Weekly Report Week 5: 2/7/2011-2/12/2011

We had a nice week.  Things seem to be settling into a gentle routine with less fighting about the beginning of the day or completing work.  We have some issues with sticking to independent work and not dawdling, but will work on that in coming weeks … and years if the mother is any indicator or stick-to-it-ness and diligent hard work [wink]

Memory Work:

Bible: still working on the creation of man.

Catechism/Creed: We started the next line in the Nicene Creed (and recited the Nicene during worship this morning!). We’ll move on with the next catechism questions for everyone starting Week 6.

Hymn: Amazing Grace.  So ubiquitous that, though we haven’t studied it yet, they pick up the new verse quickly.  On to verse 3!

Poetry: Is it bad that I don’t remember what the new poem M-girl and N-boy started? Oops.  R-girl began The Yak.

Counting: Need to get back into a better routine with this.

Other Memory Work: We’re learning the types of leaves.  Everyone likes saying “bract.”  We learned the Continents and Oceans song quickly.  I guess we’ll start on North America next.  Need to find some ancients memory work.  Happily I have Living Memory and Hannah’s Grammar Stage Memory list.

Phonics:

N-boy:  He’s working on long /i/ sound words.  He’s also reading anything he can get his hands on.

R-girl: We’re still working on -at, -am, and -an words.  I’ve been using magnet letters on a cookie sheet and she seems to like building words that way.

Assigned Reading:

M-girl: still working on Little House. 

N-boy: he’s been reading The Story of Jesus and one of the Pooh bear books.  And Honey, Honey Lion, and ….

Math:

M-girl: she worked on adding up to 10s.

N-boy: worked on adding up to 5s.

R-girl: I’m enjoying MEP Reception so much.  We talked about things like first, second, last, tallest, smallest.  Finding how many horizontal or vertical things.  All in one easy lesson.  She also has been, every day, working on what she calls her ‘messy book’ which is a plastic book written in with white board markers.  It works on numbers and counting up to 30.  She *loves* it.  I pulled out a couple of others for letters and numbers to see if she likes those too.

Logic:

M-girl: did a few pages.

N-boy: answered 3 questions.

Grammar:

M-girl: working on state of being verbs this week.

N-boy: did his first story narration and continued talking about proper and common nouns.

Writing:

M-girl: Was not thrilled with having to write Rumpelstiltskin, but did well with the copywork (is getting much better, clear improvement in her copywork) and continuing to do well with narration.

Spelling:

M-girl: she has started working through lists.  She missed three words the first day and only one from the new list the next day.

Latin:

M-girl: She is doing really well with this, completed Lesson 3.

Penmanship:

M-girl: She worked on ‘q’ this week and found it “easy.” She’s doing so much better with this!

N-boy: He’s working on 2s this week.

History:

We read King Hatshepsut, Herself even though we aren’t there yet because it was due back to the library.  We also started mummifying our chicken: Cluckembalmen.


Spanish: Not started yet.

Science: 

We read a little about plants and dissected pinto beans.  That was fun.

Art:

We’ve been enjoying the Museum of Art’s daily calendar.  We didn’t make any assigned art this week.

Read Alouds:

Did I mention that we finished The Burgess Bird Book?!   That means we got to start something new.  We started Fifty Famous Stories Retold and are enjoying it greatly so far.  We also started, this week, Stuart Little and in the evenings Mr. Popper’s Penguins.   We finished the Fujikawa poetry book and are almost done with Mother Goose.  We’re continuing Aesop’s fables.

Bible:

We’ve been memorizing the Old Testament books of the Bible song on the Wee Sing Bible list.   This week we studied about Cain and Abel.  We’re continuing to review the songs, verses, and questions from previous weeks.  I’m loving it.