Weekly Report: February 6-10, 2012

Our week was both good and difficult.  We got through a good amount of work, but it was like pulling teeth most days.  Tuesday was my birthday, so we skipped Circle Time and did a “fun” day where we read living math books, started Primary Challenge Math with M-girl, did a lot of poetry reading with N-boy & R-girl and some Music of the Hemispheres with M-girl.  Hard to believe my age will be in the next decade this time next year. 


N-boy finished Book 1 of his piano lessons.  We’re all very pleased with his progress!

Phonics:

R-girl: has been working through her phonics lessons and doing so well.  She’s reading (easy) books and readers.  I think I’m going to assign “Biscuit” to her next week.  She seems ready to start reading out of the OPG book instead of the typed pages I made.  This is good, ’cause that means I don’t have to type up some more! 

Assigned Reading:

M-girl: is still reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, she only has one more chapter.  She really likes it and thinks it’s funny.  She’s also read history and science books including The Legend of the Persian Carpet, which she enjoyed today.

N-boy: continues to read a biography Jesse Owens.  He likes sports books.  He’s also done history and science reading this week.  Mostly history, we’re studying Alexander the Great this week and he’s been enjoying that.

Math:

M-girl: got 100% correct on her adding up to 20 test this week.  She started working on measurements.  She is really enjoying the Primary Challenge Math.  Thanks, Grammy!

N-boy: is working on adding up to 14.  He had a rough day today, but that was mostly attitude.

R-girl: is doing very well with her math.  She worked on 0, 1, & 2  this week and was introduced to the number line.  I love that MEP introduces >, <, & = before it really works on numbers.  

Logic:

M-girl:  I didn’t get independent work set out this week [boo!] but since they do so much reading during their independent work, I don’t think it is much of a problem.

N-boy: N-boy has solved all of the Kanoodle problems, on his own, with no help from me.  The spatial logic is really good for him.

Grammar:

M-girl: began a study of Meter in poetry, particularly iambic feet.  She was able to make connections with measurements in math, and our reading about Shakespeare during Circle Time.  Love it when synchronicity happens through absolutely no planning on my part.  She is almost done with FLL2.  She started learning “All Things Bright and Beautiful” today.

N-boy: learned about statements, commands, questions, and exclamations this week.  He had fun with this as his stuffed animals “taught” him his lessons.

Writing:

M-girl: finished the week with excerpts from Pollyanna.  We talked about doing a complete narration and not just stopping at a couple of words because she doesn’t want to write so much.

N-boy: worked on lessons from Alice in Wonderland.  His writing – at least during writing – has obviously improved.

Spelling:

M-girl: had a little trouble with doubling consonants when adding a suffix to a short vowel word.  I think her trouble is that she wasn’t paying attention.

N-boy: is still doing his spelling orally.  Since he is spelling correctly and we’re trying to determine where to start, I’ve been OK with that.  However, at the zoo I noticed he spelled the word tail “tial,” so I think we’ll start having him write on the white board for his spelling lessons.

Latin:

M-girl: worked on finishing up her last lesson.

N-boy: worked on finishing up last week’s lesson.

Penmanship:

M-girl: worked on suffixes and practicing all the lower case letters.

N-boy: worked on lower case h.

R-girl: worked on 4s.

History:  We read the chapter on Alexander the Great from Story of the World.  N-boy and M-girl both read Usborne’s Alexander the Great.  N-boy also read The Great Alexander the Great (from the Library).  We did the map work.  I’d like to make lighthouses of Pharos from the AG, maybe Monday.

Science: we added the digestive tract to our “My Body” posters.

Art: The children made bas relief from self-hardening clay.  We’re planning on painting them on Monday.

Read Alouds: We read a chapter of Little Britches.  Our evenings have been busy this week.  We’ll probably read another tonight.  M-girl has determined that this is her favorite read aloud we’ve done – we’re not to the end yet, and I think that may color her preferences.

Bible:  We finished the lesson book about David & Saul and are ready to move on to Solomon in Lesson 17.  We read a little in the Mighty Acts of God story Bible about Moses and the plagues.