickly he picked up the forward rolls.

We hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and wish you the best in the coming weeks.  I'll be back next week with our Week 8 review.