Week 30

We are nearing the end of the school year. With only 4 weeks left until my due date and 6 weeks until we are "done" with the school year, I'm feeling like the school plan has gone pretty well! 

Preschool

Ellie did some Starfall, to the detriment of my computer mouse. She dropped it. And while it's been dropped several times, this time around it hit the edge of the chair on the way down whacked the mouse and wheel. She was just getting pretty good with it too. Next week, she'll be back to working with Starfall again, though, with the use of a new mouse (thank you, Amazon Prime!).

Letter Craft

Ellie did letter R this week. She colored Rs red (or rainbow in Abby's case).  Then she helped me dye some rice red

 

And then she glued the rice on the R. Of course, playing in the rice after she glued it to the R was lots of fun too!

 

Junior K

 Language

Reading

Emmett finished A Big Ball of String.  The next (and last) book in the schedule is The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto.  I looked through it, though, and decided to skip it with him.  So, he moved into Sonlight Grade 2 readers.  The first big chunk, though, is the Beginner's Bible, which he also skipped.  So he moved into Owl at Home.

The last few books have been at his independent reading level.  Owl at Home is more at his instructional level.  He read the first story twice to solidify some words he had to decode.

Spelling

He didn't repeat last week's lesson, but I did have him heavily review last week's words.  For whatever reason, he has a harder time remembering the "ch" phonogram.

This week's words were full of ending blends.  He skipped a few blends here and there, but mostly n-d blends.  He'll review those words along with the consonant team words he struggled with a bit for the next week.

Math

This week Emmett worked through subtraction problems.  The big concept he worked on this week was what-used-to-be-called "fact families."  It's basically the idea that with any given number bond, 4 sets of math sentences can be created.  In Emmett's case, I expect him to be able to create two addition and two subtraction sentences.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby finished up talking about linking verbs, reviewed sentences, and began copywork of a poem about months of the year.

Writing

This week's selections focused on a story from the Jataka Tales.  Since we have just read about the Buddha and the Indian time period around these tales, Abby thought it was really neat to be hearing a rendition of one.  Her answers to the review questions came easily and narrations were painless this week (which they mostly are...).

Reading

Abby completed Pippi Longstocking.  I offered the Cricket in Times Square, but she didn't want to read it for whatever reason.  So, she's reading The Whipping Boy.  Apparently she doesn't care for this book very much.  Lucky for her, it's very short.  I guess I need to figure out what to have her read next...

Spelling

Abby's lesson this week dealt with the /ur/ phonogram.  She also learned about Handyman E, which takes care of all other silent Es that the other jobs don't.

Handwriting

She did mostly review this week and focused on connecting letters.

Math

Abby completed a review of previous concepts this week and moved into fractions.  Apparently she really likes fractions.  Her math lessons were typically quick and without any complaining.  I might pull out some of Miquon's fraction books for review/enrichment as she's done them in the past and enjoyed them.

All Together

History

We moved back to China this week!  We learned about the first unified state of China - the Qin dynasty.  This week we talked about calligraphy and Chinese characters as well as introduced the kids to the Qin and its emporer, Qin Zheng.  Next week we'll finish up the chapter.

Science

We picked up a strawberry plant and planted it this week.

It's getting warm enough to the point that we might be able to pick RSO back up this coming week!