Week 3 in Review -- August 17-22

This week went pretty well. We stuck to the basics of Geography, Language Arts and Math, because our 12 year old dog went in for surgery Monday and we've been busy taking care of her. Next week will also be a Basics week because Lucas will be back at The Little Gym for camp.

Here's what we did this week.

Everett:
Grammar: Junior Analytical Grammar Unit 3 was completed. It covered Pronouns. He's still doing well with this program and I'm grateful that he's remembering what he's learning.

Spelling: Phonetic Zoo Lesson 2 is complete! It took him 5 attempts but he finally got it mastered. Although it was a tough rule and group of words, we had quite a few laughs. It's hard not to laugh when one of your sons daily spelling test words is Wieners!
Writing: The only writing this week was on the Playing with words page of Junior Analytical Grammar. We received our Writing with Ease workbooks this week so we'll add those in next week.
Penmanship: No actual penmanship papers this week, but he was careful on his regular assignments. Penmanship will start to be covered by Writing with Ease and the copywork/dictation it includes.
Reading: Everett read The Lightning Thief chapters 9-13 this week.
Math: Teaching Textbook 5 is still a big hit. He completed lessons 76-79 and Quiz 11. He's doing really well with long division and oddly enough he's mastering his multiplication tables now that he's started division. I guess he's just a little backwards there.
Geography: Daily Geography week 3 completed. The topic was the four Hemispheres.

Annika:
Language Arts: McRuffy is still a hit. We've decided to push things a bit and have read the books Map and Ham, The Ram, The Big Pig, Hot Dog, Lill and Cat Nap this week. We picked which workbook pages from their needed to be done for reinforcement and will now move along at a lesson a day pace. Her reading is coming along fairly well now. She's not ready for anything big, but she's having fun and isn't struggling to sound out every single word anymore.
Penmanship: She did a few McRuffy penmanship pages and will now switch to Writing with Ease Level 1 for both Penmanship and Writing.
Math: We're having a lot of fun with McRuffy math 1, she's still going at a 2 lesson a day pace so this week she completed lessons 17-25.
Geography: Daily Geography week 3 completed. The topic was learning the basics of reading a map.
Lucas:
Preschool: We had fun with some show on Noggin, and did a few Kumon pages as well as playing games like Blokus and Great States Junior.

All in all, not a bad week for us.
Tune in next week for "Week 4 in Review"

Week 2 in Review: August 3-14

Yes, the second week of school took us two calendar weeks. We had some issues with the Central Air Conditioning which unfortunately forced us to put the week on hold. We just finished up this week by do a little each day after Annika got home from Camp.

Here's what we did.

Everett:
Grammar: Junior Analytical Grammar Unit 2 was completed. It covered Articles and Adjectives. He did pretty well and is still enjoying the program. His final score on the unit test was an 85%.
Spelling: Phonetic Zoo is still working well. He worked on Lesson 2 this week which is the dreaded "I before E, except after C..." rule. He had a bit of trouble in the beginning but he's very close to mastering it.
Writing: This week we took a break from writing while I wait for our new Writing with Ease books come in. I'm going to start him in Level 2 this year and focus on his narrations and dictation. This will also mean he won't have a separate penmanship to do because WWE will have some copywork for him to do.
Penmanship: He worked on a page I made for him about Musk Oxen.
Reading: Everett is still reading The Lightning Thief. He's really enjoying the book and we're very excited for him. He's never read this much without a lot of prompting.
Math: Teaching Textbook 5 is still a big hit. He completed lessons 73-75. We also played a few board games that have a math theme as a fact refresher.
Geography: Daily Geography week 2 completed. The topic was lines of latitude, longitude, the equator and prime meridian.

Annika:
Language Arts: McRuffy phonics and spelling is a HUGE hit. She looks forward to all of her McRuffy curricula lessons. This week she completed lessons 34-41 and read the readers. A Can, The Hat, and Nan.
Penmanship: We decided to use a modern manuscript for her now as a gear up to cursive. She will continue with the one that match her McRuffy Language Arts lessons and once Writing with Ease arrives she'll begin Level 1 again. She did part of it last year but wasn't really ready for it, I think she'll really enjoy it now.
Math: She really likes her McRuffy math. Some of it is review but there's so many fun things in it that she's moving at a fast pace. She completed lessons 11-15 this week.
Geography: Daily Geography week 2 completed. The topic was learning the basics of what was on a map.

Lucas:
Preschool: We worked on a few pages from his Kumon workbooks for Ages 2+. He did 2 coloring pages and got to use markers, which was a real treat for him. Then he did 2 pages in Let's Cut Paper and 2 pages in Let's Fold.

All children together:
History: Week 2 we looked at some of the items that came out of the agricultural and industrial revolution and learned about James Watt and his work on the steam engine as well as Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin.
Science: In Real Science Odyssey Chemistry this week we learned about how small atoms are and did some experiments that helped the kids to "see" how atoms move in different temperatures. We also read the book What's smaller than a Pygmy Shrew which is one of there all time favorite science books.
Read Aloud: We continued reading Half Magic by Edward Eager. This week we read chapters 4-5.

Annika also spent the mornings at Guppies to Puppies camp at The Little Gym. She had a really fun time and got to see hedgehogs, guinea pigs, many kinds of lizards, a scorpion, a tarantula, some baby ball pythons and an 11 foot snake. She said it was the best thing ever.

If you take out the part about our Air Conditioning going on the fritz and the fact that we then felt like we were baking alive in our 88° house for 2.5 days, it was a pretty good week. We're looking forward to getting back into a normal routine this week.


Tune in next week for "Week 3 in Review"

Week 1 in Review: July 27-Aug 1

This was our first week back and the kids and I had a lot of fun and are settling in nicely.

Here's what we did.

Everett:
Grammar: Started Junior Analytical Grammar and completed Unit 1: Nouns. He did really well and got a 97% on his unit test.
Spelling: Another new program to try. Phonetic Zoo was a big hit. He enjoys learning the rules and loves the idea of building his zoo. I made him a lapbook to build it in and it's been pretty fun. It took him 3 attempts on the Lesson 1 list (which is really good) and he's taken the Lesson 2 test once. I'm sure he'll have those down in a few more tests.
Writing: We did a few Keyword Outlines using the first few source texts from IEW's All Things Fun and Fascinating to review Unit 1. Next week we'll return to IEW's Student Writing Intensive Level A for Unit 2.
Penmanship: We continued to work on cursive penmanship using some pages I made up myself.
Math: He's continuing with Teaching Textbooks and completed lessons 69-72 which worked on double digit by double digit multiplication and some basic division as well as review of many other concepts.
Geography: Daily Geography week 1 completed. The topic was reading a map of the US.


Annika:
Language Arts: We started our McRuffy Language Arts this week and she completed Lessons 26-33. It reviewed the "at" and "an" family. This program also includes her spelling. She took her first spelling test this week with it and scored 100%. She's very excited about this new program. It's colorful and a lot of fun.
Penmanship: We continued to work on cursive penmanship using some pages I made up myself, as well as the penmanship practice in her McRuffy LA program.
Math: This is another area where we switched to McRuffy and she's doing great with it. She completed lessons 1-10, doing 2 a day and loves the fun activities that are intertwined within the program.
Geography: Daily Geography week 1 completed. The topic was learning the basics of the Globe.


Lucas:
Preschool: He did about 10 sheets from his Bigger Steps workbook. We're still working on fine motor skills by tracing lines. He also sits in on our read aloud and plays with math manipulatives. He's got most of his letter names down and can count to 10. We're working on 11-15 now.

All children together:
History: Week 1 was a look at the changes the agricultural revolution had on farming. We're once again using History Odyssey Early Modern Times. We're picking up where we left off last year and in a few weeks we'll start in on the American Colonies and study American history through Westward Expansion.
Science: We're using REAL Science Odyssey Chemistry 1 this year. It's been fun so far. We learned a bit about the scientific method this week as well as a bit about how chemicals are all around us. Next week we'll move on to Atoms.
Read Aloud: The kids asked me to re-read a favorite, so we're reading Half Magic by Edward Eager. We've read the first 3 chapters the week and it's just as fun this time around.

This was an excellent first week and we're looking forward to next week. Everett has been doing really well with his time management and is doing much of his work without any assistance from me. Everett has also discovered the joy of reading and we've had a hard time getting him to put his book of choice down. He decided to make his first independent reading book The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and he's completely hooked! Annika is doing really well with her new programs and although her reading is slow going it's moving forward which is a good sign.

Tune in next week for "Week 2 in Review"