Weekly Report: 8/16/10-8/20/10

This is our first week back since our trip to visit the Tully’s (pictures from our trip have been posted here and there [grin]).  Last week, we spent the time working on the house, going to Cedar Point, babysitting the niece, and general household recuperation from our trip.  This week we’ve been back at it.  Generally, my parents watch the children on Thursdays, but they have been giving the children “outings” for their birthdays (can I say that I *love* this gift!?!) and had determined that this Thursday was a good day to take R-girl to Jungle Jack’s Landing at the Columbus Zoo.  This worked out pretty well for me, because I’ve been wanting to work on having M-girl and N-boy work on “independent work” while I work with the other children.  So, we did Circle Time on Monday, Circle Time and M-girl’s Lessons on Wednesday (doing a full schedule following a day off is *hard*), and Circle Time and Lessons for M-girl and N-boy on Thursday.  Tomorrow, we have COSI (yay! Grammy’s coming and I’m not going to tell the children beforehand [grin])


Memory Work:

Bible:  I think we’ve gotten through Day Four.  Happily, we review the whole thing every day, so I don’t feel like moving along is a bad idea.

Catechism/Creed:  I think N-boy and R-girl are ready to go to the next sections: R-girl the three “What is sin?” questions; N-boy through the “What is Sanctification?” question.  M-girl moved ahead this week and is learning about the three offices of Jesus: prophet, priest, and king.   Hoping to do recitation on Saturday to assess.

Hymn: They are enjoying learning “Be Thou My Vision” this month.  We started with the Tullys, so it has added specialness to them.  Well, and getting to sing about battle shields is always appealing.  Next week: Heeding not riches …

Poetry:  R-girl is still working on After the Party, she could say it, she’s just being stubborn.  N-boy is doing Jonathan Bing.  M-girl moved on to Whole Duty of Children.

Counting:Skip Counting by 3s.

Other Memory Work: Have I mentioned that football season starts in 2 weeks?! We’re learning the Buckeye Battle Cry!  (Next month it will be Carmen Ohio!)

Phonics:  I made sticker charts for the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading mostly for N-boy.  I finally printed them out this week.  I printed one for M-girl, too (she’s on the final stretch) and she’s done five or six lessons this week alone, just to add a sticker.  N-boy did his one today! What a hit!



M-girl:  She’s moving along nicely.  She learned about “ti, si, ci”  Oh, and my wonderful MIL gave me some Sing, Spell, Read & Write readers … I gave M-girl one at her level and she loves it.

N-boy: He did one lesson.  No complaining.  No, “It’s too hard!”  He finished and said, “Where’s my sticker?” [happy smile]  N-boy is also working on a SSRW reader, his is short e, and he’s doing a nice job reading in it.

R-girl: We did not do hers this week.  Maybe we’ll do her “K” on Saturday.

Math:

M-girl:  She’s working on adding up to 5s.

N-boy:  He’s working on greater than, less than, equal to concepts.

R-girl: We did not do hers this week.

Grammar:

M-girl:  We’ve been working on recognizing the seasons and abbreviating month names.  She’s doing very well with this.

Geography:I picked up 4 GeoPuzzles the other day.  We did the Latin America one as review on Tuesday evening and M-girl & N-boy and I did the Europe one today and looked at the globe.  It is good to get back to doing some geography.  We hope to do some meals and invite some of the young people from church who have been studying/traveling overseas in the past year.

Bible:  The children and I have been reading Vos’ account of Joseph and his experience in Egypt.  Today, M-girl asked if I could read from her ESV Bible. In the evenings, we’re enjoying The Jesus Storybook Bible and Honor Your Father and Mother (from Doorposts). 

Read Alouds:  We’re reading The Borrowers and it is surprising to us how much there is to discuss.  How their perspective is skewed and they justify their actions based on that and how we need to align our perspectives with Jesus so we don’t justify our sin.  We’re also trudging through the Burgess Bird Book.  I’m starting to wonder if it will never end.  The children have asked to listen to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe again.  I’ll probably indulge that request during lunch.