Saturday, October 4, 2008

Weekly Report...Week 2

I am feeling good about this week. In spite of suffering with a migraine for two days, we were able to complete everything I had planned. It was a good week full of good attitudes and good work.

Tapestry of Grace (Both)
History...This week is the second week of week 1 in Unit 1 for us since we are taking two weeks to complete a week. This is a good pace for us. We listened to the first three chapters in SOTW vol 2 and the boys colored a picture of a Roman soldier.
Literature...I read Brigid's Cloak to them. This was particularly interesting for us as St. Brigid is one of the Patron Saints of our church in TN...St. Patrick's Anglican...oh how we miss it!
Geography...We reviewed our geography, locating the 7 continents, 5 Oceans, and many of the big rivers and read Geography from A to Z.

Project...On Friday, the boys had the privilege of working alongside their dad, creating a salt dough map of what looks like the shape of Italy, but then they added several mountain ranges, rivers, plateus, gulfs, and bays. We are waiting for it to dry so we can paint it.
Update...since we don't have space in our Little Tiny Baby Pretend House, I had to place the salt dough map outside. Well, it got wet somehow and turned into a big blob. Bummer.

This week, I am going to add in some simple timeline activities. I hesitated to do this before since we have no place to put it (I wanted a wall one
so it was easier to see the progression), but I found the perfect place! It's going to go on the pocket door that leads into the hallway! When we need to see the timeline, I'll just pull the door out of the wall! Perfect!

Language Arts (Magnus)
Grammar...completed 5 lessons this week concentrating on pronouns.
Spelling...worked on plural words in step 23 of Level 1. He caught on pretty quick but I noticed he is still having a difficult time with the rule of 'd
oubling f,l, & s in a one syllable word if it follows a short vowel sound'. 'Dress' becomes 'dreses'. He knows it doesn't look right, but can't figure out why.
ETC...the above problem in spelling is confirming my choice to
start him on level 4 of ETC. He is doing a lesson a week and is understanding it so far.

His difficulty with spelling and phonics is hard to understa
nd since he reads so well. Our advisor at the charter school gave him a reading assessment and he is not only reading at a 6th grade level, but also has the comprehension of a 6th grader! He even stumped the test at one point. When he was reading aloud, he changed a couple of the words in the text, but the words he changed them to were better choices and didn't change the meaning of the text! He actually enhanced the story! The test didn't know how to score that. I am still trying to figure out what this means now as far as schooling him goes.

Phonics (Thane)

He worked on letters A, B, and C this week. So far so good! His handwriting is improving as we go too!


Math
Magnus...we got to work with a new manipulative this week...the balance! This tool is so cool!


I placed a peg at one end on the 10 and then he had to balance it with two other pegs on the other side...8&2, 9&1, 6&4, ect. It is another great way to visualize partitioning. He caught on really quick.

Thane...he got to work with the abacus this week. He is understandi
ng the concepts fantastically. He is memorizing the "Yellow is the Sun" poem Right Start uses.
"Yellow is the sun...six is five and one.
Why is the sky so blue...seven is five and two.
Salty is the sea...eight is five and three. Ect."

Science (Both)
I caved. I have been drooling over NOEO Biology 1 for the past co
uple years. It is a fantastic science program that uses literature, among other things, to teach science. It's one of the curricula our charter school offers so I decided to add it into our week. The boys love science and I want to cultivate their interests. So, we started learning about weather this week. They drew diagrams of how the earth rotates around the sun causing the different seasons, the water cycle, and the different layers of the clouds.

(This is Magnus' drawing)

Magnus also had his science class and learned more about the eco systems.


Mrs. P's Kindergarten Class
The letter of the week was 'A'. Thane took an airplane to share with the class. He was a lot more comfortable this week and asked me to just drop him off at the door and not stay. I did peak in and watched him paint with sliced apples.

Latin
We received Song School Latin on Friday. After looking through it, I am so pleased with the decision to do it this year! It looks like a lot of fun and a slow enough pace that I am going to catch on! We'll start lesson 1 next week!

P.E.
Collin gave them some more lessons. They are really enjoying it and show me their new moves when they get home.

Thanks for attending this week's open house! See you next week!

4 comments:

Lori C., Texas said...

Sounds like you all are have such a great time!:)

Lori

Paige said...

Looks like you guys had a great week. Thanks for sharing!

Kerry said...

Hi, Brittney! I'm so glad you came by my blog to visit...I LOVE finding other Anglican mom-type bloggers. I've added you to my blog list ("Birds of a Feather") and to my Google Reader.

We are also Classical homeschoolers with a touch of Charlotte Mason...and we use TOG (although I use mine in conjunction with Classical Conversations).

I'd love to talk more with you about the exodus from ECUSA. It has been hard in many ways, but also good. About 1/3 of our old congregation stayed behind (over an entirely seperate disagreement), and I miss many of them.

Looking forward to reading more on your blog.

Lori C., Texas said...

I bet it is hard to find a non liberal church in California!:) I will pray!

Our priest was kind of disappointed that he didn't get to bless anything exotic this year. Just regular cats and dogs!

Have a great week!
Lori