Monday, May 28, 2012

Weekly Wrap Up : Last Offical Week & Summer Plans

YAY for our official start of summer.... aka packing:) LOL!!! Actually with our "moving date" still unknown we've used our time sorting, cleaning out and preparing for a yard sale more than boxing things up!!!

Our official school year ended pretty uneventfully:/ But we were all glad to be finished with the pile of books for a while and enjoy outside and sleeping in a bit more;) Here's what we DID work on though;)

Bible
Reading through our Bible Storybook, mostly about the missionary journeys about Paul! The kids really got into the situation surrounding Paul's final journey to Jerusalem and arrest.

We've also been praying for Truman! And are thankful for his continued good progress.

For the summer... we are going to learn about and memorize the Lord's Prayer. We have talked and I thought memorized it before... but they don't know it. So I feel like it's pretty foundational and we all can learn about praying!

Math
This was the last subject lingering!!

Chris finished last week, so this week he practice his math facts on a computer game! He worked about 10 or so minutes each morning on his addition facts.

Lydia finished her final assignments for Saxon 1... she has loved learning her math facts and getting all her work finished like Chris and Anna:) I worried about starting Saxon 1 (skipping over Saxon K) but Lydia has handled it well (just like Chris and Anna). I think it really has to do with the fact that the kids enter Saxon 1 with math basics from Kindergarten workbooks (they do for fun during pre-K) and Lydia has also heard her older siblings;)

The other thing about doing Saxon 1 with Lydia has been taking it slow. If she really put forth an effort but is still not focused or "too tired" to finish a lesson, we just finish it the next day. For assessment days, we spread it to two days. One day for the assessment and the other day for the lesson and practice sheets. My goal for her isn't finishing everything at some record-breaking speed, but during this first year of schooling that she enjoys school/math and really learns the basic concepts!

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Anna also finished her last lessons (about graphing coordinate points) and assessment!! While she worked on her last assessment I went through her math notebook and collected ALL the assessments (the only things I keep)! I quickly realized that I had dropped the ball in thoroughly checking her assessments.... there were some undone problems :(

So the rest of the week, Anna and I spent time going through her older assessments and completing those problems. It was actually a good review since we also had conversations about the other problems on the assessments as well. We have to correct answers to her final assessments on Monday and then we can pack up MATH:)

For the summer... we will be working solely on math facts!! I have a couple of different methods/games/resources for the kids to use to practice their math facts. I hoping to let the kids pick which method we will use each day.  As well as having a chart for them to record when they learn the families... that is the goal, at least:)

Language Arts
We already finished all of our Grammar and spelling for the year!! The only thing that continues for us is READING!! 

Lydia and Chris each read a lesson (or more!!) from Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading this week. We also tried to spend some time reading library books. In choosing library books, I was very careful to get books I thought we could try to read together. And we did:)

The books we read were both from series by Cynthia Rylant. One was Poppleton. And the other was Mr Putter and Tabby (we read Toots the Horn).

These series were also favorites of Anna when she was an early reader. I like that they are a simple story and very entertaining! They though contain some pretty unique and challenging words so I definitely need to read with Chris and Lydia right now. Although once they read it with me sometimes they like to practice on their own.

My two little emergent readers are soo different though. Chris is still a little too busy to read for long... he'll read a set amount of time usually like 10 or 15 minutes. Lydia though.... if she likes the book.... she'll have me with her all day!!! At least it feels like it!! She really enjoys reading and really likes that she is able to read "big, chapter books"... like Poppleton:) LOL!!

For the summer.... I will continue to work through OPG with Lydia and Chris as well as practice reading in library books. Anna will read library/home books as well. She is also supposed to be keeping a list of words she doesn't know from her reading. We also love reading aloud while Nate falls asleep;)

Our whole family will participate in the Summer Reading Program at our local library:)

History
This week we stayed in France to talk about Napolean. Again, it was soo cool to read more about this very interesting world leader. When I hear the name Napolean I think the middle ages... it's amazing to think that he ruled during the same time period Jane Austen was writing Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park!

As I read the kids painted a picture of Napolean from our SOTW Activity Book. We reviewed the chapter a bit and then shared some of the most memorable parts with Daddy over dinner.
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We also discussed William Blake who was a poet during the time period as well:)

We have more to do with Napolean this week:) A review game, some internet resources and to finish the story of how much he conquered and finally how he was defeated.

We didn't have many outside reading resources about Napolean :( But we were able to find a book called Why Not Lafaytte? by Jean Fritz . This is a very interesting book just because Lafayette fought with the Americans in the American Revolution and then his life during the reign of Terror and rule of Napolean! Fun to get a time line perspective of these events and how they connect!

We are still working through this book this week which is perfect as we finish learning about Napolean!

For the summer... we will continue to work through Story of the World vol 3!  It's nice to spend the summer studying through history, reading great books about the history topics and possibly have a little more time to do activities and dig deeper when we can:)

Science
In an effort to give the kids a little more Chemistry, we read through the section of molecules ion our Usborne encyclopedia and then made our own molecules;)


I saw this activity using gum drop candies, but I had forgotten to pick some up at the grocery store... so we just used Play-Doh!
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Getting ready with molecule list, key in the corner and making H2O as an example.

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Anna hard at work!!
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Even Lydia did one.... Chris opted out :(
For the summer...  we will continue to work through the Matter section of our science encyclopedia and set aside time to make it fun and use the Internet links when available:)


Other
Since it is summer... at least around here... we spent a LOT of time outside (when it wasn't storming)! Gotta love picnics and mud puddles!!!
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BTW... that was also the day when both boys had 3 baths!!! Teaching this momma to let go of the "momma to do" list and let them get dirty and make great memories;)


Linking up to Weekly Wrap-Up! And Science Sunday @ Adventures in Mommydom!

2 comments:

Jenny said...

The playdough molecules are really neat!

You all always do fun stuff. Abby loves coordinates. In fact, she loves all math, except the math facts. LOL!

LOL about the boys needing 3 baths in one day. Sounds about right.

Good luck with the yard sale!

Ticia said...

I was reading through and got stuck on Lafayette. The play dough molecules was cool, but I hadn't really thought about Lafayette's life after the Revolution and how he would have gone through the Reign of Terror. I'm going to have to get that book now, I'm horribly curious.

Thanks for linking to Science Sunday!

Oh, and the gum drops would have been cooler because you could eat them, but play dough, less sticky, so that cut down on one bath at least......