Week 22 Review -- March 23-27

Due to the kids getting colds, this was a short week. We don't have much left to do so that's ok. We only have Math and Language arts at this point that needs finishing.
Here's the rundown of what we did.

Everett
Grammar: Everett completed chapter 1 in his new Bob Jones University Press English Writing and Grammar 4 book. It was a review of the 4 types of sentences, but he needed it.

Math: Lessons 48-49 were completed. Math continues to be a fun subject for him.

Geography: Daily Geography this week covered reading a map of Washington DC. He really enjoyed this because in about a month and a half we'll be going to DC for a family vacation with my mom.

Annika
Phonics: She is continuing with Headsprout and seems to really like it. We also started using CLE's Learn to Read program and it's looking really good so far. It uses a mix of phonics and sight words which seems to be just what she needs. This week she was able to read phrases like "as many as" and "the brown mat" this may not seem like much but for a struggling reader it's a major milestone. The program has given her confidence quite a boost.

Math: CLE lessons 52-53 were completed. She really enjoys this program and looks forward to it, although because of her new Learn to Read program it's now tied for her favorite subject.

Geography: Daily Geography this week covered reading a map of a zoo. This was a fun one for her since she loves animals so much.

BOTH:
Science: This week we have been observing the caterpillars we got last week. Just yesterday they finally all put themselves in their chrysalises and we're now anxious to see them hatch out as painted lady butterflies. We also bought a marshmallow plant to see if we can get them to lay eggs.

We are continuing our read aloud of The Magician's Nephew from The Chronicle's of Narnia series.

Lucas has decided that he wants to do school work again so I've started using the About Three series from Rod and Staff publishing for him, along with books we read from our Sonlight Core P3/4.

Come back next week to check out our Week 23 review. In a few weeks I'll also be posting our final curriculum picks, so keep an eye out for that.

The curriculum that has made my daughter a happy girl once again

As many of you that follow my blog and know me are aware, Annika has been struggling with learning to read for about a year now. She has known all of her letters and sounds for quite a while but putting them together to read has been extremely difficult for her. After trying many other programs that all brought her to tears we decided to try one more thing. Since she was having such success with Christian Light Education's math program I decided to get their Learn to Read program as a last ditch attempt to help her. It has changed so much for her. She now looks forward to phonics time and after only 2 weeks with the program she's already reading phrases like "as many as" and "the brown bat." She is beaming with confidence and can't wait to get to the next lesson. The program uses both a phonics and sight word approach and the teacher's manual tells me just what to do to use the program to get the most benefit out of it. I couldn't be happier with it and am so greatful to have found something that clicks with her.

Week off for us at Fawkes Academy

Well I'll try this again, because I typed something up and it seems that it wasn't saved.

We had the week off here and I have done some thinking on what to do for the rest of the year. We will considere history finished and pick up next year with the discovery of America and the rest of Early Modern times. Science will wrap up in the next week or two depending on our painted lady caterpillars. Once they hatch into butterflies we'll wrap up science for the year. We'll then focus on Language Arts and Math for the last 10 weeks of our year. I've decided to shorten the year because the kids have worked on weekends for the past couple of months so they deserve a shortened year. This means we'll finish up the middle of June. During these last 10 weeks we'll continue math, but will focus on reading for Annika and on writing for Everett. They'll be taking their Iowa Test of Basic Skills in mid April and I'm sure they are more than ready for them.
We're also looking forward to a visit from my mom in May, during which we'll take a 3 day trip to Washinton D.C. and then my mom and dad will be back in June and we'll spend some time at the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. Matt's mom and dad will also be coming out in June and although we don't have any specific attractions we'll be seeing I'm sure it will be a nice visit.

That's all she wrote this time around (after all I tried this once already today.) Come back next week for the Review of week 22.

Week 21 Review -- March 8-14

A fairly good week here at Fawkes Academy. We will make a few changes in the schedule starting next week. The kids have been doing a great job, here's the run down.

Everett
Grammar: Growing with Grammar lessons 4.1-4.4, this was the beginning of the Verb chapter. He's doing pretty well with it and still enjoys the program. This week he learned about action verbs and state of being verbs, direct objects and predicate nouns.

Penmanship: This week we started the sheets I made myself using startwrite and phrases from Happy Scribe. Everett's copywork for the next few weeks will be on weather sayings.

Spelling: All About Spelling Steps 21-24 completed. This wrapped up Level 1 for him. He is doing really well and loves the program. He can't wait to start level 2 next week. I guess I better start cutting out those cards. :)

Math: Lessons 43-47 were completed. He began working with decimals and continued working with fractions. This program has made math truly enjoyable for him, so much so that he insists on doing a lesson almost every day including weekends.

Geography: Daily Geography this week covered reading a political map of Canada, he did really well with it and thought it was fun to learn a little about the "Neighbors to our north."

Annika
Penmanship: She also started copywork I made using Startwrite and loves that I bought border sheets from A reason for Handwriting for her to write a final copy of on Fridays. She picked phrases from Happy Scribes book about horses.

Phonics: She is still plugging along slowly with learning to read, but this is an elephant best eaten 1 bite at a time for her. I've decided to start incorporating more reading into her AAS lessons and she is still enjoying Headsprout which she is about one quarter of the way through. We'll get there but it's more by way of the tortoise than the hare.

Spelling: All About Spelling Step 12 was completed. She's doing really well with this, but we've slowed down the pace a bit in order to review past lessons to help in the arena of reading.

Math: CLE lessons 47-51 and Quiz 1 for Lightunit 3 were completed. She is continuing to do so well with this program. I wish I had found it sooner it's such an easy program to implement and so enjoyable for both of us.

Geography: Daily Geography this week covered a State Map, which happened to be Texas.

BOTH:
Writing: We've dropped writing for Annika and Everett is doing a bit more creative writing with a book we picked up at Barnes and Noble. We'll return to Writing with Ease next year, but for now Annika needs to focus on her reading and is getting plenty of writing work through dictation phrases in spelling.

History: Is over for the year. After reviewing where we were and what had been covered we've decided to pick up Early Modern Times again next year. History has been fun and the kids do enjoy it but they really need to focus on some of the core areas a bit more.

Science: This week "Super Science Saturday" covered Mollusks and Echinoderms. REAL Science Odyssey is still a huge hit and later next week our caterpillars should be arriving just in time for the opening of our arthropod study.

Lastly on the read aloud front the kids have discovered the world of Narnia, well almost. We began reading The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis and the kids can't get enough. I have to admit I'm also enjoying the book a lot.

Come back next week to check out our Week 22 review.

Week 20 Review -- March 1-8

Well after a bit of a cold, this week we all got back on that homeschool horse and had a great week
Here's the run down.

Everett
Grammar: Growing with Grammar lessons 3.8-3.11 and Chapter 3 Review. He wrapped up the Pronoun unit with a study of Capitalization rules.

Penmanship: We wrapped up the remainder of his Handwriting without tears Cursive book and next week we'll start back into Happy Scribe copybooks..

Spelling: All About Spelling Step 19 and 20 completed. This program is working really well for us. I actually love it so much I became an affiliate and wrote a whole post about it. I also have a link to their website in the sidebar.

Math: Lessons 37-42 and Quiz 6 were completed. He covered Polygons, Perimeter, Area, an intro to Fractions, A review of adding 4 digit numbers and Rounding and Estimating 4 digit numbers.

Geography: Daily Geography week 20 covered reading a political map of the Southeastern region of the United States. The funniest answer came when I left him home while I took Lucas to his gym class. The question was "Why is Washington DC considered to be part of the SE region?" His answer was "My mom's not home, and I don't know why. I'll ask her when she comes home"

Annika
Penmanship: She wrapped up her My Printing Book from Handwriting without tears and will also do some Happy Scribe copy books for the rest of the year.

Phonics: All About Spelling has been going well for her. She wrapped up Step 10 and 11 this week. This program is working wonderfully for us. Her reading is also improving because of it. She also did a lesson in her Headsprout program

Math: CLE lessons 41-46 were completed. She was excited to start moving into numbers greater than 100 and can't wait to start the counting book next week.

Geography: Daily Geography week 20 covered reading a map of a city.

BOTH:
Writing: We learned about how to abbreviate the months of the year. Everett thought it was a bummer that he didn't have to change his answer about when his birthday is because May isn't abbreviated.

History: Super history Sunday this week was a wrap up of our Native American Unit. We did a craft from the Maidu tribes and then put our Native American Pocket book together.

Science: This week "Super Science Saturday" covered the Cnidarians. We also made paper plate jellyfish.

The beginning of March came in like a lion here, with temps dropping below freezing we wrapped up the week with temps in the high 70's. Looks like March will be a great month here for us.

Come back next week to check out our Week 21 review.

A spelling program that finally works

We've been homeschooling for 3 years now and have tried many, many spelling programs. We've tried the little ones, like workbooks you an get at Barnes and Noble or other similar stores, some you can get from the local teacher supply store, and the usual big name ones you hear about in homeschool circles. So what's been the best one so far, it's one I just learned about last year and wished I'd known about it in the beginning. It's called All About Spelling and it is so easy to implement. It's a program that focuses on learning all the phongrams for the letters right from the start. My kids are doing so well with this and they have so much fun with it. It offers the verbal reviews for the auditory learner, and by using letter tiles works wonders for the visual and tactile learners in my brood. My daughter who has struggled with reading and phonics for a year has now got all of the phonograms for the 26 letters of the alphabet down and is doing wonderful with the spelling lists and dictation phrases they use in the lessons. It's also helped boost her reading abilty and given her great confidence that she'll soon be reading on her own.

I've been so pleased with this program that I've become and Affiliate for All About Spelling, if you'd like more information on this great program you can check it out here.