I’m way behind on my updates again. L I think I may start doing a Monthly Update
for all the general school stuff and then do separate posts when we do fun or
interesting things. That way the long,
detailed post is just once a month (which is what I’m averaging now anyway) and
I can do quicker, picture loaded posts when we do exciting or unusual stuff. J
So this month’s excuses - the kids have been taking turns
being sick for the past few weeks, the weather has been going through allergy
inducing changes, and my computer (yes, my new one!) died on me. (It’s back now, YEAH!)
We’ve been up to Stephanie’s school twice this month – once
to see her dance for the first time with the dance team at half time at the
football game, and once for Homecoming where we saw her dance with her sorority
in the showcase (Steph choreographed, taught and arranged the routine and did a
great job!), and dance once again at half-time with the dance team. Homecoming was lots of dancing, playing and
good food.
VICKI
Language Arts
Handwriting: Vicki is continuing to practice
handwriting using some workbooks that came with her Tag reader, some Draw Write Now (she is not a big fan of
drawing or coloring but she gives it a go) and will resume copywork with The Wand and WWE shortly.
Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Grade 2: She is up to Week 12 in the second grade book
and is doing great. The passages these
weeks worked on Character and Setting, Fantasy and Reality, Author’s
Purpose/Prediction, and Non Fiction Elements like Glossaries, Table of
Contents, and reading graphs and charts.
Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation Grade 2: Vicki
is continuing along with the nice, quick overview of Grammar rules. She covered periods, question marks and
exclamation marks, capitalizing proper names, places, days of week and
holidays, and finding nouns.
Evan Moor Word-A-Day Grade 2: Vicki has moved on to Evan Moor Word-A-Day, Grade 2. Her words so far have been dainty, pounce, generous, rambunctious, inquire, clench, monotone, attire, spectator, omit, brim, grumble. She comprehension seems strong so far.
Some of the bonus questions and her answers: J
Tell about a time you were acting rambunctious. What were you doing? What happened?
I ran in circles. I got dizzy.
I really like the variety of topics this program spirals through.
Handwriting:
George has finished his Scholastic
Cursive Writing Practice: Jokes and Riddles book. He will continue practicing using copywork
from WWE, The Arrow and his other programs.
His handwriting is looking pretty good these days. In honor of Halloween, here’s a nice skeleton
joke. :-)
In unit 8, he learned about pollution, how to spell words
with ie and ei, the suffixes ly and ness, using I and me. He missed one word – exactly from this list
but correctly spelled: biologist, fierce, worried, angrily, their, pollution,
hurried, darkness, pieces, weigh, and happiness. In addition to listing things he could do to
help with pollution, he wrote a persuasive paragraph telling people why they must stop pollution:Let’s destroy pollution that harms animals! Stinks up the
air! Dirtys the environment! Lets help
the biologists any way we can before the darkness! Bring happiness to spare!
Unit 9 included a passage about the Rafflesia flower of
Sumatra. He spelled all his words
correctly on his test: island, patience, mission, wonderful, design, caution,
government, addition, plentiful, limbs, predicament, and successful. This test emphasized words with suffixes ful
and ment, definitions of the above words, using can or may correctly.
Math Mammoth (4B): George has completed 4A and moved on to 4B. He really solidified his multiplication and division facts over the summer and it has thing going much smoother.
Evan Moor Word-A-Day Grade 2: Vicki has moved on to Evan Moor Word-A-Day, Grade 2. Her words so far have been dainty, pounce, generous, rambunctious, inquire, clench, monotone, attire, spectator, omit, brim, grumble. She comprehension seems strong so far.
Some of the bonus questions and her answers: J
Tell about a time you were acting rambunctious. What were you doing? What happened?
I ran in circles. I got dizzy.
When do you clench your fists? When I
punch my wall. (huh?)
What was your attire the last time you had to dress up for a
special occasion? Last Friday I wore a
Hello Kitty dress.
When you tell your family about your day at school, what
information might you omit? I’d omit what I forgot. (stating the
obvious, LOL).
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write, Grade 2: Vicki finished four more units of
spelling. She only missed one word –
send.
The first unit she learned about bees, spelling with long e,
identifying subjects and predicates, nouns, verbs, and had a writing assignment
to describe a new bug she discovered.
Her bugs name was Stan. He’s thin
and small, and brown. He lives in a jar,
walks to get around and looks like a stick.
She also had to describe how it would feel if she woke up to
be a bee. “It feels fine to be
small. Its fun to fly around. Its also
fun to sting.” What a kid. J
Her next unit was about going to the gym and covered words
ending in st and end, contractions, and capitalizing days of the week, months
of the year and holidays – a good cross over with her Grammar, and using I and
me.
Her next unit was on Blue Whales. She learned about words with oa, ong and aw,
contractions, is and are, apostrophes and using a graphic organizer.
Her last unit covered words with ay and ai, identifying
adjectives, using the pronouns we and us, and interpreting charts.I really like the variety of topics this program spirals through.
Reading: Vicki's been reading her way through the entire Baby Sitter's Little Sister series. In addition to an hour for school, she also reads for about 30 minutes each night.
Math
Math Mammoth 1B:
She has just two chapters left in 1B – Time and Money. She pretty much has both down from the other
supplemental stuff she’s been doing so she may move on to 2B and do one page
from 2B and one page from the Time or Money each day, to reinforce the
concepts.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Grade 2: Vicki has completed the first two units and
successful did the assessments for units one and two. These units covered number lines, graphs,
time, word problems, adding four numbers in columns, number words, money, place
value, tally marks, and measuring. A
very nice spiral review of concepts.
Scholastic Success with Addition/Subtraction Grade 2: A nice fun way to drill math facts with
pretty pictures of butterflies and flowers. J
Scholastic First Word Problems: Time and Money: She has completely finished this book and has
a great understanding of both time and money.
GEORGE
Language ArtsHandwriting:
George has finished his Scholastic
Cursive Writing Practice: Jokes and Riddles book. He will continue practicing using copywork
from WWE, The Arrow and his other programs.
His handwriting is looking pretty good these days. In honor of Halloween, here’s a nice skeleton
joke. :-)In unit 8, he learned about pollution, how to spell words
with ie and ei, the suffixes ly and ness, using I and me. He missed one word – exactly from this list
but correctly spelled: biologist, fierce, worried, angrily, their, pollution,
hurried, darkness, pieces, weigh, and happiness. In addition to listing things he could do to
help with pollution, he wrote a persuasive paragraph telling people why they must stop pollution:Let’s destroy pollution that harms animals! Stinks up the
air! Dirtys the environment! Lets help
the biologists any way we can before the darkness! Bring happiness to spare!
He wrote a passage about the poison arrow frog to
demonstrate appearance versus reality and had a good time writing his spelling words on the
picture.
Scholastic More Proofreading Practice Please: Since
George has finished his No Boring
Practice Please: Spelling, he has switched to proofreading practice to
alternate with his spelling. This allows
him to apply what he is learning in spelling and make sure the concepts are
sticking. It includes grammar and
spelling errors.
Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 5: George has just started the 5th
grade level of Reading Comprehension and is doing fine. This level requires a lot more inferring
information. He had activities for
finding the important information from charts, graphs and tables.
Evan Moor Word-A-Day – Grade 4: George has completed through Week 29. These weeks have covered the words maneuver,
frantic, peer, stagnant, unkempt, humdrum, replenish, agriculture, barricade,
betray, complement, defiant, diligent, efficient, outwit, glamorous. He’s definitely used a few of those words
lately. Like when he and Vicki decided
to barricade her bedroom door with
books, or he declared his water stagnant,
or that Vicki was being defiant and
should be punished.
He was able to name the only two “products of agriculture”
he will eat – corn and bananas – without getting into ingredients, and declared
“School is humdrum because it’s no fun.”
Writing with Ease:
He has completed the passages on The Happy Hollisters, Pollyanna, The Tale of
Benjamin Bunny and A Christmas Carol.
He is having difficulty narrating in full sentences so he is going to
complete WWE1 before moving on to WWE2.
MathMath Mammoth (4B): George has completed 4A and moved on to 4B. He really solidified his multiplication and division facts over the summer and it has thing going much smoother.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math – Grade 4: George is up to unit 6 and has worked on
completing tables, logic puzzles, estimating, coordinate graphing, time,
comparing fractions and decimals, patterns, map reading, and linear
measurement.
Evan Moor Daily Word Problems – Grade 4: George still
tries to answer these without writing out the steps but every so often he has
no choice.
For some fun drill and reinforcement of facts, George has
also been continuing with the Scholastic
Super Sudoku Math: Multiplication & Division Facts and Scholastic Fast Facts: Multiplication and
Division.
For even more fun he’s been doing Sudoku puzzles from Easy
Sukoku Puzzles by KrazyDad and logic grid puzzles from Mental Floss.
BOTH:
Extra-curriculars
Vicki is doing amazing in swimming lessons. After just one
session as a guppy, she’s moving up again to minnows.
They attended the first meeting of the Herpetology Heroes
4-H club this week. George volunteered to be the first one presenting a report
at next month’s meeting. He chose to do
it on a Blood Salamander.
We will be starting our Geography study to go along with the
postcard exchange shortly, doing some art on the weekends.
The kids have started studying Explorers in US History and
are back to working on Simple Machines in Science.
