Weekly Report...Week 3

In the words of Collin..."Just call me butter because I am on a roll"! Seriously, we had another great week. We have been getting our seat work completed in the morning and the boys have had good attitudes, which means that my attitude has been good too. We are all winning!

Tapestry of Grace (Both)
I am going to have to give TOG some thought. Not about not using it, but how to better use this wonderful program to meet our family's needs. There is so much to it and I am afraid that I am not using it enough. We seem to be pretty light on history each week and the boys are always asking for more. Right now we are doing each week in two weeks and only two days a week except for the week Collin does a project with them. I think the work load is perfect for Thane, but Magnus needs more. I just need to figure out how much more and what. Maybe I'll look into more hands on activities.

History...This week is the first week of week 2 for us (we are doing each week in two weeks). I read from The Story of Europe by H.E. Marshall about Pope Gregory and the Lombards, or Long Beards, and the rise and fall of Justinian's empire.

Geography...I had Magnus label a world map, from memory, of the 7 continents, the 5 oceans, and several of the major rivers. Look at his work! I am proud of him!Literature...Magnus is continuing to read many books written about this time period. I have set out a basket in the living room full of library books for him to pick and choose from.

Timeline...I wanted the boys to be able to visualize when history happened. I want them to "see" that St. Patrick was ministering in Ireland the same time Attila the Hun was conquering other tribes. I wanted something simple and something that gave them a "larger picture" view. I don't have much room in the Little Tiny Baby Pretend House, so I had to get creative. I saw on another blog...I wish I could remember who so I could give them credit!...exactly what I needed. I created a "snake" like line on a large peice of paper a hung it on the pocket door that leads to the hallway! That way it is out of view when the door is slid into the wall! We just started, but here is what we have so far...

The green part of the line is the Ancients and the blue line is for the Middle Ages.

More battles occurred at our house. The boys, Collin included, build towers and forts with Playmobil peices and blocks. Then they set up all of their Playmobil guys behind the fortified castles. They each are armed with a cannon and then shoot the plastic cannon balls at the enemy's fort with the hopes of "killing" their soldiers and destroying the building. They always have a good time with this.



Language Arts (Magnus)

Grammar...Magnus is doing great. This week he did some review and started learning about action verbs.
Spelling...I am happy to announce that we finished Level One this week! Yeah!!! He still can't seem to grasp this rule though...

'doubling f,l, & s in a one syllable word if it follows a short vowel sound'

Phonics...Explode the Code is going well for him. However, I am not sure he is "getting" the rules in that either. He gets the exercises correct, but then when he is writing something else in a different subject, he gets it wrong. Maybe he's just not making the connection that these rules apply to all writing and not just the workbook pages. Am I making sense?

Phonics (Thane)
This week he worked on D, E, & F. I can pretty much hand him the worksheets and he does them on his own. He is also continuing to work through his Get Ready for the Code books.

Thane also went to Mrs. P's class this week at the charter school. Their letter of the week was B. He is making friends and looks forward to going every week.


Math
Magnus...worked on adding 10 & 100 to a number. He caught on without any difficulty. He also worked on some lessons about telling time, but that is pretty much review for him. Right Start is a great program and I am more and more impressed with it as we move along. We have finally hit the half way mark through Level B. If I am not careful, Magnus and Thane will be working on the same level soon! Oh, and we also started doing a couple problems in the Singapore Challenging Word Problems workbook this week.

(It's a little difficult to read, but he got them all correct!)

Thane...he is continuing to "get" it. I think he is more geared towards numbers than the rest of us. He ws excited about getting to do his first worksheet. He had to write out the tally marks for the quantities of each object...

Science (Both)
Noeo is going great and I am glad we are doing it. However, like with TOG, I need to think about "beefing" it up for Magnus. He needs to be challenged. I am thinking about supplementing with more experiments and hands on activities. They don't provide a lot of that in the curriculum.
We continued talking about weather this week, specifically rain, snow, and wind. We are going to set up our own weather station and record our findings.

Magnus also went to his class at the charter school. She gave the a poem about animals that they could use as copywork if they chose to. I left it up to him and I am happy to report that he chose to! He is really taking his time, forming his letters correctly, and paying attention to his word spacing. I will post it when he is finished. It is good work!

Latin
Unfortunately, we did not start it this week. It is on the schedule for next week though!

P.E.
Still pluggin' away at the tennis lessons.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a great weekend!