Weeks 25-27 in Review -- April 12 - May 2

It's been a while since I posted a review of our week, but with not much left to finish up the year there wasn't much to report. I thought it would be best to wait and put a few weeks together. We haven't done a full 5 day week since we started back after testing, but we've been having lots of fun with outdoor fun, life skills and field trips.

Here's the latest news on the school front...


Everett
Grammar: He wrapped up the chapter on nouns and then I started him on Institute for Excellence in Writing's Student Writing Intensive level A. He is having a blast with IEW. So far he's written Keyword Outlines, rough and final drafts for paragraphs on Sea Snakes and Desert Tarantula's. He loves that the SWI gives him a new "teacher" since they show Dr. Pudewa teaching a class. I love that the program uses models for him to learn to do keyword outlines from thus enabling him to write a paragraph in his own words. He's not caught off guard with things like "Write about your favorite sport" with no idea what to do. He was given very specific steps and loves that one of the rules is that I can't complain about his penmanship on his outline or rough draft. He also enjoys the fact that I'm to be his "human dictionary" thus taking spelling out of the writing mix. It's a great program and has turned him into a boy that wants to write, and enjoys it.

Math: 54-63 and quizzes 8 and 9 were completed. These covered decimals - both with carrying and regrouping, money word problems, thousandths, and beginning division. Other than an issue with the screen on the laptop he was using suddenly going all white with no way of knowing how to fix it, things have gone well. Hopefully when Matt returns he'll be able to find a way to get the old Math 5 file off of it so we have a record of the first 62 lessons and all the quizzes he did.

Annika
Phonics: She has made it through lesson 26 in the CLE Learn to Read program. She's doing so well. We've reached the point where she gets to read a new 1 page story (3-4 short paragraphs) with each lesson. She's now read 10 new stories in her primer and loves it. She likes that she doesn't have to keep reading the same story over and over again. I love that I know she's not just memorizing the stories. She's even read Matt a few of the stories via Skype so he can see her progress. Sure it's not fluent, expressive reading like an adult would do, but she is reading and so proud of herself. I just wish I would have found the program sooner.

Math: CLE lessons 58-67 were completed. She's now reached the 1st quiz in lightunit 104, she is still doing very well with the program and looks forward to math everyday. Her math facts are coming along great and it's such an easy program to teach.


Everyone:

The kids are still really enjoying their gym classes they take weekly and are very much looking forward to the half day, week long summer camps the gym is having that they will be attending. We've enjoyed some beautiful weather here and even got to spend the other morning at the YMCA pool. We also took a field trip to the Zoo and had a blast looking at all the animals and riding the brand new train they put in.

Our read aloud of The Magician's Nephew was pushed to the wayside for a while but we found an audio version at the library and are now back on track listening to that. It's performed by Kenneth Branagh and he does a phenomenal job. I'm enjoying the story a lot as well, which is always great. We're about halfway through and the kids are so excited for the next chapter which is "The Founding of Narnia" they've only seen previews for the movies and never read any of the books, I think this will be a fun journey. Lucas has been asking to do school along with us and is almost done with the first About Three workbook, he's doing a great job and has been a joy to add to our school time at the desks. The poor boy has been stuck working on an inexpensive end table propped up on a kaboost chair booster, so I've been scouring craigslist trying to find him a small desk, but have had no luck yet. Hopefully I'll find something soon.



Well I hope you enjoyed the review, I'll be back in a few weeks with another one.