As I mentioned last wrap-up, I’m going to switch to monthly
(sort of) wrap-ups to cover all the details of the daily work, and do separate
posts for history, science, field trips, projects, etc.
VICKI
Language Arts
Handwriting: Vicki has resumed copywork with The Wand and also has done an absolutely
adorable booklet on Columbus using Draw/Write/Now
(but you won’t get to see that one until I write up their Explorers unit).
She worked with the stories – Frog
and Toad Are Friends, Frog and Toad Together and Harry and the Lady Next Door. I think her handwriting isn't bad for a 7 year old.
Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Grade 2: She has no problem answering the questions
and discussion the passages. She’s
learning the difference between Fact and Opinion, how to find a Main Idea,
proper Sequencing, and Inferences.
Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation Grade 2: Vicki
has continued on to learning about Verbs, Compound Words, Pronouns,
Contractions, and how to determine when to use I or me, Us or We and Them or
They.
Evan Moor Word-A-Day Grade 2: We
combine this with learning how to use a dictionary by having her look up the
words each day. She often goes off on
tangents looking up words that interest her.
The latest words she had to study were topple, zany, putrid, echo,
infant, ability, dynamo, trivial, camouflage, hue, wince, compromise, flimsy,
grant, talented, and opinion.
The (slightly crazy) answers she gave to the follow-up
questions for this list:
Do you like acting zany
or being around someone who’s acting zany?
Why or Why not? Yes, I like to fool around.
Have you ever smelled something putrid? What was it? What
did you do? Yes. Poop in the toilet. I’d flush.
If you were in a place that made a good echo what would you like to say?
Hi me.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write, Grade 2: Vicki spelled all her words correctly for
these units. Her words were: good, book,
took, shook, school, soon, too, read, best, work (can you guess what digraph
was being worked on, LOL), now, down, shout, about, our, house, show, row,
part, start, stand, star, stone, flew, new, ring, bring, moon, sun, off, trip,
trees, train, stop, stopped, number, say, said, ride, fast.
In addition to the very obvious digraphs and diphthongs being
studied, these units also worked on writing a complete sentence, proper
punctuation, correct use of they or them, writing a personal narrative (Vicki’s
consisted of “I like reading and
music. I also like math. My brother likes writing.”), capitalizing
names, capitalizing I, greeting and closing of a letter, rhyming words, nouns,
pronouns, using commas in a list, adding –ed by doubling the consonant, and
writing a letter.
She also had to write a list of what she would take on a trip to space. She's overly optimistic with the multiple Ipods and Ipad.
Reading:
The kids spend an hour reading for school each day, and
additional time reading in the evening.
They keep a reading log of what they read during school. Vicki has been working her way through the
entire Babysitters Club Little Sister
series. She is also reading the books
for The Wand, lots of her Cat in the Hat Learning Series.
Math
Math Mammoth 1B:
She has moved on to 2B while finishing up the Time and Money chapters
from 1A. She is struggling a little bit
with remembering to regroup in subtraction but it appears to be more from rushing than from not understanding the concept.
Evan Moor Skill
Sharpeners Math Grade 2: Vicki has successfully
completed the third assessment, which included word problems, fractions, time
to the ½ hour, measuring and graphs. The
next unit includes symmetry, skip counting and money problems.
Scholastic Success with Addition/Subtraction Grade 2: A nice fun way to drill math facts with
pretty pictures of butterflies and flowers. J She has about 10 more pages left.
Vicki will be starting Evan Moor Daily Word Problems
soon. Hopefully this will help her work
on setting up problems - lining up the places properly.
GEORGE
Language Arts
Copywork/Writing:
George is continuing along with Writing
with Ease 1. His cursive handwriting is not too bad but he still has a little bit of trouble with the narration
and answering in full sentences.
He worked on Little House on the Prairie, On
the Banks of Plum Creek, All of a Kind Family, The Giant Crab and other Tales
from Old India and the poems “The Sandpiper” and “The Nightingale and the
Glow Worm”.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write Gr 5: George only has one more unit left in the
Grade 5 book. He continues to get all
his spelling words correct on his weekly tests and there is evidence that he is
able to carry that over into other writing.
His words for the latest units were: rough, enough, fragile,
few, physical, misbehave, unimportant, unable, disappoint, stuffed, disagree,
and misunderstood, which were included in a passage on the Life of a Colonial
Child (how handy that it’s their next unit in history!) and prehistoric,
bicycle, prevent, inconvenient, inconsiderate, preview, import, action,
cyclone, portable, impatient, and automobile, with a passage about the history
of chewing gum.
Each of these units has a page with a picture to write the words on. George has been getting more and more creative each time. The Colonial child unit featured a picture of a cooking kettle. He decided to use the words in a recipe.
Stuffed Stew Recipe
2 rough rocks
5 drops of physical labor sweat
3 fragile eggs
a few frogs toes
You have almost finished.
20 disappointment tears
1 drop of blood from a misbehaving kid
You have done enough.
Plz dun misunderstand the recipe.
For the gum unit, he had an assignment to write a couple of Cinquains. I thought he used some great vocabulary in both of them.
Scholastic More Proofreading Practice Please: Where
he gets to apply what he learns in grammar and spelling.
Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 5: These units have worked on similar topics to
Vicki’s – Cause and Effect, Fact and Opinion, Sequencing.
Evan Moor Word-A-Day – Grade 4: He is up to week 33 and only has a few more
weeks left in the 4th grade book.
His latest word lists include: hazardous, ventriloquist, ingenious,
knickknack, landscape, lenient, kowtow, justify, enthusiasm, establish,
flounder, frigid, narrative, patriot, perennial, and penetrate.
George’s answers to the follow-up questions:
Describe a hazardous
situation you have seen or know about. The destruction of Pompeii.
Share some examples of ingenious
ideas that you or someone else have had.
A giant ice cream robot.
My favorite knickknack
would be a yellow glass cat.
Should parents be strict or lenient with their kids
about bedtimes? They should sometimes be a little lenient if they are: doing extra
schoolwork or reading.
What is a narrative
that you have enjoyed reading? Diary of a
Wimpy Kid.
Which books or tv shows are your perennial favorites? Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The newest Diary of a
Wimpy Kid book came out last week and I think he has read it at least 4
times already. J
Reading: Well,
in addition to rereading the old Diary of
a Wimpy Kid books in preparation, and reading the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book four or five
times since he got it, he has been reading some Animorphs, and some Basher
Science books.
Math
Math Mammoth (4B): George has been successfully
working through long division, long division with money and is learning how to
calculate averages. Long division has
been giving him less trouble than some “easier” math because he has no choice
but to write it down and do it step by step.
Probably the start of a new trend as math is just going to get more
complicated from this point on.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math – Grade 4: The latest units have included logic puzzles
(he really loves these), place value, symmetry, word problems, balancing
equations, interpreting graphs, calculating volume and rounding.
Evan Moor Daily Word Problems – Grade 4: He is starting to write out the problems a
little more often. Many of them require
filling in a table or applying the answers.
He is still enjoying Scholastic
Super Sudoku Math: Multiplication & Division Facts and Scholastic Fast Facts: Multiplication and
Division and doing Sudoku puzzles from Easy Sukoku Puzzles by KrazyDad
and logic grid puzzles from Mental Floss.
BOTH: Extra-curricular
Swimming is still going well. George is starting to put a little more
effort into it, probably in the hopes that his sister won’t get any further ahead
of him.
The kids had their first meeting of the Herpetology Heroes
4-H group and George volunteered to do the first presentation. He is working on his report on fire
salamanders, which he will be presenting next week.
I’m still hoping to start Geography and Art pretty soon but
it may end up waiting until after the Holidays.
The kids have been working on Simple Machines in Science,
Explorers in History, and using Studies Weekly to do a short unit on Health.
