Weekly School Summary - USA (Sept. 19-23)

 I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

 

Our full 'book basket' for upcoming studies on Mexico and the desert biome.

Another full week---completed! I can't believe we've already been "in school" for a month and that we've finished 4 weeks worth of work. Time is absolutely flying by in the midst of our busy weeks. Or perhaps because we're busy, the time seems to move faster and faster. Or it's because I'm getting old??? Nah, it must be because we're having fun. Yeah, yeah, that's it. :)

Here's what we did this week:

Math: Same as before. Tenor had 5 lessons while Soprano did 4 and played games at www.coolmath4kids.com on Friday.


Reading and Language Arts: Tenor continues doing well although he really struggled with his Language Arts quiz on Friday. I had graded it and then remembered we needed to give him a spelling quiz along with it. I asked him for his Section 2 spelling words but he said that he didn't do section 1 yet. Wait, what? How did we miss section 1 spelling?? Oh brother! No wonder he hadn't done well on his quiz! I had given him section 2 but he was supposed to take section 1. After a quick spelling quiz and quiz re-do.... he scored much better. Phew! I thought we were in for some serious review.
Soprano is doing better with her Language Arts. We've found it helps if I have her read the instructions out loud before working on an exercise and if I help to clarify the steps she needs to follow. I also gave her "permission" to talk out loud as she goes through her work (which she didn't need but she's so used to traditional school and not being allowed to talk.) Being able to sound things out aloud is helping. She's still have a little difficulty with it but she's not as frustrated. I think we'll stick with the curriculum for a while longer. Given more time, I think it will start to click.

 
Electives:
The kids spent some time on www.freetypinggame.net for their typing instruction.

They did a health worksheet about what types of food are in the fruit group.

Tenor continued with reviewing and practicing cursive letters: Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz, and the whole alphabet and numbers review.Next week we're on to words and Bible verses. I also found a handwriting workbook in our yard sale items that is at Soprano's level. She needs a little help remembering the direction of g and q's tails as well as which letters go below the base line. Each letter has 4 short exercises so she'll do 1 letter a week (4 days) as a refresher.

Phys Ed.: More outdoor play including riding bikes and scooters and a strange version of street hockey (with a half deflated soccer ball and badminton rackets.) The kids won with a 5-point bonus shot at the end. Final score: Daddy- 10, Kids- 11. (Mommy- 0 because as scorekeeper I ended up with a mosquito bite on the one place I didn't spray.... the bottom of my foot!)

Bible: This week included:
Reading about the Navajo People
Reading Matthew 1:1-25 and 2:1-18
Memorizing Matthew 1:23
Reading about Harriet Tubman and her compassion, joy, and perseverance

Geography: We read interesting facts about the USA and worked on learning all of the state names. Tenor did super on his state quiz---100%.

Soprano was really, really close on some but ended up with 38 correct. For a 2nd grader, I'm impressed. The book "The Little Man in the Map," which we borrowed from our local library, really helped them both with memory tricks to remember the states' locations.

We colored in the U.S. flag and wrote some facts about it on the worksheet.

 

Tenor's pages from World Geography this week were 'Bodies of Water in North America' and 'Islands of North America.'They also did their vocabulary cards this week (badland and butte.)

Science: We learned more about forests and their layers. We didn't have a tree field guide handy and had so much other work to do, I pre-found pics of the types of trees on the worksheet. I printed them out and then had the kids cut and paste. We did talk about what questions you can ask yourself as you try to identify a tree. Down the road, we'll definitely try it for real but this week just had too much going on.

We talked about deciduous and coniferous forests, illustrated animals that live in the canopy and on the forest floor, and talked about the chaparral. Soprano finished up the North American Animals sheets from The Complete Book of Animals.

Soprano's illustration of a flying squirrel. She thinks it would make a good "Peleoopet" (Pillow Pet.)

Tenor's illustration of the Ichneamon wasp. Every time I look at this, I get the willies!

Other MFW: We continued with Wee Sing Around the World listening to Eentsy Weentsy Spider as well as The Crooked Path (T's request) and Hello to All the Children of the World.
The book basket was overflowing with library books and a few from our own shelves. It took the full 2 weeks but they read most of them. I also found a few Reading Rainbow DVDs about areas in the U.S. and a DVD called U.S. Geography for Children: Greetings from the United States to supplement. My younglings are both somewhat visual learners and respond to videos. Our library system is pretty extensive and the inter-library loan process is really easy so we are very blessed to have great resources on hand.
We're looking forward to our American dinner tonight. On the menu: hot dogs, chips, fresh veggies and dip, and the Boston Pumpkin Cake (from A Trip Around the World.)

Dinner will be a rushed affair though because the kids have the monthly children's ministry event at church tonight. The leaders are going to keep our kids after while Bass and I go to a Keith and Krystn Getty concert (at the college where he works) for our anniversary. Can't wait!!

Linking up at www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and
at http://2ladybugsandalizard.blogspot.com/.