Weekly review -- February 20-25, 2012

When I started going over my lesson plans for this past week on Sunday, I thought it would be a nice easy week, with a few fun things in there.  I should know better than to think things like that.

Monday

The day started out great, I took Annika to vision therapy, where she did excellent as usual. Then she requested Cheesecake Factory for lunch, how could I resist.  It was yummy.  After she and I got home we started in our lessons for the day.  Annika a math lesson and started step 8 In All About Spelling 2.  Everett started step 12 in All About Spelling 3, completed Exercise 1 of Unit 3 in Junior Analytical Grammar which started the pronoun unit.  He later completed a math lesson while I was at gymnastics with Lucas.   Before gymnastics Lucas read a few stories from his All About Reading book to Everett. 

Tuesday

I woke up and had no voice what so ever and called off school.  Everett took it upon himself to do 3 loads of towels (washed, dried, folded and put away) and then took care of the dishwasher and dusted my room.  

Wednesday

Was bowling day, and although I still couldn't talk very well, we had a blast.  I finished the day bowling a 201, the best I've ever done.

Thursday

We started to get back on track. Annika did a math lesson, finished step 8 in spelling and did a lesson on the Reading Eggs website.   Everett did a math lesson, exercise 2 of unit 3 in grammar and completed step 12 in spelling. Lucas did 2 math lessons with me.  My voice was still a little off so Everett said he would teach Lucas his All About Reading lesson, which Lucas loved.  Everett did an amazing job teaching it. 

Friday

I had planned for this day to be an art day, so we packed into the car and drove to the local pottery studio where the kids painted some projects they were unable to finish during their camp last summer.  The studio owner is an amazing lady who just adores the kids, she was really excited to see them all and is looking forward to them in camp this summer.  After art was over we went to Skinny Dip and had some frozen yogurt. 

Saturday

Annika and Everett each did a math lesson, Lucas did two math lessons and then it was time for science.  Lucas just kind of watches when we do science as I require no formal science from him.  Everett and Annika completed week 20 of Real Science Odyssey Chemistry level 1.  They learned how to draw Electron Dot Structures and then we did another experiment on capillary action.  Next week we start Unit Six.

Weekly Report -- February 13-17, 2012

This week was supposed to be a great on, and then the sickness started to rear it's ugly head. We got quite a bit completed all things considered. 

Annika

... did wonderful again at Vision Therapy and diligently did her therapy homework every day.

...completed lessons 62-64 and Quiz 9 in Teaching Textbooks 4, which covered long multiplication, multiplication of more than 2 numbers, multiplication word problems, regrouping and started simple division.

... completed step 7 in All About Spelling 2.  We've discovered that teaching with the tiles is fine, but she prefers not to use them herself, so she'll just use a small whiteboard for her parts.

...is doing really well in swimming lessons, although she doesn't really need the.  Her teacher is helping her perfect her strokes.

...went bowling with me alone, since Everett woke up ill on Wednesday and Lucas wanted to stay with his older brother to keep him company.  It was a fun girls day out, even though she got a huge blister on her ball hand.

Everett

...completed lessons 55-57 and Quiz 8 in Teaching Textbooks 7, which wrapped up his Fractions in the Real World chapter and started his Decimals chapter.

... completed Unit 2 in Junior Analytical Grammar.  He's really doing well with it this go around.  I think before he just wasn't ready for it. He was very proud to have gotten Superiority level on his unit test this week.

...completed step 11 in All About Spelling level 3.  He loves this program and unlike his sister loves the tiles. 

...he took advantage of his sister and brother having swim lessons in order to get some lap swim time in at the YMCA.

Lucas

...completed lessons 84-93 in McRuffy math.  He's blazing through the end of this level, and surprised him mom when I went to teach him to count by 5s.  I asked if he had any idea how to count by 5s, and he quickly and confidently counted from 5-100 by 5s for me.  Ok... moving on then!

...completed lesson 6 and 7 in All About Reading 1, which means he read another two stories in Run Bug, Run!  He's so proud of himself, and he's doing a great job. 

...had gymnastics, and like usual did amazing.  He's improved so much this year, I'm sure Matt will be surprised to see how far he's come once he returns from deployment.

...woke up on Friday with a sore throat, which I'm sure he caught from his brother.

Science

Everett and Annika completed week 19 of REAL Science Odyssey Chemistry.  They learned about molecular formulas and how it make things easier and that using subscript helps cut down on errors.   I mean really if you had to write out caffeine's molecular formula would you rather type out...

CCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHNNNNOO

or

C8H10N4O2

...they also completed the Celery Blues experiment which showed capillary action.  It's an experiment they've done in the past but love to see how the celery will pull the colored water up through the xylem.

Sorry there is no pictures this week, but Friday it took everything I had to get through those science and math lessons considering I have now caught Everett's cold.  My throat isn't as sore today, but it seems a Hag fish has taken up residence in my nasal sinuses.

If you aren't sure what a hag fish is or why having a cold would feel like one is living in your nasal sinuses, here's a video

Weekly Review February 6-12, 2012

This week went fairly well.  I opened the week by watching my favorite football team the NY Giants win the superbowl.  What a game!!

Monday, Annika had vision therapy which is continuing to go well and is really helping her more than we ever though possible.  Lucas had gymnastics and we did a little math in between those classes

Tuesday, Annika and Lucas had swimming lessons. We also played some math games and then watched a movie as a family.

Lucas with his reading pals, Ziggy and Pork Rinds

Wednesday, was bowling day.  The kids did a deep cleaning of their rooms before we left.  We all enjoy bowling day and although Everett had a pretty crummy day score wise he still had fun.  We topped it off with dinner at our favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse.

Thursday, Annika and Lucas had swimming lessons again, and Everett and I swam laps while they were in class.  

Friday, we had a regular day. Everett did math, spelling and grammar.  Annika did math, phonics (online), and spelling.  Lucas did math and phonics.

Working on our science lab with gum drop molecules

Everett's lab sheet

Annika's lab sheet

Saturday, yep we needed to work Saturday because of the days we only did outside activities.  Everett did math, spelling and grammar, Annika did math, phonics and spelling, Lucas did math and phonics.  Lucas also read his first two stories from the reader Run Bug, Run!  that goes with his All About Reading Program.  He was super excited to be reading a "real book" and he did really well.  Annika and Everett also did a science lesson.  It was the first time in months we done science and it was really fun.  We're still working through Real Science Odyssey chemistry and this week we worked on molecules, compounds and mixtures.

Weekly reviews January 23-Feb 3

I'm reporting for the last two weeks because they've just been a blur.  Things are starting to get back into a rhythm now that we're over the initial shock of the news about my dad.  Things are going ok for him, he had surgery to help with his nausea issues and starts Chemo on Tuesday.  Unfortunately it's his birthday that day, but he just wants to get things going.

Sammy loves laying on Annika's desk while she works

Everett is really focused on his paragraph about the panda's habitat

Annika did 5 lessons and a quiz in Teaching Textbooks 4, completed step 5 and most of step 6 in All About Spelling 2. She also did some reading work as well as her usual vision therapy homework. 

 Everett started up Institute for Excellence in writing's Student Writing Intensive B, but I'm letting him pick his own topics for the first 2 units since they are a review for him.  

He also started up Junior Analytical Grammar again, and is doing well and finding it not as frustrating as last time we tried it. He also completed 5 lessons and a Quiz in Teaching Textbooks 7, as well as completing step 10 and starting step 11 in All About Spelling 3.

Lucas is cruising right along in math and LOVES his All About Reading Level 1 program.   He finished lesson 3 and is most of the way through lesson 4.

He's starting to sound out simple consonant-vowel-consonant words and learned the sight word "the" this week. He's doing really well and is very proud of himself.  We also had a few fun days at the YMCA, using the pool.  Annika and Lucas start swim lessons next Tuesday, and I also signed Lucas up for Little League which starts next month.  

Hope you all have a great weekend.  We plan to really jump back into things more next week now that we seemed to find our groove again.