Bi-Weekly Update – Weeks #19 & 20

Here's a brief summary of our last two weeks:

LANGUAGE ARTS: The combination of SWO with SWR markings & rules is really working well. The "Warm-Up Test" from the SWO lesson helps identify particular spelling rules that we need to spend some extra time reviewing. Then we'll mark the words & I'll dictate sentences for any words that Grace missed. In FLL, we're slowly making progress. Some days it's easy to combine lessons, and Grace has finished copying & illustrating "The Months" by Sara Coleridge...it's all ready to be bound into a book.



READING: I highly recommend the Elson Readers. Well, at least Book 2 in the series, since that's all we've used so far. Grace reads about 8-10 pages aloud to me each day from it, and then 2-3 times a week I'll have her do one of the McCall-Crabbs readings. This combination has really bolstered her fluency and--most importantly--her reading confidence! She continues to read independently at bedtime and has finished her second Nancy Drew & the Clue Crew book. We finished our read-aloud of Mary Poppins and have started reading Nancy Drew Mysteries #2: The Hidden Staircase. Grace even read the first chapter in the book aloud to me one afternoon, because she wanted to read "something even harder" than her Elson Reader material. It took some extra time...and lots of sounding out words...but she read that entire chapter to me in one sitting!

MATH: Math continues to be one of the high points in our day. And really...shouldn't math be a high point in everyone's day?!?!? Subtraction is getting easier & easier for Grace with more practice, and she's been pretty quick to catch on to multiplication (by 0, 1, 5, & 10 so far). Last week she started adding three 2-digit numbers without even batting one of her long lashes.



HISTORY & SCIENCE: Two more chapters down in SOTW1. Then a brief pause while awaiting the arrival of my Sonlight order. Tomorrow we will pick up at week 17 in SL Core 1, using SOTW as our "spine" instead of CHOW. Although I reserve the right to change my mind on that one. :) In science, we've learned about hair, skin & nails, and Grace has started working on her "Five Senses" lapbook from HOAC. Grace & Emma each filled in the face to add to their body outlines:




OTHER: We're working on Unit 2 from the Elementary Spanish series which, coincidentally, is about mi cuerpo. It'll be nice to label the girlies' body outlines in both English & Español. Also, we've worked through the first 6 units from the Spanish for Children cd & workbook, watched a couple of TOPS! episodes (kind of a game show format), and Grace has almost finished her first letter to her Spanish penpal. I'm really enjoying learning Spanish alongside the girls. It was an especially thrilling moment for me at a restaurant restroom this weekend when I could read the Spanish part of the handwashing poster. Not quite as exciting as math, I know, but still...

AND IN CLOSING: {brag alert} The other morning Emma was busily working with her Fridge Phonics letters and...quite proudly...spelled these gems on her own. These are the little moments that make your heart melt.