Weekly Review -- April 18-22, 2011

A pretty good week overall.  We got a good amount of work done.  We were able to go for a field trip on Tuesday to see the movies Hop and Rio.  Unfortunately our art project didn't turn out.   

Everett...

completed lessons 10-12 in First Language Lessons 3 and has told me that he prefers this approach to grammar.  Lesson 12 was a narration exercise about Bats which he really enjoyed.  He watched another lesson in IEW's Student Writing Intensive A and learned about Adverbial Clauses.  He loved the lesson and in the end said "Those will be easy, I've been doing those already and just never knew that's what they were called. He also worked on a Story Sequence Outline for an original story he'd like to write. We decided to not use Writing with Ease for now and just stick with narrations through First Language Lessons and other areas we work in.  He completed pages14-17 in his Universal Handwriting Level D book.  He finished step 5 in All About Spelling Level 3 and completed Lessons 16-18 in Teaching Textbooks 7.

Annika...

completed step 24 in All About Spelling Level 1, and received her completion certificate for this level.  She's doing so well with this spelling program and can't wait to start Level 2.  She worked through lessons 62, 76, and 87 in The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, again covering some review topics.  She seems to like using this book as the lessons are short and to the point.  She also picked a new book to start reading, A to Z Mysteries Book 1: The Absent Author by Ron Roy.  She completed pages 25-26 in Explode the Code book 4 and now we're going to shelve it for a while because the beginning lessons of All About Spelling Level 2 cover some of the things she's struggling with in Explode the Code 4.  We'll pull it back out when she's a bit more confident about dividing syllables. She completed lessons 15-17 in First Language Lessons level 1 which included memorizing her 2nd poem Work.  She had it 98% mastered by the 2nd day.  I feel she really enjoys the memorization work.   She completed pages 30-37 in her Handwriting Without Tears Cursive book and is doing great with it.   Lastly, she finished lessons 15-17 in Teaching Textbooks Math 4. 






Lucas...
completed lessons 7 and 8 in All About Reading Level pre-1 and lessons 14 and 15 in McRuffy Color Math K.  He then seemed to start getting a cold with a runny nose and hacking cough, so spent the rest of the week resting and playing Cut the Rope, Angry Birds, Pocket Frogs and Drop the Chicken on the Ipad2.






Science and History

We didn't do any history work this week, but I'll bring it back in next week.  

Baking the Meringues

We did 2 science lessons this week.  The first covered Group 15 on the Periodic Table focusing on the elements Nitrogen and Phosphorus. It involved us making meringues showing how we incorporated air (nitrogen) into the egg whites.  Annika thought they tasted pretty good, Everett and Lucas thought they were gross.  
The second lesson covered Group 16 and focused on the elements Oxygen and Sulfur.  For a sulfur experiment we over cooked a hard boiled egg to show how sulfur starts to stink when it mixes with oxygen and how it turns the outside of the yolk green.  Then we put hydrogen peroxide on a cut potato to show how it reacts to form bubbles when it comes in contact with catalase, which is why it bubbles when you put it on a cut.  The kids were surprised that it wasn't the germs it reacts with. 

Will they be yummy?

Art
Like I mentioned above, the art project I had planned didn't turn out.  I spent a good chunk of time on Thursday shaving down crayons and we were supposed to use the shavings to make the shape of an earth and then melt them into a sun catcher with an iron.  I had the kids make them too large so they were to fragile to keep.  Oh well, at least we tried. 

I hope you all have a great Holiday Weekend.