Weekly Wrap-Up : Robin Hood, Other Things in Space & Enjoying the Days

This week should be called the week I took a "chill pill"... I really didn't take anything, but just trying to s.l.o.w.d.o.w.n. my brain and enjoy my days with the kids. We did school each day minus the morning of a funeral for a church member when we had 3 extra kids at our house for an hour... but I'm calling that socialization and service to our church:)

The beginning of the week was beautiful!! While we DID school in the morning like normal, I stopped at lunchtime giving the kids plenty of time to play before (and sometimes after) lunch before naps and Anna and I finished up. This resulted in schooling later in the afternoon than I'd like. But it all got finished and we got to enjoy the beautiful weather while it lasted;)

Bible
The first part of the week we slacked doing our Awana or any real study. I'm thankful though that praying for church members and reading books always leads into spiritual conversations. It was a little funny that one schooling morning I was "sneaking" in a late morning shower and Anna practiced her own Awana verses as well as working with Chris and Lydia, they totally passed their verses:) She's such a great big sister!!

We did get back into the swing again on Thursday and we'll be ready to pass those verses confidently come Wednesday:)

Reading
Chris and Lydia did well working through the blue book (OPG - Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading). Lydia is still the "wanting to read" girl.... I thought maybe she needed a break from the blue book one day this week, so I worked with her on a BOB book. After she sounded out all the words in the book & read the book, she looked up at me and said "I'll go get the blue book!" I love it ;) It's soo much easier to teach a kid that WANTS to learn;)

BOth Lydia and Chris have been using our Letter and Number Wipe Clean boards to practice their writing. I'm not a big "perfect" handwriting person, but I do ask that the kids write neatly so it can be read:) I'm going to try more copywork with Chris in the weeks to come, too, I just think he's ready:)

Anna worked hard on Spelling, Writing, Copywork and Grammer. We also got some more time reading together in the afternoons. I LOVE listening to her read. It's soo nice hearing her starting to read more smoothly.

Together we've reading through some Robin Hood tales which corresponds to our history time period. We've really liked a few of the books.... one has tons of chapters so we're slowly working through it! Anna has read some to us, I've read to the crew and Brian has read with us in the evenings... I look forward to reading/listening to the rest:)

Math
Still loving Saxon:) Chris is working through some more addition fact families. Anna is continuing to practice subtracting two-digit numbers, they are really hammering this skill... I like it!

One fun math activity I did with Lydia this week was reading a book called 12 Ways to Get to 11 by Eve Merriam. I was a cute read and we had tons of practice counting pictures in the book. By the end Chris and Anna had joined in:) After we finished reading I let the kids trace pictures to make their own "how to get 11" story. They really liked the simple activity.

Chris had a finding volume using tinted water activity for Math that we all did together, too;)

I love Anna's hand on Chris' arm afraid that he's adding too much food coloring...

she truly is another Momma to her siblings;)

Science
For Science this week we studied the other things in space, namely asteroids, comets and meteors. We had plenty of books from the library that really gave the kids great illustrations to look at and fun facts! The kids filled in their space "things" charts and colored their pictures from their space books.

To mix stuff up a little, we read about asteroids and colored our pics while outside on the trampoline;) Nate was napping and it was sooo nice out, the kids had been super cooperative and we all were ready to get and enjoy the nice weather!! So we dragged our pictures, markers, space charts and library books to the trampoline;)

To "spice up" our study of comets and meteors we did a Venn Diagram comparing them. Each fact we thought was important we put it into the diagram on our white board and then Anna copied her own during an independent work time. I've always put those two things together, but it's amazing how little they have in common!!

Another fun activity was to figure out how old everyone was going to be in 2061, the next time Halley's Comet will be seen. The last time Halley's Comet was seen I was 7 yrs and in 2061 Anna will be in her 50's!! And I will be in my 80's!!

History
For history this week we studied Richard the Lionhearted, John Lackland and Robin Hood. This was a really great week of reading and learning characters, no doubt it was easier for them because of being somewhat familiar with Robin Hood through the old, animated Disney version (which we DID watch)!

Besides reading our book, narration, reading extra books, we also made a comparison lapbook element from here. And the kids made replicas of Richard the Lionhearted's shield. We still need a couple of staples before they are complete, so we don't have pics:(

After reading our section on Robin Hood and coloring the picture, the kids drew their own Robin Hood pics... here is Chris in the process:) His finished picture included Robin dressed in green for camouflage which was in many of the books we read... and it's not like Chris to keep with the color schemes... but the camo was important enough to him... along with Robin's bow and arrow;)
I love how much information they soaked up and how excited they were about learning about Robin Hood, Richard and Prince John:) I know it from how much they have talked about, asked to read more and hearing them PLAY what we've read and talked about during their own playtime!!

Picture of the Week:
This is a blurry pic of Chris helping Lydia with one of her workbook pages. She was trying to do "School" when we had our company over Wed morning... we had 7 kids 8 and under... and Lydia is trying to "school"!! Good thing she has an older brother to help her;)


We're trying to stay warm through this chilly, wet weekend and looking forward to next week:)

And I'm linking up to the Weekly Wrap-up;)