Week #3 In Review

We're continuing to figure out the lay of the land in Homeschooling World. Luckily we have a compass. And snacks. Especially coffee & chocolate for the teacher. :) I'm happy to report that LOTS of things are going well. Here are highlights from this past week:

LANGUAGE ARTS: Hooray for SWR! We completed Section D this week & spent time on multi-letter phonograms covered in Lists A-D. We even had a rousing round of Phonogram BINGO, which did double duty with the soon-to-be-3yo set. I gave Emma card #1 (single letters only) and Grace card #3 (multi-letter phonograms), then took turns calling sounds to each of them. The first to cover the entire card "won." Of course, I made it so that they basically came out even. It was great to see Grace helping Emma with the few sounds that she didn't know. We also did a couple of lessons from FLL focusing on picture narration & story narration. I decided to take a break from nouns this week. I'm pretty sure Grace didn't mind.

READING: We finished our read-aloud selection, "Charlotte's Web." Man, I'd forgotten what a gut wrencher that one is. It's not like I didn't know Charlotte was going to die...it's the way she dies. Or, more specifically, the way E.B. White writes about her death. Heart-breaking...even if she is a spider. If you haven't picked up a "classic" children's book in a while, this one certainly gets our vote. In other notable news, Grace's independent reading consisted of two "Amelia Bedelia" books, "Little Bear," and a Halloween book that she picked out on our most recent library trip..."The House That Drac Built." I also have her *help* me read whenever possible. I think she's on to me, though. Tonight I asked her to "help me out" with a book, and she groaned & said, "Oh no! That means I have to read the whole thing!" Out of the mouths of babes...

MATH: Not much has changed this week. Grace still LOVES it when we play Pyramid and Go to the Dump; and she LOVES her MathShark. But she groans, moans, and drags her feet anytime I pull out a math worksheet. Despite this, we still managed to get a couple of lessons done in Horizons 2, and one in Singapore PM 1A. Slowly, but surely, she's getting the "making 10s" concept down. BTW, Math Mammoth is good "extra practice" for Singapore. We used the "Adding with 9" worksheet in Math Mammoth 2A alongside our lesson in Singapore.

HISTORY & SCIENCE: We completed Ch. 2 "Ancient Egyptians Lived on the Nile River" in SOTW1, including narrations, illustrated copywork, and some videos on Ancient Egypt from United Streaming. We shared the reading of "Archaeologists Dig for Clues." (Yes, I know this technically *goes* with last week's SOTW chapters...) In life science, we discussed habitats & food chains using Kingfisher's "First Encyclopedia of Animals" and "First Picture Atlas of Animals" as our spines. We also did a shared reading of "Magic School Bus Hops Home: A Book About Animal Habitats" and "Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book About Food Chains." Gotta love the Friz.

CHARACTER: This week we focused on house rule #3--"Always tell the truth." Plenty of good reading on this subject. Our favorites were "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "George Washington and the Cherry Tree." Versions of both stories can be found in "The Children's Book of Virtues" by William J. Bennett.

CO-OP: Still going well. In art class, Grace started working on her paper mache bowl...using a balloon, a large yogurt container, and the lid from a small yogurt container. In musical theater, the class started learning the song & dance for "Zippity Do Da." Emma joined in from the back row. In gymnastics, Grace is learning how to do a handstand. As for Emma...she was definitely more comfortable in preschool storytime this week...she even left my side! :) Next week--across the room?!?!? You'll have to stay tuned to find out...