Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Double Weekly Wrap-Up... again

Another two week wrap-up:) I just can't seem to get a schedule that allows for a lot of blog time:)

Bible
We have continued learning one of the "ways" each week. The week before last it was being diligent to ready the Bible and pray. And this week it was honoring and obeying parents (and other's in authority).

I think Our 24 Family Ways is a good study for us. We have learned the "ways" and Bible verse for each. Everyday we have fun questions that make us think and a Bible "study" that really drives home the point. But I do wonder if the conversations are a little "above" my children's heads... but the coloring sheets, verses and even the "ways" are what we need right now.

Language Arts
Not sure how to wrap-up two weeks of Grammar, Spelling, Reading and Writing;) We've been busy and are still on speaking terms.... so everything is great:)

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a linking verb activity.... loved Chris' sentence "I am awesome!"


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Lydia writing her own narration for Writing... yay!!!

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Chris is soo diligent and neat during Copywork assignments!
Just a quick "what we're reading"!! Anna is working her way through the American Girl series... they are too easy for her but she started the books over the summer and she really wants to finish the ones our library has. Lydia has discovered Magic Tree House books.... she's almost reading them alone!! Just too funny seeing her with chapter books. And Chris is all over the map with books... this week his favorite was an "eye spy" history book and an "I can read" super heroes book;)

Math
IMG_0977We were on top of math these last two  weeks.

Anna is still doing some review in Saxon 54. She likes the DIVE CD's she uses to "teach her the lesson".... more on that later. But the practice problems at the end stress her out, so I've been circling the problems I feel like she should complete each day and weeding out the types of problems she has already been successful at completing accurately..... it gets us through the lessons, ya know!!

I still have to chuckle at Lydia getting 4 lessons ahead in math from working ahead individually on her math:) She's a motivated little kid;) She loves worksheets and likes to "do her work"!! Of course then she burns out after that much math and fusses about doing a spelling activity;) LOL!!

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Lydia working on patterns by making fences for animals;)

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On the other side of the table, Chris is also doing a great job with math:) He's my busy boy so I get to sit with him through most sessions:) His excitement of the week was counting how many pasta pieces were in the pasta box.... we put them in cups of 10 and 100:)
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BTW.... my girls have been very faithful in using xtramath.org!! I can really tell the difference in their math facts abilities!!

Science
We've done 4 experiments since the last time I posted a weekly wrap-up... so we're right on schedule... YAY!!  The first one was watching smoke rise into a warm jar and not rise in the cooled jar... pretty cool! Funny thing though was that the direction called for someone to blow cigarette smoke into the jar... ha ha haaa!! Had a chuckle about that.... good 'ole CLASSIC science book!

We also had two FLOPS :(   One was nailing a hole into a jug...
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to see if the water would stay in the jug when it was closed tightly (possibly air-tight). Unfortunately it leaked immediately :/
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We concluded that the jug probably wasn't air tight and we have another container to try this week:) Hoping for better results... LOL!! But I think it was good it didn't work prefectly so we could brainstorm reasons the experiment didn't work.

IMG_1011And no time is ever wasted... they went from flopped experiment to playing with a Cicada!

Not quite physics... unless you try to figure out the path/speed your sisters will run when you chase them with the Cicada!!

Oh, and that's our ancient cigarette smoking Physics book;) LOL!!


History
I've been slack about making fun activities with our history, especially since these weeks we've been studying about South American countries gaining independence and then Mexico fighting for independence.  It's been reading, narrating, coloring corresponding pages (which they love doing) and then our maps!

We've really enjoyed reading some Cornerstone/Fiesta magazines that  correspond to our history topics;) Our Children's Librarian found them and it's been soo nice especially since there's not many resources for some of our topics and that the magazines are written for an elementary/early middle school age group so the kids enjoy them.

We have some activities for this week's history topic that are fun and more hands-on:)


Art
We are continuing to talk about Van Gogh and his art pieces!! The kids really have enjoyed talking about the pieces and enjoy art because it is more of a dialogue time versus another pencil-and-paper requirement. I've enjoyed sitting on the floor with them with our Van Gogh books open and listening to all their comments;)

We did attempt from Va Gogh-like sunflowers. We had a crew that day so it was a little crazy:)
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the "one Friday morning" crew working on an art project... for a moment... LOL!!

Tot in the Schoolroom
So wished I was organized enough to school Nate right now.... but I really think he's not ready just yet! We still have plenty of pre-schooling things to work on.... like not banging in all the marker tips, sharing (or at least NOT grabbing toys out of other's hands), cleaning up before moving onto another toy, etc!! Little steps;)

But he keeps himself busy! When he's not stealing apples from the fridge, he's....

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Play-doh.... pan and blanket to attempt to contain the Play-Doh mess:)

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Hammering "nails" into the couch... by far his favorite thing to do:)

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reading... while sitting ON the toy shelf:)

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and finally he crashed.... an afternoon nap on the couch since we had a workman in the house.

Slowly you are getting to see our "school room", too!! I'm really hoping to have another project or two finished soon and will be able to show you a little more. It's not designer... we used a lot of what we already had or could fix up!! But we are sooo blessed with our room and the things we've been able to use/find!!

Ok... so now we're all wrapped- up:)

1 comment:

Jenny said...

What a great 2 weeks. I had to LOL about you saying that you all are still on speaking terms.

That is so great that Lydia has started handwriting her narrations and Chris' handwriting looks awesome!

Your kids are so smart and so cute!