This week, I found that, again, it is hard to accomplish everything that I want to do. Nonetheless, I am very pleased with how on schedule we STILL are. The things that go by the wayside a bit are the following:
Spanish: Beginning Phrases and Words for colors, people, etc. I have two simple workbooks for them and all I need to do is just have a block of time set up ONCE a week. I did that two weeks in a row but not this week! OOPS!
History: History was TOUGH to do this week. I don't know why. My kids aren't into the activities so much this year, at least crossword puzzles or word searches. They do like to listen to the Story of the World CD, thank goodness. I included a movie about the history of Israel, and we discussed some of the Jewish culture, and have looked at books on Israel that past couple weeks. Next week it's on to a different topic in history. We are doing the "ancients" for history this year, but will definitely be working on American history at some point as well. I guess this week's History wasn't THAT bad, but we don't spend a lot of time on it. Coincidentally, this month's "country" (for geography) was Israel which tied nicely with our SOTW studies!
Hmm, so maybe Spanish was the only thing that we didn't get accomplished.
Philip's handwriting is really improving, but he doesn't show the confidence I know he has with reading. We're going to continue hitting that hard this week, using some sorting activities. Philip completed 23 math problems in 2 minutes, as a little quiz I gave him. He got all 23 correct, and these were problems with addition up to 5. Some were the same, which gave him some reinforcement. Next week, I will add some more addition problems that he hasn't done, such as up to 8 (or maybe I'll try up to 10!).
Ella has enjoyed her math so much more this year. Let me tell you, it was a struggle last year. This year, with the combination of Abeka and Saxon, it's given her, as mentioned before it has given her positive reinforcement of what she does know and yet, of course, continues to teach her new things. I keep thinking, we are a little month into our math curriculum and she has improved in the following aspects:
knowing place value
small addition facts via oral and written, with correctness and efficiency
understanding some different ways of presenting story problems
Spelling is increasingly stable OR better. Phonics, English, Reading, all GREAT.
With health, we continue to work on the "human body" a couple times a week. We did two activites this week! First, taping our hands so we see how important our individual fingers (bones) are. And, we placed a small bone of a chicken I cooked this week into a small cup of vinegar. The result? A bendy bone! We also talked about good posture, benefits of good nuturition for our bones, and naming certain types of joints.
As far as art, I have to toot my own horn. We are definitely art people here, I am finding out this year. I NEED to implement more art because I see it really helps Philip's fine motor skills and understanding of what I am saying. Ella is having to LISTEN to my instructions, and sometimes she mistakes what I say, but it is helping her understand the importance of LISTENING. She also is so imaginative and loves to draw on her own. We had a couple Mother-Daughter sketching dates this week where we just sat next to each other and drew. Delightful!
So, we did two projects, but only the first HALF of each project, as they needed the glue to dry. Our first project involved drawing a design on black paper, then outlining it with glue. We will color the picture in with chalk pastels . The picture is of Indian Corn with various swirls and shapes around it. Our second "fall" project are paper towel leaves pasted with a mixture of glue and water on watercolor paper. We will outline our leaves and use very watered down watercolors to fill the leaves in and the space around them. I found both of these projects here! I LOVE the ideas presented and find them easy to plan for!
When there are plenty of fall leaves on the ground to choose from, we will do the butterfly leaves project using leaves as the butterfly wings. The other two I'd like to try is the step by step instructions for drawing a maple leaf as well as a fall tree! I also like the idea of a fall watercolor tree collage OR the fall pastel landscape. To see these projects, just search using the word "fall" once you get to the Art Projects for Kids website. Since we've been working on the aspect of "lines" in art, I would like to do the contour fall leaves.
I did forget to mention our science....we made a weather vane using a plastic cup, paper, pencil, tac, and clay to see how the wind blows. Ella discovered that we had quite the north wind yesterday morning! We also looked at how water is displaced (or moved) by floating objects, NOT sinking objects. Even Philip caught that detail.
Our week finished strong!
Blessings,
AMY
Sounds like homeschooling is going well for you! Love that the geography and history lessons tied together - that's when the best learning can occur!
Posted by: Ally | 09/25/2010 at 12:37 PM