Weekly Report for January 13-17, 2014

On Monday, we went to Tim Horton’s for breakfast.  Fun.  We did our First Day Questionnaire and our traditional self portraits. (Another pic here.)  Then, we got into the meat of our week.


I didn’t really hold back or ease us in.  We hit the ground running.


We did Circle Time four days.  Really, five, if you count the start on our first day.  We finished ‘The Deliverer’ – a story from Parables from Nature.  We worked on reviewing hymns and Bible and catechism.  We worked on getting used to doing Circle Time again.  We’ll keep working on it for all of January.  

I reintroduced Calculadder with the kids.  Everyone started on the first set, Level 2.  M-girl passed each level this week on her first try, and will be ready for Level 7 on Monday.  N-boy got a little tripped up on Level 5 yesterday, but succeeded today.  R-girl is continuing to work on Level 3.  She’s very close to moving on.  


M-girl and N-boy had three C S Lewis quotes for copywork this week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  They did a beautiful job with them.  I’m requiring they be done in cursive – as with most of their written work this year – and it is a struggle for N-boy in particular.  Practice can only improve his cursive, though.  All three children are working on Geography Blobbing. I put these in sheet protectors so they can trace to their hearts content, but I require them on Tuesday and Thursday.


For math, M-girl worked through lesson 50. She really struggled with parts of it, but we’ll work on it.  At least she struggled and finished.  N-boy finished Year 2 this week! He only had 4 lessons left, so it wasn’t a surprise.  We’ll start Year 3 on Monday.  R-girl worked on Lessons 37-41 in Year 2.  It is easy for her, she just has to choose to do it.  M-girl and N-boy also completed a Detective Club mystery this week in logic.  They successfully determined who had the missing wallet.


We’re going to be reading Narnia this year for literature.  A fellow homeschooling blogger did a great deal of work putting together a literature list for Narnia and its influences and I’ve essentially appropriated it.  To ease into our year, we’re reading some of Lewis’ influences in January.  The children all read the fairy tale ‘The Snow Queen’ this week.  They also began ‘Asgard Tales’ and have been enjoying them.  We’ve been reading When the Siren Wailed for our lunch time read aloud and enjoying it.  We’ve had narrations and dictation from the readings.


In grammar, M-girl and N-boy reviewed all their poems.  M-girl is still struggling with ‘Ozymandias’ but her next poem was ‘How Doth the Little Crocodile’ which she already knows.  She’s working on diagramming longer sentences and doing very well with them.  N-boy is working on adverbs that modify adverbs.  He’s doing diagramming, too.  R-girl reviewed nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs today.  


Everyone has worked on Latin this week. R-girl completed Lesson 23 which introduced the idea of declensions.  M-girl is working on a review lesson – maybe lesson 13.  N-boy reviewed all of Chapter 3 this week and watched Chapter 4 today.


Our geography book, Memoria Press’ States and Capitals, has continued to be a good independent work exercise.  M-girl and N-boy looked at Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa this week.  R-girl worked on Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and reviewed Northeastern states.  

R-girl worked on her cursive penmanship, she’s learning the capital letters and is almost done, and the others practiced typing each day.  R-girl also worked on her spelling by completing a lesson in Explode the Code.


While we didn’t have piano lessons – sick teacher – we did have pretty good practices all week.  All three children had basketball practices this week, and two have games tomorrow. (R-girl’s in a too young league, they’re just working on skills this year.)  We had fun doing art with our friends yesterday.  For our Art and Composer Study, we looked at one of Monet‘s paintings of the Rouen Cathedral and read more about Bach.


I’m pleased with what we accomplished this week!