It's our first official week of summer school. This will actually be a long session because we wrapped up a lot of subjects early this year and because we'll be starting later than normal so we can have lots of time off when Matt comes back from deployment.
Here's what we did this week.
Everett:
Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5: He completed lessons 3.6-3.10 even sneaking down Wednesday night when he couldn't sleep to get his grammar work for Thursday to work on in the middle of the night. He's doing so well with this program and things seem to be sticking.
Spelling: All About Spelling 2 steps 14 and 15 were completed.
Reading: He is reading Bunnicula Strikes Again. He's purposely slowed down to try and stretch the book out.
Math: Teaching Textbooks Quiz 9 and lessons 52-55 were completed. I think he finally understands GCF and LCM, and has now moved onto Unit 10 which works on multiplying and dividing fractions.
Annika:
Language Arts: UGH! That's almost all I can say about LA with this girl. We're still working on reading at grade level and fluently. Saxon phonics ended up being a flop, so we're back to Christian Light Education Learn to Read. She only needs to do the 2nd half of it because we did the first half last summer. She'll also be adding in CLE's Language Arts along with it since that's how the program is set up. We spent the last 3 days of this week doing a review of the first 4 lightunit workbooks for Learn to Read using the reading primers, word and phrase flashcards. She did so well with it, I guess she wasn't as far behind as I thought, now I just have to keep moving her forward. I will get this girl reading fluently if it kills me, which many times I've thought it will.
Spelling: Nothing in All About Spelling, but we'll have some spelling work in our CLE work.
Math: I'm so glad that math has been figured out and finalized for her. Saxon is working great and she enjoys it. She completed lessons 36-40 this week and seems to have mastered those pesky doubles +1 facts.
Lucas:
Preschool: He's still working away at his Kumon maze, number and cutting book. I do have the Rod and Staff ABC series on it's way for him because he's blazing through these other books.
Because the kids asked about continuing history in a relaxed way I've decided to just read Story of the World Volume 3 to them at a leisurely read aloud pace through the next month or so. We'll probably throw in a coloring page or map from the activity guide from time to time. The reason I decided this is because our last program didn't have us read this book in order, which made somethings a little hard to understand. The kids enjoy the book and were very excited to hear I'd decided to read it all over again in order.
Tune in next week for our Summer School Week 2 review.
This was our last official week of this school year. We will now be in Language Arts and Math only summer session. I know for many it's not anywhere near summer but we started this year really early and despite some set back the kids rallied and completed more than I thought. Because some of the curricula was started at the half way point of the year we'll continue those through our summer session.
Here's the run down.
Everett:
Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5, Unit 3 on verbs was started. He completed lessons 3.1-3.5. So far so good although verbs can be tough for him.
Spelling: All About Spelling 2 steps 12 and 13 were completed. We also took the time to do a review test of all 100 words he'd learned in steps 1-11. He was stoked that he only misspelled 4 of them. Not bad, not bad at all if I do say so myself.
Writing: Writing is on hold for now, although we'll do some writing from our Growing with Grammar lessons.
Reading: He began and finished reading Return to Howliday Inn was finished and Bunnicula Strikes Again was began. He's really enjoyed this series but was sad to see there is only 1 book left after this one.
Math: Teaching Textbooks Quiz 8 and lessons 48-51 were completed. He's still having some trouble with LCM and GCF, but it's getting better each lesson.
Annika:
Language Arts:Explode the Code Book 2 was finished. Saxon Phonics 2 lessons 5-8 were completed and it's turned out not to be what was needed. We've decided to go back to CLE Learn to Read which we had tried in the past and was going ok. The new 2nd edition looks like it's remedied the few issues we had with it.
Spelling: All About Spelling level 1 step 17 was completed. She also received her Beehive Readers Saturday and was really excited. She even offered to read her brothers a story.
Math: Saxon Math 2 is going well. She completed lessons 30-35 this week and did really well. The doubles plus one facts have been a real thorn in her side but she's starting to overcome them. I think most of it was fear that they were "too hard" but we're working on that.
Lucas:
Preschool: He's been having a great time with his new Kumon books especially the My First book of Cutting. He's also progressed to writing something that looks like his first name on his papers, which is a major step forward for his fine motor skills.
They have asked to continue with some history lessons yet, so we'll most likely cover westward expansion at a leisurely pace when we can through read alouds.
Tune in next week for our Summer week 1 review.
It is also Science Week here at Fawkes Academy. We've had gorgeous summer like weather all week so we spent it doing science experiments and working around the yard.
Here's the run down.
Subjects we all do together.
History: We watched discs 4-6 of Liberty's Kids thus wrapping that up. We also finished reading Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin By His Good Mouse Amos. History is considered finished for the year as we've made it through the time of the American Revolution which was the goal.
Science: We wrapped up our trip around the planets covering the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and the dwarf planet Pluto. We'll do a short week on Stars next week and then Science will be finished for the year.
Here's a great video of the most fun science experiment we did all week. We made the storms of Jupiter in a pie plate.
Next week will be our last official week for the year then we'll start our Language Arts and math double lesson summer session. I dare you to say that 3 times fast :)
Tune in next week for our week 28 review.
We had a good week although it contained a bump in the road on Tuesday when Lucas had to go for a check up and received 3 shots. He had a really rough day but bounced back the next day. We had a fun field trip to the movies on Thursday where we saw How to Train Your Dragon in IMAX 3D. It was a great movie and the kids had a blast.
Here's the rundown of the school work we accomplished this week.
Everett:
Grammar: Growing with Grammar 5, Unit 2 on nouns was completed. He gaining a lot of confidence in his ability to understand grammar and has come to enjoy it.
Spelling: All About Spelling 2 steps 7-11 were completed he's found his groove in this program and so far it's working well.
Writing: We took a break from Writing this week, although he did finish watching disc one of Student Writing Intensive A, he's excited to start disc two next week and begin the story sequence soon.
Reading: He began and finished reading Return to Howliday Inn the next in the Bunnicula series he's really enjoyed. I'm still amazed at how his love of reading grew over the past few months.
Math: Teaching Textbooks lessons 44-47 were completed. Factors have been rough, but I think he's finally got it.
Annika:
Language Arts:Explode the Code Book 2 is almost finished and she's done really well with it. We have decided to put HeadSprout on hold for now, because it's gotten a bit ahead of her and is starting to frustrate her. Saxon Phonics 2 lessons 1-4 were completed and she's really enjoying it. There has been a little bit of coding introduced and so far she likes it a lot.
Spelling: All About Spelling level 1 steps 13-16 were completed. We have decided to finish level 1 of AAS and then put it on hold until we see how Saxon phonics and spelling goes. She is really enjoying the Saxon, and if spelling is included I don't want to over do it.
Math: Saxon Math 2 has been just the ticket for her in math. She completed lessons 26-29 this week and looks forward to math and even the timed fact drills.
Lucas:
Preschool: He's completed his My first book of Coloring and My first book of Mazes. He's really looking forward to the My first book of Cutting and others that are coming up next.
Subjects we all do together.
History: We watched the last two episodes on disc 3 of Liberty's Kids and I began reading Ben and Me as a history read aloud. So far the story is a good one and the dvds are always a big hit.
Science: We wrapped up our Earth unit by observing out biosphere and discussing it's similarities and differences with our planet. We also did our Mars experiment but must watch it over the next few days as we wait for the rust to form.
Tune in next week for our week 27 review.
