Weekly Report: 3/1/10-3/5/10

We had a relatively good week.  We got through all our academics most days.  We have art and another science lesson planned for today.

Memory Work:

Bible: The children are doing so well with this.  M-girl has even started adding in verse 8!

Catechism/Creed: M-girl is very close to having the Nicene Creed down,  N-boy too.  I have to prompt a bit, but they’re doing very well.  They also continue on their Catechism; N-boy is to the “What is sin?” questions and M-girl is learning about Jesus’ plan for his people.  R-girl is doing a great job here too, she is to the questions about God knowing all things and able to do all things. 

Hymn: We started All Glory Laud and Honor this week in order to be prepared for Palm Sunday.   We’ll also add in Christ the Lord is Risen Today toward the end of March to prepare for Resurrection Sunday.

Poetry: Stanza 2 of My Shadow.  I am absolutely amazed at how well the children know this, I have to have the book! I was listening to one of the CiRCE talks recently (I think it was Dr. Taylor), he said that memory work is best done if the instructor memorizes the poem then teaches the pupils a line or two or a stanza at a time from memory.  [ahem] I may need to start working ahead.

I’m also reading a poem of the week for the kids, with all the snow we’ve been reading Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening this week. 

Counting:  We’re skip counting by 5s.  M-girl keeps asking when we’ll start 2s: next month, dear, next month.

Other Memory Work:  Working on our address.  Again, M-girl and N-boy know this quite well, it is R-girl who is learning.

Phonics:

M-girl: I’ve started to incorporate some of the extension activities in Ordinary Parents’ Guide (having advanced planned so much has helped me be prepared!) and M-girl has enjoyed those this week.  She also (finally) finished the ETC Primer C! She is so ready and excited to begin the other books.

She continues to work through the CLP Science Reader K, one letter at a time.  She reads it, then I ask her questions.  This week was “I for Iguana.”  Yesterday, she said, “Mommy, I don’t think we should plant a garden this year.  Remember the iguanas eat plants?”  We talked about it a bit and came to the conclusion that we ought to be more worried about deer, rabbits, and groundhogs here in Ohio than iguanas (But they might escape from the zoo, Mommy!) Too cute.

N-boy: He is moving along beautifully.  We started two letter blends this week.  Lesson 41 of the Ordinary Parents’ Guide has sentences that make up a story about a red bug, so I put them on the bottom of paper that I folded in half and stapled together like a book.  He had to read the sentence, then draw a picture.  He *loved* this activity. Below is a picture of two of his pages.

R-girl: I realized recently, that R-girl hadn’t gotten to sing a lot of preschool songs with me like the others had, so Tuesdays we’re going to sing songs while she helps make my bed (we wash sheets on Tuesdays).  We’re reading a nursery rhyme (or two or six) each day and adding some good books to the mix.  She’s only a bit younger than N-boy is compared to M-girl, but she has missed out on a lot of that good language development so we’re going to spend some time working through it with her. 

Math:

M-girl: She is sooooo ready for addition.  “Mommy, adding 1 is just counting.” I had planned on a couple of weeks of these lessons, but we’re going to move on to adding 2s next week. (Never fear, we’re just going to add them in, but will continue to drill on 1s and 0s as well) This week we also went through the Coin Counting Book, which she loved.  She started getting an allowance this year, so we’re working on the value of money and how different pieces work together.  We did the next lesson in MEP, also.

N-boy: Still working on those numbers between 11 and 19.  He can read the rest, but gets tripped up on the teens.

R-girl: We made the 6 for her number book.

Grammar:

M-girl:  She absolutely loves story narration.  I’m continuing in the pattern of re-tell the story then thinking through the important points.  Here’s her narration for the “The Hen and the Golden Eggs.”

Once upon a time, there lived a couple who had no children but one chicken that laid golden eggs.  They were so happy they had that chicken because the more golden eggs they had they were richer.

One day they decided they should kill the chicken to see if there were any more golden eggs inside her. But there weren’t, so they lost the only chicken who laid golden eggs. They became poorer and poorer once they didn’t have the chicken any more. The end.

Penmanship:

The children are doing very well with this.  M-girl and N-boy have this and ETC to do while I work with R-girl.  M-girl helps N-boy read the directions for ETC and I show them the steps for their penmanship lesson, but they work on it by themselves.  This has been a great change for our school this week!

Geography:

We studied Brazil this week.  Monday, we went back over the globe and discussed the North and South Poles and the  Equator.  We remembered the different countries we had studied.  We found Brazil on the globe.  Tuesday, the children colored flags and maps of Brazil while I read Count your Way Through Brazil.  Wednesday, we read about the Amazon River Basin and Rain Forest in This Place is Wet.  The children narrated then colored.

Spanish:  I am loving El Espanol Facil, Jr.  It is such a gentle introduction, it is perhaps too gentle at times.  We’re adding songs from their songs CD with a coloring page.  I’m also trying to read some poems from Pio Peep.  I notice that my pronunciation is much better than my vocabulary.  Gracias, Sra. Lenfest!

Science: We did science this week! Well, we read Dirt by Steve Tomecek and the children narrated it then drew pictures.  I’d like to do the same with Soil by Sally Walker sometime today.

Art:  We did art, too! Moving this block of time to after naps really has helped us get to it! The children drew pictures of their favorite things, M-girl drew a butterfly, R-girl drew flowers, and N-boy drew his yellow blanket! (for those of you who know N-boy, I would think this isn’t much of a surprise!)

Bible:  We have been using God’s Alphabet for Life with Jason in the evenings at it has been absolutely wonderful, the best children’s devotion we’ve used by far.  When we finish (we’re to letter Q), I’ll write a more complete review.