Week 20

I was very busy this week with a lot of orchestra rehearsals and a concert on Saturday, so Daddy took the week off.  We were out a lot because Daddy was home, but we made sure to get our schoolwork still done!

On Tuesday, we drove a bit of a ways to go to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum.  Of course, the kids loved it.

While there, I found the perfect opportunity to take pictures of our little students.

The Tot

The Silly One

The Reluctant One 

(not just for schoolwork, just reluctant to do ANYTHING that isn't his idea)

The Studious One

Of course, there was a lot more to do!

Fix a car...

Go grocery shopping...

Play with some bubbles...

Learn a bit more about the human body...

...and a bunch more!

Of course, we also completed our regular work as well.  I just didn't take as many pictures of the boring stuff.  LOL

Preschool

Craft

We made reindeer antlers!  After we finished, we danced around to Rudolph!

PreK Activity Book

Ellie did all of her bookwork with Daddy this week because he was home.  She counted out music stickers (one-to-one correspondence), she listened to instructions about where to place farm animal stickers, she did some more or less work and she made a road with shapes.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett is still reviewing stories from 100 Easy Lessons.  He is jumping to more fluid reading and a lot less sounding out.  It took him a longer time to make the jump, but I'm pleased with his progress.

Spelling

Emmett worked through Step 5 this week.  He changed CVC words by changing their vowels.  He learned that every word has at least one vowel.

We hung the spelling whiteboard for him.  Abby got to a point where we weren't using it to teach the lessons.  Emmett seems to thrive on the actual manipulation of the tiles.  Instead of storing it under the bed, we hung it (and another one for the littles).

Math

We skipped anything that even looked like math this week.  Besides living math, we just basically skipped it.  :)

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby worked through lessons 83 through 85.  She's now got the first two stanzas of Mr. Nobody memorized.  We also discussed the proper time to use is/are.

Writing

Abby's selections this week came from A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer.  Abby really enjoyed these selections.  I also think Emmett would.  I'll have to keep my eyes open for a used version of this book.

Reading

We picked up Ramona and Her Father from the library.  I could've gotten it a lot quicker on my kindle, but she wanted the book this time.  She's working through that for her "school" reading and Charlotte's Web on her spare time.

Spelling

Abby completed step 22 this week.  It taught about the third sound of a: the /ah/ sound.  She learned that a will traditionally make that sound before and L and after a W.  She is now capable of writing sentences such as "Put the water in the tall glass."  I love that she's not memorizing a bunch of lists, but learning a rule and applying it!

Handwriting

She focused on the letter P this week.  Since the formation in manuscript is similar to the cursive formation, it was not a difficult letter for her.  We also went back and reviewed Bs because those are really difficult.

Math

Abby has completed Singapore Math 2A!  She worked through some end of semester review.  I also added some addition review from Math Mammoth 2B.  I've seen vast improvement between fluidity with multi-digit addition with this review.

All Together

Science

We learned about reptiles this week!  We went to the zoo to get a good glimpse of some reptiles and amphibians in the herpetarium.  We also saw GIANT reptiles at the Galapagos turtle exhibit.

We focused on how reptile bodies are specially designed to endure harsher conditions than amphibians and did an experiment to illustrate how have scales/thick skin can be an advantage.

History

We moved back to Greece this week.  We learned about two important ancient Greek cities: Sparta and Athens.  Emmett told me he would have loved to live in Sparta, but Athens might have been a little bit boring.  LOL

We also began listening to D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths on audiobook.  Abby really enjoys these.  She's stayed up late a few nights listening and following along in the book.