Weekly Report...Week 11

This past week was a good one. We completed everything I had hoped, with the exception of a lapbook booklet, and every one's attitudes were pretty positive. It was good for me to have talked with Lisa and Tina and I had something on Friday that I was very much looking forward to doing...you'll see at the end of the post!

Tapestry of Grace (Both)
Yep, changes have already been made and will continue to be made as I read through my Charlotte Mason books again. This is a good thing. In a nutshell, I have decided to stop doing a TOG week in two weeks. It was dragging out too much, the boys were getting bored and I was just looking for busy work to fill up the time. So, from now on we will follow the schedule as they have laid it out, allowing for flexibility when needed.

History...we continued reading about the Viking Invasions and the Battle of Hastings. These subjects are of particular interest to us as Collin has done some independent research in this area...well, on the Bayeux Tapestry. We enjoyed reading about Eric the Read and his son, Leif.

Literature...Magnus read Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla and Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky by Barbara Schiller.


Timeline...added more figures.

Lapbook...completed some booklets on Leif and Eric the Red. We are excited to see the whole lapbook put together at the end of the unit. Completing the Thanksgiving lapbook last week gave us some motivation. It's difficult to be working little by little on something and not seeing the end results for a couple of months. Good training in patience though.

Language Arts (Magnus)

Grammar...continued working on adjectives and now, alphabetical order. He has been working in a dictionary skills workbook since last year so this new topic should be pretty easy.

Spelling...worked on step 3 this week. He use to hate doing spelling until I let him "play" games on the computer using spellingcity.com. Now he looks forward to it! The site lets me type in our spelling words for the week and then it generates different games for him to play for reinforcement. He also takes his spelling "test" on the site.

Phonics...he only has a few more pages left in level 4 of his ETC workbook. I am not quite sure how much he actually learned. This has been something I have let him do on his own as I am working with Thane. I'm thinking he needs a bit more attention from me on this subject.

Phonics (Thane)

It has brought me great joy to see the excitement on his face as he reads. I never had that with Magnus as he just picked up a book and never looked back! Thane has to sound out every sound of every letter and then take his time to blend the sounds together. It is a long process, but it is working and he is doing great. I am pleased with our choice of using SSRW.

Math

Magnus...we introduced "two fives strategy" of addition and he caught on fast. With a little more practice he will have it mastered. The strategy is this: 7+6=? Well, 7=5+2 and 6=5+1...add the 5's (10) and 2+1 (3)...then add 10+3 to get 13! I know it seems like a lot of work to get the answer, but I want to give the boys strategies to figure the problems out and not have to rely on memorizing math facts. By the end of the week he was easily doing problems like 89+7.

Thane...we played some games and continued working on simple addition. At the rate he is going, he should be starting Level B sometime around April.

Yep...he is in his pajamas, sitting on top of the table doing his math. Gotta love homeschooling!

Science

We started a unit on the desert habitat. If you are not familiar with Donald Silver's "One Small Square" series, I highly recommend you checking them out! The book walks you though a day/night of an 8 square foot area of the desert (he also has books on the seashore, backyard, woods, ect.). It's so interesting to see the different types of plants, animals, and even weather. I found a free desert animal lapbook on homeschoolshare.com and we will start that next week. Magnus also read an Indian Tale to Thane about how the jack rabbit got his ears.

Latin

"Salve, Mater!" was heard through out this apartment this week. We worked on words that described family relationships. I can not say enough about this program! Song School Latin is so gentle in it's approach to introducing Latin. We will not be intimidated when we start Latin for Children next year.

Alright...ready to hear what I did Friday? I had the pleasure of meeting an online friend, Harmony Art Mom...Barb! (Attention...I am not pregnant! My vest was pooching out funny and made me look like it!)

I had arranged for her to come talk to my classical homeschool group about doing nature study. She gave a fantastic talk about how her family does nature study and invited the group to participate in her Outdoor Challenges. She inspired us all! Then she and I and our boys had lunch at none other than In N Out Burger. Unfortunately, conversation was cut short due to a stomach issue with Magnus. BUT...we have made tentative plans to go on some hikes! I'm counting on her to get me over my irrational fear of bears!

So there you have it...our week in review. Be sure to check back next week!