Friday, February 8, 2013

Weekly Wrap-up

We called school for the weekend a day early thanks to the impending blizzard.   While homeschoolers don’t get snow days (and our local schools actually only have an early closing), daddy is home, everyone is snuggled under blankets, and we still had a really good week.

One of our activities this week was starting our study of Native Americans by learning about the Inuit.   If I was brave (and younger with less aches and pains) I’d take the kids out in the snow to experience some of what it’s like to live as an Inuit.  Instead, our indoor activities will have to do.

IMG_1777

We also continued with our human body study by learning about the skeletal system

I also did an updated Day In the Life post on Monday, to reflect our new set-up and routine.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Vicki

Vicki added short /u/ words and the high-frequency words are, one, two and go to her word book.  She also gave “three cheers for the first Z words, woo hoo”. 

She is up to Lesson 40 in OPGTR and will begin two letter blends very shortly.  She is slow but fairly accurate with reading cvc words.

She is almost done with ETC Book 1 and completed pages 73 through 82 this week.

She completed two pages of HWT and has gotten much better at writing her name.  Making extra guiding dots made a big difference to her confidence and willingness to really try.

We played a game of Mouse House this week to work on rhymes (from Scholastic Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success).

George

George did two pages of HWT this week.   He is half way through the 2nd grade book and still has a tendency to write in capital letters everywhere but it his workbook.  We will start using Brave Writer soon, including copywork, and hopefully the extra practice outside of the workbook will help.

He completed two pages from Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension 3rd Grade without any difficulties.  We will try a few pages from the 4th Grade level next week and then decide which is the best fit for him.

He did four pages in his Spectrum Grammar, and four pages from Spectrum Language Arts.  I haven’t decided if we will continue these once we start Brave Writer.  Once I get a better look at The Arrow and Jot It Down, I will make that decision.

He did an additional reading comprehension activity from Skill Sharpeners Reading Grade 4.  I really liked the activities in this one.  New vocabulary words, synonyms, alphabetizing by the third or fourth letter, and a logic grid puzzle.

He read the three stories found in Tales from My Father’s Dragon this week, but is still more likely to reread his Magic Tree House books rather than something new.

Three Tales of My Father's Dragon

MATH

Vicki

Vicki did the last two pages from her Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math – Kindergarten and two pages from MM1A.   She’s getting a little bored with all the addition in MM so we may move a little faster with these.

She did addition drills using some file folder games, did some tangram puzzles using magnetic shapes, and did some hundred chart activities.

George

George did two of his riddles from Scholastic Solve the Riddle Math Practice book.   He’s gotten a lot better at these and hopefully it’s improving his recollection of basic math facts.

He did just one page from Beast Academy.   He just started the hundred’s chart chapter and for some reason he chose to do the worksheet according to what was described in the Guide Book, instead of following the directions on the page.  Weird since what he was doing was much harder than what was actually asked for.  Once he read it more carefully, he didn’t have any difficulty at all.

He completed two pages from MM on multiplication, and two pages on fractions.

He played Xtra Math on the computer to drill addition facts, and played Gumball Bingo to drill multiplication.

EXTRAS

Vicki started taking sewing lessons from Grammy Kaye this week. 

George is continuing to enjoy his Pokemon League, although there were a few ringers there this week.

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