2013-2014 Week 5

Everett works on his history narration

Over all this was a pretty good week.  We had an appointment one day and the weather took a rainy turn later in the week, but that just meant we could stay inside and get quite a bit accomplished. 

Everett got an A on his Grammar test, which he was very proud of.   He completed another step in spelling, only a handful left until he moves to the next level.   He wrote a keyword outline for a paragraph on Standard Time, completed Unit 1 in science and worked on exponents in math. 

Annika working on her narration

Annika continued working on the pronoun unit in grammar, this unit is a tough one.  She'll take her test for it next week.  She wrote a rough draft for her Oyster paragraph, worked on editing it, and started lesson 9 in reading and spelling.  In science she continued working with the microscope this time looking at cheek cells and learning about the nucleus of a cell. 

Lucas and his coloring page

Lucas had another good week, he continued working on writing cursive Ds, read words that have beginning blends and learned about words with a short i sound for spelling. In math, he blazed through the lessons on circles and triangles.  For science he learned about the differences between natural and human-made items. 

In history we decided to not continue reading the book Mara: Daughter of the Nile, the kids felt it was a little too "soap-opera" for them.  We did continue reading The Golden Goblet, which they are enjoying.  I read aloud from Story of the World Volume 1, about the first nomads, and the older two kids wrote a narration about it.  Lucas colored a picture of a Shaduf and they all colored in some maps of the Fertile Crescent area.  I was really proud of Ev and Annika for doing written narrations for the first time and not a complaint could was lodged.  They both said they enjoyed it and want to do it routinely as part of history.  

For Art we finished our study of Piet Mondrian.  We each made an interpretation of one of his works with our own vision.  Next week we'll take a break from Meet the Masters to work on some fun Halloween art projects. 

 

2013-2014 Week 4

This week was a good but short week, the typical "life happens" things came up, but we still managed to get about 3.5 days in.  

Everett did an excellent job on Grammar this week speeding through unit 3 on prepositions and prepositional phrases, those pronouns are still a thorn in his side, but he's getting there.  He completed a spelling test which means he only has about 7 or 8 steps left in this book and then it's on to book 5.  He typed up the edited final draft of his mini report on Music, Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence, and completed his first microscope experiment for Unit 1 of biology.  He was using our new binocular scope and didn't care for it at all, so we decided to return it and bought a monocular one from Amazon that is perfect.  He also completed a few gap fillers in math, with reviews on the area of a trapezoid, area of a circle and circumference.  

Annika started Unit 3 in her Grammar book which covers pronouns, which are proving to be just as tough for her.  She completed lesson 8 in Barton reading and spelling level 3, wrote up a keyword outline on Oysters, completed 3 lessons in Math U See Gamma on multiplying by 6 as well as by 4.  In science she learned about how to use a microscope and also disliked the binocular scope.  She redid the lesson once we got the monocular scope and had much more fun.  She also enjoyed her biweekly art class where she continued working on a gift for her Uncle Tommy.  

Lucas had a good week, he completed 2 steps in All About Reading 2, which including reading a story about the Bantam Spy Club (which he read twice) he continues to impress me with how quickly he's catching on to reading.  He completed a lesson in All About Spelling 1, which included his first spelling test.  He did great, and his printing is really coming along as well.  He worked on learning to write cursive Ds and connecting them to As, completed lesson 10 in Math U See Alpha, as well as the Unit 1 test.  He was super excited as he got a 100% on his unit test in math and on his spelling test. 

We also started an artist unit on Piet Mondrian, and the kids learned about how he used simple primary colors, rectangles and squares of color, as well as vertical and horizontal lines to make pieces that can give you a sense of certain types of music.  They did there own simple drawings to learn the technique and next week will make their own version of a Mondrian.   In science he learned what a physicist is and worked with the categorizing items as living or non-living.  


We started our new history program from Sonlight Curriculum.  We are now using Core G: In Depth World History Part 1.  We read a chapter from The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: and started reading The Golden Goblet and Mara: Daughter of the Nile.  The kids really seem to be enjoying the books and look forward to hearing more and working on maps and timelines next week. 

 

2013-2014 Week 3

This week was another pretty basic week, I didn't take any pictures so this will be short and to the point.

Everett worked continued working on pronouns, which have proven to be a real pain in his backside.  We found a few things in math that he needed some review on, so we put the higher level math aside and went back to work on parallel and perpendicular lines as well as finding the area of a triangle.  He began his Student Writing Intensive C, and completed a keyword outline and rough draft on a paragraph about music, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence.  He did pretty well, but we did have to go over the steps in the writing/editing process to refresh his memory.

Annika continued on lesson 8 of her Barton Reading and Spelling level 3.  This lesson has her working with the unit endings -ank, -ink, -onk, -unk, -ang, -ing, -ong, and -ung.  She also reviewed her previous spelling rules.  Math for her included finishing chapters 14 and 15 in Math U See Gamma, and her second unit test of the year.  She's doing really well with math and loves the new program.   Lastly for the week we went back to Student Writing Intensive A, and she wrote a small paragraph on Starfish.  She really enjoyed the topic and did quite well.  

Lucas worked on writing cursive As, and did many work pages from chapter 8 in Math U See Alpha.  He is learning to add 8 to a number.  He still wasn't feeling 100% so it was a pretty light week for him with lots of read aloud and snuggle time on the couch with mom.

We had a little discussion on history which just isn't cutting the mustard for them and they asked to go back to the beginning of the 4 year history cycle.  After a few days of research and thought I decided on Sonlight's Core G which looks like it includes many books the kids will enjoy and uses some old favorites as well.  I'm rather excited to be going into a different time period, the 19th century was really starting to bum us out.