Weekly Report for January 28-February 1, 2013

We accomplished four days of Circle Time, which is my goal.  We had two acceptable days, one awful day, and one great day of Circle Time.  I’m trying to think through some changes we can make because I really don’t like awful days.  We finished the “Motes in the Sunbeam” from Parables from Nature.

Math is going well.  R-girl worked on adding up to 12s.  N-boy is working on adding one digit numbers to two digit numbers without crossing 10s (much).  M-girl worked on multiplying by 2s, 5s, and 10s … and then by 3s.   MEP is set up so topics are introduced for four days with one day of review, none of the kids are on a “true week” schedule at the moment, so they all will work on two topic areas in a week.  Have I mentioned how much I love MEP recently? The instruction is wonderful, the logic puzzles are challenging, and the children love it.  I like teaching it.  I was always good at math, but didn’t like it.  MEP makes me better at math and makes me love it.

Grammar was better folded in this week.  I determined to work on Grammar during our scheduled Latin time.  It works much better.  We did more writing this week than we had been, but not as much as I think we should be doing.  We did narrations in science and history, R-girl did copywork in science and the others did dictation from their narrations in science.  

We learned about Venus and Earth (as a planet) this week in science.  We did some coloring pages about the planets we read about.   We determined that Mercury was like Papa Bear‘s hard chair, Venus was stuffy and suffocating like Mama Bear’s cushiony chair, and Earth was like Baby Bear‘s – just right until we broke it … 

All three children did Latin this week, although I don’t think R-girl watched a lesson.  I’ve been trying to get them into a routine where 1 child per day watches their video.  Then I can work on flash cards, work sheets, and grammar with the others.
  
We did an art lesson with our friends, making self-portraits.  We usually use Artistic Pursuits‘ lesson plan, but we did something more crafty this time.  I have some cutout paper people, and we drew, dressed, and tressed them.  It was a fun time! 


And, last, but not least, we finished Ann Voskamp’s A Child’s Geography.  Huzzah! I really, really liked it.  I can imagine going through it again later and doing more of the projects that are included, but reading and talking through the book, using a globe, or a poster board, I learned a lot about Physical Geography.  I hope to write a proper review later and will link it here if I do.