Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
We now resume our regularly scheduled programming...
So, it's been a while since I've posted. Thankfully not due to any unforeseen emergencies or illnesses, but rather due to my own laziness. Once Thanksgiving hits, I usually go into full panic mode over Christmas shopping, creating that *perfect* holiday card, and trying not to consume all of the yummy treats & goodies in sight. This year I managed to meet 2 of those 3 goals. So on January 2nd, I joined Weight Watchers...but that's another story altogether.
I'm sure that you, my one or two faithful readers, are more interested in what we've been up to at EEA over the past few weeks. For simplicity's sake--and since we've just completed week #18--we'll jump into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine to the time of the dinosaurs when I attended elementary school. Back then, we got our report cards every six weeks. So I'll just call this EEA's Six-Week Report.
LANGUAGE ARTS: Grace just completed Lesson 11 in SWO-B. I've incorporated a bit here & there from SWR (mainly markings & spelling rules) as we've gone along to reinforce the lessons. In FLL, we gone through Lesson 124, occasionally supplementing with the FlashKids Language Arts workbook for additional practice. This past week we've also been ramping up from all copywork to more dictation.
READING: Once again, it seems that Grace's reading is taking off! Both fluency & comprehension. For her read-aloud-to-me time, we've started using Elson Readers-Book 2. Great stories that have prompted some interesting discussions. I've also started adding in selections from McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading on a regular basis. And this week I had Grace take the DIBELS assessment. All of the testing materials, as well as instructions on giving & scoring the test are available for FREE (my favorite price) on the Official DIBELS Home Page. For independent reading, Grace has been choosing her own books. This week she started Nancy Drew & the Clue Crew : The Cinderella Ballet Mystery. We finished our read-aloud of Mr. Popper's Penguins many moons ago and have since gone through a variety of holiday & winter selections. We are now about 3/4 of the way finished with Mary Poppins. It's not quite the same as the movie, but very, very interesting.
MATH: Still groovin' right along in Horizons 2. Grace just finished Lesson 66, and--I'm soooooo excited--we've started multiplication. (You're not the first to think my math-induced elation is strange.) And...great math moment...I know some of you have heard this story before--a few times. We were at the park sometime last month. Grace & Emma were on the playground with another 7-year-old kid. He was doing some math problems out loud. The usual garden variety 10+10=20, 20+20=40, etc. Then he decided to get tricky and said, "100+23+123=223." I looked at Grace--who had this *that-don't-sound-quite-right* look on her face. Then, without missing a beat, she said (somewhat politely), "No it's not. It's 246." Mental math--on the playground. I'm so proud...
HISTORY & SCIENCE: The whole month of December was quite light on these subjects. But we've started the year with renewed vigor. We've made it through Ch. 13 in SOTW, and we've starting the "Human Body" portion of our life science studies this year. We've read a slew of library books on various topics. So far, Grace's favorite has been germs. And, today I purchased "The Five Senses" & "The Human Body" lapbook e-books from Hands of a Child. They are having an awesome sale this weekend. I've had my eye on their project packs for quite a while, so 45% off was a great incentive for me to try some.
OTHER: Spanish also seemed to suffer during the holiday season. We're just starting up again with Elementary Spanish Unit 2. Co-op is still going well...although we had an unplanned break this week due to snow. Now I just need to get those snow pics from camera to computer. I've also started researching curriculum options for next year. I'm thinking of something a little more formal for Emma next year...maybe Horizon's new Preschool???
And that brings our recap to a close. Sorry there are no pictures this time, but I did change the blog banner from the pumpkin patch photo...
I'm sure that you, my one or two faithful readers, are more interested in what we've been up to at EEA over the past few weeks. For simplicity's sake--and since we've just completed week #18--we'll jump into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine to the time of the dinosaurs when I attended elementary school. Back then, we got our report cards every six weeks. So I'll just call this EEA's Six-Week Report.
LANGUAGE ARTS: Grace just completed Lesson 11 in SWO-B. I've incorporated a bit here & there from SWR (mainly markings & spelling rules) as we've gone along to reinforce the lessons. In FLL, we gone through Lesson 124, occasionally supplementing with the FlashKids Language Arts workbook for additional practice. This past week we've also been ramping up from all copywork to more dictation.
READING: Once again, it seems that Grace's reading is taking off! Both fluency & comprehension. For her read-aloud-to-me time, we've started using Elson Readers-Book 2. Great stories that have prompted some interesting discussions. I've also started adding in selections from McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading on a regular basis. And this week I had Grace take the DIBELS assessment. All of the testing materials, as well as instructions on giving & scoring the test are available for FREE (my favorite price) on the Official DIBELS Home Page. For independent reading, Grace has been choosing her own books. This week she started Nancy Drew & the Clue Crew : The Cinderella Ballet Mystery. We finished our read-aloud of Mr. Popper's Penguins many moons ago and have since gone through a variety of holiday & winter selections. We are now about 3/4 of the way finished with Mary Poppins. It's not quite the same as the movie, but very, very interesting.
MATH: Still groovin' right along in Horizons 2. Grace just finished Lesson 66, and--I'm soooooo excited--we've started multiplication. (You're not the first to think my math-induced elation is strange.) And...great math moment...I know some of you have heard this story before--a few times. We were at the park sometime last month. Grace & Emma were on the playground with another 7-year-old kid. He was doing some math problems out loud. The usual garden variety 10+10=20, 20+20=40, etc. Then he decided to get tricky and said, "100+23+123=223." I looked at Grace--who had this *that-don't-sound-quite-right* look on her face. Then, without missing a beat, she said (somewhat politely), "No it's not. It's 246." Mental math--on the playground. I'm so proud...
HISTORY & SCIENCE: The whole month of December was quite light on these subjects. But we've started the year with renewed vigor. We've made it through Ch. 13 in SOTW, and we've starting the "Human Body" portion of our life science studies this year. We've read a slew of library books on various topics. So far, Grace's favorite has been germs. And, today I purchased "The Five Senses" & "The Human Body" lapbook e-books from Hands of a Child. They are having an awesome sale this weekend. I've had my eye on their project packs for quite a while, so 45% off was a great incentive for me to try some.
OTHER: Spanish also seemed to suffer during the holiday season. We're just starting up again with Elementary Spanish Unit 2. Co-op is still going well...although we had an unplanned break this week due to snow. Now I just need to get those snow pics from camera to computer. I've also started researching curriculum options for next year. I'm thinking of something a little more formal for Emma next year...maybe Horizon's new Preschool???
And that brings our recap to a close. Sorry there are no pictures this time, but I did change the blog banner from the pumpkin patch photo...
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