Weekly Wrap Up

Bible
 In the beginning of the week I didn't really have my act together as far as starting the Advent study from A Holy Experience. But we got on the ball later in the week and have a couple of lessons to do to "catch up"! I printed the "ornaments" from the lessons and I had the kids color the one from the lessons we did complete... they liked that:)

Before starting the Advent studies we read about Jeremiah and wisdom from Proverbs. Both were from a little reading that turned into a conversation... I just love it when that happens;)

Language Arts
Last week I had Chris and Lydia doing the same spelling words. We did the Days of the Week. Chris almost knew how to spell each word and Lydia was starting from guessing what each day said based on the beginning sound;)

Here is a website and some activities that we used :

• Kids Learning Station - Days of the Week
• Each copied the Days of the Week on their own notecards... we used them for a memory game as well as flashcards;)
• Practiced spelling the words in flour

By the end of the week, both Chris and Lydia recognized the Days of the Week words, could read them and put them in order. But we still need to work on the spelling a bit. So they will continue to practice those words a little longer;)

Anna is learning yet another poem through First Language Lessons! I have been very please with  the poems that she has learned so quickly! Just a reminder of how much their little brains can soak in right now! And it's a nice "break" from all the sentence diagramming :)


Math
We did our normal lessons but again with Saxon... there is always some hands-on activity to do. On Monday I combined Lydia and Anna's lessons since they were both learning about using 1 cup to find the "volume" of containers around the kitchen... Chris, jumped in to participate (of course)!!

On Tuesday Anna's lesson included learning the parts that make up a gallon... ie pints, quarts, etc!!  We used Gallon Man to help us;)

Chris is only 6 more lessons away from completing 1st grade math!! He started last December, so he's right on time as far as completing the "year" in a year:) I feel like such a big accomplishment for us;)

History
Last week we were in Chpt 6 of vol 3 of Story of the World and it was about the start of slavery in the colonies and then highlighted the Portuguese in Africa. Slavery is such a sensitive topic and I wasn't sure how my children would handle it. With the use of some helpful library books, it really brought this tough topic to life while being sensitive to my younger children (ages 7-4).... so I definitely suggest hunting down some library books to "bring this topic to life".

I wish we had found more time to do the activities... we read, narrated, colored and mapped... and by then our little Nate was ready for Momma's attention again:/ Thankfully a couple of mornings he napped:)



Other
Monday was beautiful... we enjoyed a picnic lunch together, raked up leaves and then played in them!!

We spent one evening putting up our Christmas tree together!! We've had our little Christmas tree for a LONG time... we bought it days after our 1st Christmas married:) And there were many years I waited before the kids when to bed to put it up, but it's a lot more fun to have the kids helping... although getting all the right pieces in the right places and warding off jousting with branches was a little challenging;)