Saturday, October 24, 2015

Week in Review: October 19-23, 2015

Kindergarten: Silas 

We are plugging away with All About Reading, pre-reading level. Silas learned the L, M, N, O, and P this week. He already knew L, M, O, and P, so we just had to work on N. Aren't his letter crafts cute? He glued yellow construction paper "hair" on his Llama, yellow hole-punches on his M {cheese for the mice}, foil squares on his N to be tin cans for his Nanny, and toothpicks on his Porcupine. He loves doing these each day. He loves to color, too, as you can see! 


He can say his alphabet perfectly, pointing to each letter as he sings. He can recognize all the letters A-P, except G, J, and K.

In his math journal, we continued working on the numbers 1-10. He loves his math journal! He had to fill in the missing numbers, count animals and glue the correct number on, put the corresponding number of star stickers on the numbers 1-9, and a color-by-number. We also use our calendar to count! He can count into the twenties, but always skips "20"! {18, 19, 21, 22...}


He learned more stories about Jesus and his miracles this week. His favorite story was when Jesus walked on water. He kept saying, "But He didn't drown...He didn't fall in the water." He cut a brown boat out of construction paper, glued it to blue paper, and then painted glue to make bumpy waves.


We are working on memorizing the months of year, so we sing them each morning. He has trouble with rote memory, so it takes a while before it "sticks". In handwriting, he practiced writing M, N and O. He also traced his memory verse.

We also read lots of books this week. He currently loves any Berenstain Bear book! He is also obsessed with Paw Patrol, and has colored almost an entire coloring book this week.

Bigger Hearts: 2nd and 5th grade - Mercie and Eli:

We finished Unit 13 this week. We read about Anthony Benezet and Jaques Marquette this week, along with George Washington. The kids added to their timelines and a map. We defined vocabulary words. They made a "helping hand" craft, because Anthony Benezet was a huge servant to the people at that time. He helped many poor people by giving them a place to live, blankets, jobs, and anything else they needed.




In science, we continued learning about John Audubon. We read about owls and made a notebooking page. We also read about snakes and how they move to catch their prey. We watched several cool YouTube videos and completed a notebook page.


Our poem this week was titled Four Things, and the kids liked it. It was short, but sometimes the short ones are the best.

Our character trait was "dependability" and our verse was Proverbs 30:5. We learned the rest of "Amazing Grace" and sang every day. I am amazed how much the kids love singing!

We finished "The Sign of the Beaver" and started "The Indian in the Cupboard". They absolutely love this book so far! 

In math, Mercie kept working on multiplication by 2's. Eli worked on angles. Their math journals really help solidify what they're learning. I hope to do a post on them this coming week. Eli had to write the definitions of lines, angles, rays, vertex, and so on and draw examples of each. He worked a few pages in his Spectrum workbook. {We are still using Singapore, but he needs a little more review than it  provides.} 



In grammar, Mercie is working on pronouns in Rod and Staff. I started typing and printing Eli's grammar. I wanted it to be more independent, and he does better with worksheets. He is loving it so far, and it also has his copywork. It makes things much easier when he can grab his binder and do it all without help from me.


{And I know in the above picture, he underlined "loudly" as an adjective. I told him it was an adverb, and he tried to erase the colored pencil. Sigh. I need to invest in erasable colored pencils.}

Mercie and Eli are both doing great in Cheerful Cursive. 

We did week 2 in Drawn into the Heart of Reading - the humor genre. I am excited about the book project they will do for week 4!

7th grade - Mikaela:

I don't get many pictures of Mikaela, because her work is mostly independent. She also doesn't like me taking pictures of her work, so I try to respect that. 

She is taking a break from Science in the Ancient World for a few weeks. It's a great curriculum, but she had an experiment every single lesson. She was getting burnt out, and so was I! I bought God's Design for Science: Animals for her to do with Eli and Mercie. She hates to admit it, but she misses doing school with them! I'm hoping this will give her more of a "together" feeling that she is missing out on.

She is also slowing down in America the Beautiful for a few weeks. It is a lot of reading each day. One lesson this week was 6 pages! I am letting her read most of the lesson one day, and finish reading it the next day, completing the activities, too. 

Her Daily Grams book came in this week, so she worked a page in that each day along with a page in Easy Grammar. She hardly ever makes a mistake in grammar and I rarely have to help her.

She is continuing with math on Khan Academy. It is working well for her. Earning points and badges still appeal to a 7th grader! She is working on absolute value, positive and negative numbers. 

She worked three lessons in her Spectrum writing book, and did copywork from America the Beautiful.

She has also been drawing and crocheting this week. She cooked dinner a few times. She has taken over doing all the laundry each week for money! It has helped me out, and she wants to save up for something special.

We had a full, fun week this week!

2 comments:

  1. Bo likes to color like Silas - it's fun when they do. Eliana didn't much at that age (but likes to now). I remember when my boys got to that stage of not wanting to be photographed, boo hoo. I love that you included a written update for Mikaela though - neat how she is working on hobbies, cooking and doing the laundry (even for money). I also like that you allow her independence at her age. I held my oldest son's hand too long and he was in 10th grade before all his subjects were independent. I missed us learning all together but realized how good it was for him to study on his own and my other boys were more independent earlier. It's good you are figuring that out now! :) Hope you have another great week!

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  2. Thank you, Michelle. I do miss teaching all my children together, but the independence works well. I do tend to leave Mikaela out of the weekly reviews, but with no pictures I don't think about it. I will try to include her each week!

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