Weekly Report

We are back and having a great time! School was fun, relaxed, and productive. What a winning combination! I think I may have finally found our groove. Here's what we accomplished...

Monday...Alright, so this was kind of a bad day and not the way I wanted to start off the week, but it ended up alright. We met our friends at HS Storytime then headed to the park. When it hits 70 in the winter, you HAVE to spend the day outside. Well, 3 hours in our case. The water pump on our Cherokee decided it was going to go bad. I had a pool of anti-freeze under the car. Now, Collin just replaced the water pump on HIS Wrangler last week. This was also the 2nd time in 4 weeks the boys and I were left "stranded" due to something going wrong with the car. They are such a necessary evil. Anyhow, I was able to get it home without a hitch. (pun intended!)

Tuesday...What a great day! We got everything done we set out to do.

History

We are on chapter 15 of SOTW vol. 1, the Phoenicians. We listened to the story and did the coloring page. The boys asked me to make extra copies of the page, it's of the Phoenician ship, so they could draw "battle" pictures. It looks exactly like the Playmobil Roman ship they got for Christmas. And Magnus is having a heckuva time saying Phoenicians. It keeps coming out Phoehicans. It's pretty cute.

Language Arts-Magnus

Spelling-We started our new program All About Spelling today and let me tell you, I am "All about spelling"! This is going to be a great fit for the boys. It is phonetically based and follows the rules to a "T". This was our missing link.

Grammar-We are still going over common/proper nouns in First Language Lessons. He gets it. I think I may move on.

Letter of the Week-Thane

Today was the first day I had "formal" lessons with Thane and he was loving it! One on one time with mommy doing school was good. We are going to be doing the vowels first so this week was "A". We practiced writing it and memorizing the vowel poem in OPGTR.

Math-Magnus

Loving Right Start! We worked on money values and word problems using the whole and part method. He catches on quickly.

The best part of the day was driving home in my new, well new for us, 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee!!!! Yes, we got another Jeep. This is our 5th. Collin knows them inside and out. I feel spoiled as our other Jeeps are at least 15 years old. I HAVE ELECTRIC WINDOWS AND LOCKS NOW! That is a complete luxury! We would not have been able to do this without the generosity of my grandmother. Here is what it looks like (this is a pic off the internet, but ours is that color)...


Wednesday...Collin is still home on Christmas break so we decided to take advantage of that and the unseasonably warm weather we are having and go hiking. We climbed into our new car and drove to one of our favorite places, Radnor Lake in Nashville. The trails are fairly easy and it is beautiful there. We saw 6 different kinds of wildlife too...deer

birds, otters, turtles, dogs, and ducks (guess those count as birds, huh?). Here are some more great pictures...

Thursday...We hit the books again.

History

We read about the founding of Carthage. I must say, I am so happy I purchased the SOTW on cd for the boys to listen to. I don't like to read out loud if I don't have to, although I do because I believe it is important to, so it's great to be able to have someone else read for a change. One of the things the Phoenicians were known for was making and blowing colored glass. The boys and I made our own using wax paper and crayon shavings.

Language Arts-Magnus

Spelling-Learned their method of using the letter tiles and phonetics. Also hit on alphabetizing which was great because I got him a Dictionary Skills workbook.
Completed a page in his new Dictionary Skills workbook.
Grammar-yep, common/proper nouns again.

Letter of the Week-Thane

Worked on writing "A" and memorizing the vowel poem, which he has down. Then we looked for pictures in my magazines that were objects that begin with the letter "A". He really liked that...

Math-Magnus

More money problems. He even got out his bank and counted his money today.

We had Book Club and I am kicking myself for not bringing the camera! We read Jan Brett's The Hat, and then put on a play of the story. Everyone got involved and had a great time.

Friday...We worked some more on Language Arts and the Letter of the Week. Then we headed over to our friend's house and did science and geography. I'll let you know more about that at another time as this post is getting too lengthy.

Scheduled this weekend...take down Christmas decorations!