Weekly Wrap-up: 10/11/10-10/15/10

Another week done.   We had a good week for outside activities and playing but a poor week for formal school.   That’s how it goes when we finally get some gorgeous Fall weather after weeks of almost constant rain.

We started the week with a trip apple picking with some friends.  More on that here.

We took a couple of Nature Walks this week down to the mailbox.  The bright colorful leaves against the deep blue sky was beautiful.  The pictures really don’t do it justice.


As always, the kids took a break on their favorite rock.


We did do a few pages of phonics and writing this week.   I’m watching Georgie more closely these days to make sure he forms his letters properly.  I’m also trying to encourage him to write more lowercase letters.  He feels uppercase are easier and prefers to write everything that way.

We started with the RS Abacus and Activity book this week.  So far we have just played around with it showing how to make various quantities on each line.  The hardest part with this was keeping Georgie from going off on tangents (we have a similar problem with the AAS tiles).   Some of the first few lessons will be too easy for him so we’ll probably skip around or keep the lessons quick in the beginning.  I think Vicki might benefit from some of the counting exercises if I can get her to show any interest in them.

We finished up our short Maps unit.  Over the weekend, Georgie worked with Granny Franny on his giant floor puzzle of the United States.  She offered him hints on where to place the pieces – to the North, to the East, etc.   A great fun way for him to practice and show that he really understood the concepts.

Vicki did a lot of painting this week.   I pulled out some paint pens I had forgotten we had.  I like these a lot because unlike other ones I’ve seen, they have an actual brush tip (others have a felt tip, like a marker).  She can use these easily without having to rinse off a brush – something that she tends to not bother with and always results in a uniform brownish color to all her paintings.  They are also somewhat less messy since there are no open containers of paint or water to spill.  She was even pretty good about putting the caps back on them.


Over the next couple of weeks we will be doing periodic Halloween activities interspersed among our regularly scheduled topics (History and Native Americans).