I find it difficult sometimes to do weekly wrap-up posts because I feel like we accomplish a whole lot in one week. This week, however, I was very proud of my children (and myself!).... it was a BUSY week and we stayed on track and accomplished everything on our schedule. I have been so preoccupied with the planning of a large Open House on Sunday afternoon for a sweet little baby who has just been adopted from China. My son's tball team is in the last week of its season and I am the team mom (coordinating a get together, getting medals, gifts, etc...). Add in homeschool and running the house and it was a busy week. We are taking it EASY today so I can retain my sanity.
My nine year old daughter has a Spanish class in the morning. They studied Peru and continued learning more Spanish. I enjoy this time because my son and I spend it reading books, taking a walk, or running errands together. We also did a few things about Columbus Day (and I am happy to report my daughter remembered reading Pedro's Journal and recounted to me that Columbus was not such a nice guy!), our normal math lessons and continued our study of space by reading another Magic School Bus book about stars.
I also assigned a space lapbook to my daughter to be completed by Friday. We are trying to make certain large school assignments due at the end of the week for Miss B in an effort to teach accountability. She has been working hard on it all week!
Can I say again that we love The Magic School Bus?
Tennis lessons for Miss B in the evening while mom did the treadclimber at the YMCA.... yes, I was sore the next day!
Tuesday
Read-Aloud Day! We finished our Lewis and Clark book and began Justin Morgan Had a Horse. Once again, Sonlight has chosen a wonderful book to keep my children's attention. We also started our new Five in a Row Story - Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. I had ordered this book on CD and it is done so very well - my son listens to it over and over! Our big word this week was PERSONIFICATION! We will finish this book next week because I would like to make a steam shovel cake with the kids!
Our great discovery for the day was Read, Write & Type. I had read so many TOS Crew Reviews about this computer program and it sounded like a perfect fit for my five year old. I had been searching for something else for him that was computer-based. I purchased it and he LOVES IT! I find the crew reviews so helpful.
Wednesday
We got a little sidetracked in the morning because of our new bird feeder! My daughter looked on the back of the birdseed bag and read about the birds it attracted. So, we hung the feeder right by our family room and breakfast area window and watched the birds come all morning!
Our favorite was the chickadee, especially since Miss B had done a chickadee painting last year in art. I have pulled a few books about nature study and hope to start this with the kids soon. Our fun project of the day was Oreo Moon Phases - such a simple and fun activity! We continued with the rest of our activities - math, science, history, handwriting, grammar, etc.... and after lunch went swimming at the YMCA (more exercise for mom, aren't you proud of me?).
Thursday
This is the day when I sometimes feel as if I'm going over the edge! We school lightly in the morning because of our homeschool co-op in the afternoon. So, we just did our math lesson, language lessons and grammar, read-alouds, then hit the road. A word about grammar - my daughter is loving Easy Grammar.
We have just finished the first large section about prepositions and I am so impressed with her ability to identify prepositional phrases, nouns, verbs, and direct objects.... and she says it's her favorite subject! The afternoon involved co-op, piano lessons for Miss B, then a tball game for GMan. Everyone slept well last night!
Friday
Today we will take it easy so I can run errands and take care of odds and ends. Miss B wants to finish her lapbook and also The Chronicles of Narnia (She checked out all of the books in one from the library a month ago and is nearly finished. I'm proud of her for taking the initiative to read it on her own.)
That's it for the week. I love the way blogging helps me keep track of what we have accomplished. When I put it all into a post I can really see that we are doing good things and doing A LOT of good things! See what other homeschoolers have accomplished this week over at Adventures of Arbor Creek and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!
