Weekly Report...Week 25

I could tell you that it was a full moon this week without even looking. My boys have been squirrely and not acting themselves. We are talkin', "What mother planet are you from?" kind of craziness. In spite of all that, we were able to get some school work completed.

History (Both)

You may have noticed the title for this section has changed. It no longer says, "Tapestry of Grace". Well, that is because we are not using it any longer. You can find out why here. So rather than continue with Y2 and start the colonies next (Unit 3), I am going to wait and cover it next year using some other resources. In the mean time, we have been enjoying our unit on Shakespeare. On Wednesday, we read William Shakespeare and the Globe by Aliki. It told of his life, how he came to London, how the Globe was brought to life, how it died, and how it was brought to life again by a man named Samuel Wanamaker. It was a bitter sweet story as the ending tugged at mine and Magnus' heart strings. BUT...it gave Magnus a great idea. "Hey Mom. Can we build our own Globe Theater?" Yep...the rest of the day's lessons were thrown out the window. How could I say no to that? So, we got started on it. We have the stage made and only have the back part to finish. I will post pics of it when we are finished, but here is a little sneak peek...


As far as the rest of the year? Well, we are going to study Pirates. I found a great unit study from one of my favorite homeschool resources, Homeschool Share. If you are not familiar with this site, I highly recommend you click on it and check it out! I am just waiting for the copy of the book to come into the library.

Language Arts (Magnus)
We are still working through our test prep materials for the CA standardized test he has to take in a few weeks. You can read about my feelings on this here. He is doing remarkably well as we don't follow state standards.

Spelling...We started Phonetic Zoo this week. We got off to a rocky start, but by the end of the week he was asking to do his spelling. This has NEVER happened, people! NEVER. I posted about it here. He is even applying the rule we worked on this week in his other writing! He received 100% on his third attempt at the list. One more time and we'll be going onto the next list! Yippee, Magnus!

Phonics (Thane)
We are moving right along. I have found some readers that he loves reading. I think it is part of a whole curriculum, but we are only using the books. We also played some games from Happy Phonics and Starfall.com.

Math (Both)

Magnus...continuing with the test prep. I am getting a little worried, as so far in Right Start we have covered addition, money, time, some measuring, greater than/less than, and little subtraction. This test is going to cover addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, and some simple division. I have been explaining it to him as we come to it and he is catching on really well so I guess we'll just see what happens. Like I said, I just want him to feel confident when he goes in and feel good about how he did when he comes out. I don't care about the score.

Thane...we worked on partitioning 100's, place value, and quadrilaterals. I think I could double up the lessons we do a day, but I don't want him to finish Level B too fast. Magnus has yet to start Level C due to the test prep and I am not sure how he would like his younger brother working in the same level as he. I gently remind both of them, "God gave you strengths in different areas." And if you know my boys, I know you agree!

Science (Both)
We are still working through our Dinosaur unit. This week we were Paleontologist. We read Digging Up Dinosaurs by Aliki. Magnus tried to thwart my plans again by talking me into building a volcano for a diorama he is planning to build. This boy is never short of ideas! I did say no to this one. I didn't have it in me. Remember...full moon! They did do a fun interactive game on the internet and we completed some booklets for our lapbook. Oh, and they worked on a report on the T-Rex.

Latin (Magnus)
We did it! We completed chapter 10!

Misc.
We also did a fun art project using watercolor crayons. They were mimicking the fresco paintings found in the Minoan society.

P.A.C.T. Classes

Well, our charter school is on Spring Break this week and next so there are no classes. I know...I am a slave driver. No matter. We will get a break when we go camping the last two weeks in April!

Well, that about covers it. This weekend we hope to catch a UCDavis baseball game.