Weekly School Summary - Brazil (October 24-28)

Soprano's Wise Owl saying activity

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We took off on Monday since we were making the drive back from New York. It was nice to have pre-arranged our schedule to allow for a day off and not have to do any schoolwork in the car. After we got home, unpacked the car, and started attacking the laundry (aka Mount Washmore), I was able to quick get the younglings' workboxes set up for Tuesday.

Here's what we did:
Math: Similar to usual. They each had 4 days of lessons to compensate for the days we had off.


Reading and Language Arts: Soprano continued with Owl Moon  from 'Across the Centuries.' She made an owl puppet and owl mask and created a 'wise owl' saying. We did a creative writing exercise on 'Why the Owl Says Whoo' also.

She progressed through her Phonics book, one day's lesson at a time with only a few errors.
Her English work is definitely improving and there were no tears this week! That's a huge praise!
Since we were coming off of a long weekend away, I decided to hold off on introducing spelling for either kid until next week.

Tenor continued with his 'A Reason for Handwriting C' and 'Writing Strands.'
We also did some more work in "A Lion, A Witch, and A Wardrobe" from 'Across the Centuries C Level 1.' He read chapters 6-8 with some vocab word study, a verse decoding activity, and a creative writing exercise (writing a letter to Edmund.)

He's doing well with his new English (Rod and Staff Level 4). 

Since my time in the morning is spent helping Soprano, I usually make him do the oral portion of his lesson as written work instead. The lessons are short enough that it's not too overwhelming for him and it's additional handwriting practice.

Electives:
Typer Island for their typing instruction and continuing with SOS Elementary Spanish.

They did a health worksheet about different types of germs.


Phys Ed.: The first thing they did when we got home was get on their bikes. They stacked some wood for dad and helped rake leaves too.

Bible: This week included:
Reading about Columbia
Reading Matthew 5:43-48 and 6:1-18
Memorizing Matthew 5:14

Geography: Stamping our passports to enter Brazil (and South America.)
Playing the geography game with our new mnemonic devices.
'Very Good Students Frequently Bake Bread and Pick Up' and for the west coast 'Cows Eat Pretty Clover'.
Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guinea, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile
Doing the Brazil crossword puzzle.

Tenor also used a book I found at the library called 'How To Draw Brazil's Sights and Symbols' to create the Brazilian flag and other famous landmarks.

Tenor's pages from World Geography this week were 'Physical Features of South America', 'Rivers of South America', 'Mountains of South America', and 'Bodies of Water in South America.' They also did their vocabulary card this week (zone.)

Science: Discussion on rain forests--- tropical rain forests and their locations and rain forest plants. They also did their nature study again this week. Soprano's was too funny not to share. She writes:

"Birds are cute. cute. cute. cute. soft and fuzy. soft soft soft.

They come in all the colors. [sic]"

Soprano worked on more Insect sheets from The Complete Book of Animals.

Other MFW: Wee sing: Brown Girl in the Ring and Ciranda
For more music, I found the Brazilian Channel on Pandora and played that in the background during school time. I also hunted up some youtube clips of bossa nova and samba dancing. Disclaimer: Samba doesn't always allow for the most modest costuming so preview before you show your kids.
 
Since I'm not really loving the Global Art book, our art project was another substitution.... we made a TP Quetzal bird. I got the instructions here: http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mquetzal.html

It was a pretty easy week which was nice to return to after our trip. We've still got some fall house projects underway so I had a little time to work on those. Hopefully, we'll get the yard cleaned up before our first snow. They're calling for anywhere from 3-5" or 6-10". In October! That's unusual for our area. We'll see....
I had time to plan out what we will potentially need for next year's curriculum (if all continues in the same way.) That way I can keep my eyes open for bargains in the next few months to try to save some money.
I also started compiling their state-required portfolios. I have all their logs and a few samples from each subject filed in their portfolio binders. I'd hate to leave that until the end of the year! I'd be buried under a mountain of paper! And my file box was getting heavy. :)


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at at http://discovertheirgifts.blogspot.com/.


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