Review -- Sept. 27 - Oct.1

This Week was a basic week, we did as much as we could and had fun along the way. 


Everett  
Started working on his decimals lessons in math and so far he's doing well with it.  He started using Junior Analytical Grammar again and asked to start at the beginning.  He worked through most of the noun unit and although it's easy it is a great review.  He'll take the test next Monday.  We started up All About Spelling again and he had a great time working on Level 2 Step 1.  I know we'll move quickly through this level and then move right along into level 3. 


Annika

Has been enjoying her McRuffy Dynamic Phonics book and worked through lesson 43 this week, focusing on the -er, -ir, and -ur sounds.  She'll bring in -or next week and that will wrap up the r-controlled vowels.  She is currently reading Super Pork Makes Friends which is a very cute story.  Teaching Textbooks is a great hit here.  She completed lessons 5-7 and got her first "bonus" section when doing lesson 7.  She did well with it and earned an extra 2 points which gave her a 109% on the assignment.  She was very excited and proud of herself.   I began All About Spelling level 1 with her again and she blazed her way through steps 1-5.  


Science for Everett and Annika
This week we worked on learning about the layers of the earth.  We made models out of crayola model magic and had lots of fun playing with the left over "clay"

Lucas
He did really well with his phonics test again and is having loads of fun in kindergarten.  


Art for All
We wrapped up the week with another art day project.  I got out another kit that I'd bought.  This one is the Paper Bag Puppet Kit.   It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it.  Here are a few pictures of the kids working on them and the finished projects.

We look forward to another great week coming up.  I hope you'll come back next week to check out our next Review.

I've had a lot of people asking me how we did the tissue paper art.

Many have been asking me how we did the tissue paper art today,  I bought it as a kit from Target.  Here is the link to it on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Alex-My-Tissue-Art/dp/B000HV2TY2/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285355915&sr=8-1

It comes with 6 shapes that are already sticky.  You just peel off the backing roll the provided tissue paper squares (or cut your own from fancier tissue paper you may have) into little balls and smush them on the backing.  It also comes with the google eyes.

Review, Part 2-- Sept. 20-24

Part 2 was a great success.  It was a nice, casual week because we were just working to catch up on things that had to be put on hold last week.


The kids asked why we weren't doing history this year, so I asked them what they'd like to do.  They wanted to review what we'd started last year and then move on, so I pulled out my copy of Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and decided to start at the beginning.  We'll also be using the activity guide for it.  Everett and Annika both did some language arts and math lessons, but I won't bore you with those details.  Here's a slide show of the history pages and a cursive sheet for each.


Everett  

Annika

Lucas wrapped up his week with phonics, math and science work.  He's really enjoying all of his McRuffy curriculum. 

We wrapped up the week with a fun art day project.  I pulled out a tissue paper art kit and the kids had a blast making their tissue paper pictures. 

As promised, here are the finished items. 

Here are few curriculum changes to note.  Everett was getting bogged down with Growing with Grammar so we'll be moving back to Junior Analytical Grammar and he asked to start at the beginning.  I will oblige him there, extra review is always good.  After finishing the Writing with Skill beta testing, he'll be using Writing with Ease instead of IEW.  Spelling is the last area of change for him, Soaring with Spelling didn't even get it's full trial, he's just bored, so we'll be pulling out All About Spelling again, and I will not try anything else.  That's the one that works for him and I should stop worrying about it.  Annika is using McRuffy's Dynamic Phonics Learning book in hopes to speed up phonics and focus more on reading than all the other Language arts stuff.  I'll also add in Writing with Ease for her and if she'd like to do All About Spelling we'll start that for her. 


I hope you all enjoy the slideshows and video.  Tune in next week for another review.