Weekly School Summaries - Australia (April 23 - May 4)

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

Shhh! Can you hear it? Quiet....... Ah, yes, there it is. The whisper of summer vacation soon approaching. We've got 3 more weeks to get it all done. It's going to happen, I just know it. :)
Here's what we did the past 2 weeks:

Math: We did things a little differently these past 2 weeks because the kids had standardized testing to do. Tenor got 5 days of math lessons (because I didn't calculate correctly somewhere along the way) and then a week with 4 days of lessons, while Soprano had no math at all the first week. I gave her the week off to help with some attitude issues and to allow time for her CAT test. This past week, Soprano only had 3 days of lessons (doing great with multiplication) and 1 day of computer math.

Reading and Language Arts: Soprano continued reading "The Little House in the Big Woods" from 'Across the Centuries'. She read through chapter 8, had a couple evaluations, wrote a bear story, did a sap to syrup worksheet, and colored a stitched sampler.

She's doing well in her third Phonics book and is almost done. She's working on prefixes and suffixes. In English, she's working on alphabetizing. Spelling and handwriting are continuing well. 

Tenor continued with his 'A Reason for Handwriting C'. He had 1 week off with his writing workbook to allow time for the CAT test. This past week, he cracked it open again and continued working on friendly letters and using descriptive words when writing.

After a half week off, he continued 'Helen Keller' from 'Across the Centuries C Level 2', with some reading and vocabulary word work. He also worked on a timeline of Helen's life and made a little book about how to be a good friend to someone who is deaf or blind. English (prepositional phrases) and Spelling (Rod and Staff Level 4) are going well. 

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

We finished our last community helper, airplane pilots, for the year. We also talked about the PA state nickname and how PA is a huge dairy state.

Phys Ed.: Same as before... they're doing Tae Kwon Do each week but that's been about it. Although, Soprano has been all into her jump rope. She's getting really good at being steady. Rather than jump, jump, miss, jump, jump, miss. She can jump about 30 times in a row unless she's distracted. The weather has warmed up but it's been raining for the past few days. It's supposed to get a little sunnier this weekend. Maybe we'll actually have a real spring?? Nah, we live in PA, so probably not. :)

For My Father's World, we're off to a whole 'nother continent, a whole other nation.**(**Extra credit if you can name that cute kids' song. Bonus if you know all the words! If you need a hint or just want to listen, it's at the end of the post.)
G'day, mate! We made it to Australia.

Bible: The past two weeks included:
Reading about Papua New Guinea and New Zealand
Reading Matthew 26:17-27:26
Memorizing Matthew 25:36 and 25:40

Geography:

Things we did included:
Filling out our passports to travel to Australia

Coloring the Australian flag and writing down interesting facts about it.

Reading about Australia and its neighbors, Australia people and places, farming, and industry.
Talking about the different words Aussies use. Our favorite: smoodge (for kiss). I also found out online that they call the subject "maths", not "math" like the U.S. does.
Creating Australian lapbooks using resources from Homeschool Share (Australia and Coral Reefs).
Putting together a Sydney Harbor jigsaw puzzle. (A yardsale find for $0.50)

Illustrating notecards for island, seamount, reef, key, atoll, archipelago.

Playing the geography game doing the world traveler version.

Tenor did 8 of the Australia pages from World Geography.

Soprano finished the Australian Animal pages from The Complete Book of Animals.

Science: We had a few pages from the Living World Encyclopedia again these past two weeks. 

They read about coral reefs, islands, and island life, as well as, Australia's dry forests.
Trying a kiwi for the first time

Planting some kiwi seeds.

Of course, for school, we had to watch Finding Nemo. We also watched "The Silver Stallion" on Netflix (with Russell Crowe before he was Russell Crowe.)

Other MFW: 

Wee sing: Kookaburra (which I remember from my elementary school days) and Epo I Tai Tai E

Art: Yumbulul Story Design T-shirts and yummy Koala treats

We ate out at Outback, even though it's kind of a stretch as far as Australian cuisine goes. The decor was cool.

 

We also made the Australian Meat pie to go along with our Koala treats for dinner.

To supplement, we read other books about Australia and New Zealand, coral reefs, and Australian animals (kangaroos, koalas, tasmanian devils) and borrowed DVDs from the library. We also took a break from Kingdom Tales to read another YWAM missionary biography, Florence Young. After we finish that one, we'll go back and finish up Kingdom Tales.

Linking up at www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com and

at http://2ladybugsandalizard.blogspot.com.


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