Bible Memorization: Proverbs 10: 1-9
Music: Wicked ~ The Musical
Song: Home on The Range
State: Kansas
It was a GOOD week. We have been memorizing Proverbs as a surprise for daddy (I sure hope he doesn't read this post!). This has proven much harder than our last memorization (Psalm 1), but the kids are getting there slowly but surely.
Miss B has started a wonderful writing project to add to her Story of The World (Ancients) Notebook: Parable Notebooking. We are nearing the end of Volume 1 and we hit the chapters with the life and times of Jesus. In our adult Sunday School class we are studying the parables, so I am going to read them with the children and we will discuss them at the same time. I found these BEAUTIFUL notebooking sheets and we will do a couple of parables each week. I read the parable and then GMan verbally summarizes it for me, and Miss B writes her summary.
Speaking of history, we also had a lot of fun playing Dreidel games this week. We also sang the Dreidel Song (I remembered this from my music teacher days!) endlessly and made our own paper dreidels (again - I love Story of the World!) and at one point GMan said, "Hey, I'd love to be Jewish if it meant we could play this all the time." Well, this was a good discussion point for us. :-) I'm happy my children understand why Jewish people believe what they do and what the meaning of Hanukkah is.
This time period in history has been very intriguing. We pulled out the Usborne Internet Linked Romans book and spent almost a full afternoon exploring the book and the links. We learned all about the Roman baths, Roman soldiers, and even found the cutest Roman soldier paper dolls to cut out and dress. I love the Usborne Internet Linked books to supplement our history!
Adding to our finds, we also stumbled across Horrible Histories - pretty funny, I must say, and it definitely cemented a lot of concepts into my children's brains. The video about Roman table manners was our favorite! Warning: my kids thought it was pretty funny to imitate these guys, which (if taken to the extreme) can be very annoying. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Science has continued to be very interesting to us. We finished Chapter 3 in our Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day book. I was so excited today when my daughter found three bright red -- yes red! -- feathers in the backyard from a Cardinal. She came to me and said "Mom, look -- these are contour feathers!". She proceeded to point out the parts of a feather to me.
We have been keeping our bird bath clean and full of water and keeping our feeders stocked. Our Life List has 9 types of birds we see on a daily basis. We are learning so much about birds, and now when we go places my kids call out birds by name and just seem so much more aware of God's creation around them.
During the last lesson I read, GMan decided to come up with his own new type of bird: the Black-Capped Chickarainbow. I love the creativity and how he tried to make the picture like it could have been found in our field guide.
We continued with our 50 state study by learning all about Kansas this week. I'm excited because this study led us to a Five In A Row book (which I'll share next week) and little did we know that "Home on The Range" (which I had planned to learn anyway this week) was the state song of Kansas. Strange! GMan always does a Crayola states coloring sheet, and MIss B does a few notebooking pages with more detailed information.
I have noticed that geography needs work in our house, so we spent some time having fun with geography outside with our world ball. We also spent time in two atlases we have here at home. My mom sent a great geography coloring and activity book to us, so we will look at that next week. Do you have a favorite geography curriculum?? Resource??
We finished both of our read-alouds this week. The Wadjet Eye and Caddie Woodlawn were both EXCELLENT books! GMan read through a couple of Magic Treehouse books during his quiet times, and Miss B read some American Girl history books and Old Yeller (which she says she LOVED!).
Math was very productive this week. GMan is staring his multiplication tables in earnest and Miss B is mastering long division. We played a lot of card games for multiplication facts, and I think their favorite was just the classic Multiplication War. We did have one math lesson that began with tears for my oldest... details and neatness just are not her God-given talents, and math and its preciseness just drives her a bit crazy. I can understand this and I talked to her about being her own worst enemy. It was a difficult morning, but I do think I got through to her and managed to keep my patience the whole time!
To balance out the math anxiety, Miss B has her piano, which she just adores. She will sit and play the piano for sometimes an hour at a time and I never have to ask her to practice. What a gift this is, and I'm thankful to her wonderful piano teacher for inspiring her and being a supportive, caring adult in Miss B's life. My daughter thrives on personal connections, and her piano teacher has made one with her.
To balance out the math anxiety, Miss B has her piano, which she just adores. She will sit and play the piano for sometimes an hour at a time and I never have to ask her to practice. What a gift this is, and I'm thankful to her wonderful piano teacher for inspiring her and being a supportive, caring adult in Miss B's life. My daughter thrives on personal connections, and her piano teacher has made one with her.
Spelling and Writing continue to be my personal favorite subjects for the kids. I think I like them because of the structure and success they offer. Spelling Workout and Writing With Ease get top votes in my book!
Thursdays continue to be everyone's favorite days - it is the day of our homeschool co-op. Miss B takes two classes: Horse Sense and Recorder Karate . She is learning a lot about horses and this week they brought a horse to co-op and the students led the horse, brushed him, etc... Recorder Karate is taught by yours truly and the children are learning basic note reading skills and how to play the recorder. GMan is also taking two classes: Old School Fitness (nutrition and playground games) and Once Upon a Time (different stories each week with activities to go along). We are SO BLESSED to be a part of this group of families. No words can express the encouragement and support we ALL get from this. What amazes me also is that there are SO MANY homeschoolers in our area. My children do not lack for friends or things to do, that's for sure!
Thursdays continue to be everyone's favorite days - it is the day of our homeschool co-op. Miss B takes two classes: Horse Sense and Recorder Karate . She is learning a lot about horses and this week they brought a horse to co-op and the students led the horse, brushed him, etc... Recorder Karate is taught by yours truly and the children are learning basic note reading skills and how to play the recorder. GMan is also taking two classes: Old School Fitness (nutrition and playground games) and Once Upon a Time (different stories each week with activities to go along). We are SO BLESSED to be a part of this group of families. No words can express the encouragement and support we ALL get from this. What amazes me also is that there are SO MANY homeschoolers in our area. My children do not lack for friends or things to do, that's for sure!
Finally, we spent a lot of time with sports this week. Miss B is very involved with swimming now and had her first swim meet last weekend! She works hard at swimming and enjoys the friends and camaraderie on her team. (I think she's pretty good, too!)
I can work out on the second floor of our YMCA and also watch her swim practice at the same time... how cool is that? She's down there somewhere -- this particular day was dedicated just to breaststroke fundamentals.
Gman is playing fall baseball and has two games each week. He is IN THE ZONE when he plays and I think he's got a real talent for playing ball.
We haven't done many special outings or field trips yet this year. I'm trying to save money because we will all be going to San Francisco in November for a big family vacation, so I guess this will be a BIG field trip, right??
Personally, there is a lot on my horizon. Since I review for The Old Schoolhouse, I am very busy. Right now, however, I have so many wonderful reviews and I can't wait to tell you about them. One of them is a FULL LATIN PROGRAM! (SQUEE!!!) Being on the crew is hard work, but so worth it!! I also added another piano student this week, so that brings my roster to six students.
How was your week? I feel like I'm leaving a lot out of ours, but these are the highlights that I can remember right now! And let's face it, by Friday night my brain is worn out and TIRED!!
I'm linking with Kris for the Weekly Wrap-Up!
