Week 12

Well, right when we're starting to wane and I was thinking about pausing for a break, we got word that my husband is slated for a TDY (military-speak for business trip) to Florida. He will have his own hotel room, so we are planning on driving down there and spending time in Florida that week! After that, we'll be heading to my parents' house for Christmas. So, in effect, we will be gone all of December. Which means, I'd like to get us up to speed to basically take all of December off of our regularly-scheduled stuff to do interest-led units. But yay for vacation!

ABCs:

Daddy was off this past Friday, so we skipped our ABCs this week. Instead, we played with Daddy!

Math:

I took a pause with Abby to explore a bit of multiplication and even/odd. They're her interests and I'm letting the other just percolate in her brain. We did review some problems with sums over tens. She grasps adding a single-digit number to the teens really well, though. When she has an addition problem with a sum over ten she either has her "numbers share" (make a ten) or she reasons it another way ("Well, seven and seven is fourteen...so seven and eight must be fifteen!"). I'm fine with either as long as she is still manipulating those numbers rather than rote memorization.

Emmett reviewed counting and placing things in the correct place. I'm slowly starting him with some Miquon and a few things lifted from MEP. He loves the MEP material...probably because it feels a bit like figuring a puzzle.

Spelling:

We did step 23 (of 24!) in AAS this week. It discusses plurals and adding "s" or "es" to make something plural.

I could have moved on further, but I'm trying to have AAS level 1 last until January, so we're going slowly with lots of review. Lately I've been dictating the dictation phrases, then having her use them for some copywork too.

Reading:

I hardly got to read any Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle aloud this week, which was a big bummer. We are still on the Radish Cure, which is my favorite part!

Abby did read some to me. I read about the series Me and My Monsters and thought Abby would like it. I downloaded the Kindle version because I thought she'd think it was fun to do some of her reading on the iPad.

I just found out it is also the basis for a show in Britain. It's not the greatest literature, but as long as she enjoys it, it'll be good.

FIAR:

We were expecting a big storm on Monday, so we rowed Storm in the Night this week. Apparently I was slacking on taking FIAR-related photos, though.

Social Studies:

• In the book, there is a big storm and Grandfather tells a story about when he was a little boy and afraid of a big storm. We discussed fears and bravery and wrote down some of our own fears.

Language Arts:

• We revisited the onomatopoeia! One reading, we just counted all of the words we could find that sounded like a sound. Abby counted over 10 words!

Art:

• The FIAR manual has a great lesson for art on acrylics. I didn't have any so we pointed out how the droplets are white and why the illustrator could paint them like that. Then, we talked about the difference with watercolors and did some color resist paintings.

Science:

• We reviewed the water cycle and storms a bit.
• We also discussed electricity and thunder.

Extra:

• Of course, I let the kids watch and play in the rain!

Religion:

Emmett has been a bit of a handful of late--part of it is being four, and part of it is his innately strong will. I've been struggling with him obeying, and not just out of fear, but for the right reasons. I've started taking him aside and each morning just reading one article from the Friend.

The first day I did this, I noticed an article talking about how Primary children around the world now number one million. There is a song to go along and video of 30 kids around the world. So, in addition to being read an article from the Friend, Emmett listens to the song, sings it, and then we watch a video. He then colors a star for that child and places it on our world map. We currently have six stars in different places: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Ontario, Nigeria and Madagascar.

He was very resistant to this in the beginning: "Why do I have to?" "I don't wanna do this..." and trying everything to annoy me into stopping. Within the last week, though, he has been excited to watch his video and asks to do more than one a day. Unfortunately, he has not been very open to me documenting such happenings with the camera. Maybe this next week he will be...

Abby and Ellie watch along, but this is particularly Emmett's thing. I'm wanting to spend some one-on-one time with him, teach him to love and know the Savior, and also encourage him to realize and understand that he is an awesome little boy who is "uniquely individual - one of a kind" and hopefully he will continue to strive to "be what Heavenly Father has in mind."

One day, they wrote notes to the kids they have seen on the videos. Emmett's was a bunch of scribbles and was demolished before I could snap a picture. I did get one of Abby's, though.

We have also started a bit more of an intensive study of the Book of Mormon. We began our own Book of Mormon notebook and this week we discussed Joseph Smith and how we got the Book of Mormon. We came at the story a few different ways to really cement the story and how it happened into the kids' heads. We watched the scripture story video, we read the story in our My First Church History book, then again in our Book of Mormon Stories book. We watched The Joseph Smith story, and, of course, read the account in Joseph Smith--History. I had the kids draw pictures and we all memorized James 1:5. Retention was pretty high! This week we'll be moving on to Nephi retrieving the brass plates.