Week 21: Steady as she goes...

Overall it's been another great week. The kids have been very patient with me this week as I have been trying to multitask a bit more during the normal school lessons. Mostly I have been to catching up on some housework before my mom's arrival on Thursday. I did reach my multitasking limit on Wednesday, however, as I tried to mix muffin batter while listening to Violet read and dictating a paragraph to Jessie. Then of course, Benny was in the mix too wanting to help me with the batter. I actually caught up on all the laundry Wednesday night and did a little dance to celebrate, but I should have known better. Benny threw up over all his bedding that night so the washer didn't get the day off after all. On the homeschooling front, here is our week:

MATH

Jessie has really struggled this week with the conversions between cups, pints, quarts, and gallons. We spent most of the week reviewing the capacity section in the 3B Intensive Practice book. She frowned at me in the beginning of the week when I suggested that we add some math cards in the memory box with the conversions, but by Thursday she was suggesting we make the cards blue. I think it would have been easier if we had started this section making a chart of the different conversions for reference to see how many cups were in a quart or a gallon instead of having to figure that out over and over again. (My poor guinea pig. Next time I'll know better.)
Violet is doing excellent with her first full week in the Singapore 2A book. She thinks it's really "great" that she is working with numbers over 100 now. We actually ended up doubling up on the lessons a couple of days because she was having so much fun (GASP! MATH?!? FUN?!?) doing the work. I now have no idea how much of the book we will finish this year, and hereby give up making any kind of projections for her. We're just going to take things at her pace and see where we end up when the baby arrives. We've also been doing our math drill consistently this week with the addition keys. My current standard is that the key should take her less than 40 seconds to complete. She completed the 1, 2, 3, and 10 keys within that time frame, but the 4 and 5 keys are taking her over a minute. We'll keep working on those facts through next week on the keys and with flash cards and see if there is any improvement.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie has finished memorizing Mr. Nobody from FLL last year. Violet is still working on Try Again. I guess we'll just give Violet a few days to catch up next week before we move on to a new poem. For literature we have been reading a version of Treasure Island that is illustrated by Wyeth. The girls even requested another chapter at bedtime Wednesday. (Benny abandoned the book DH was reading him and came running over to join in as well). Violet passed her first spelling test in SWO C (picture on left) with flying colors. Jessie's been doing dictation from The Magician's Nephew. We're going to try adding dictation into the memory slot of the schedule next week because she is finding it hard to concentrate while Benny is watching a video. Jessie was also aghast when I asked her to write a whole paragraph in a grammar assignment this week. I calmly assured that she would survive (and of course she did.)

GEOGRAPHY / HISTORY / SCIENCE

We completed Minnesota and began Mississippi for geography. Not much to add there. The geography lapbook is working so well for us that I am thinking of making one next year as well. Since we'll still be doing American history, I guess we would focus on North and South America. We could add in some more independent reading and a bit of culture perhaps. (OK. Focus... must finish planning this year first.) For history this week we studied pirates. We took the week off from narrations and booklets to just enjoy some reading time.
Jessie is loving science this time. She is actually more excited to do science than she is to do history. Both girls are checking the back yard daily to see if the snow has melted enough to do our first lab from lesson 1. Unfortunately, part of the yard is shaded so it's taking awhile for the snow to melt. We started working on lesson 2 this week. So far we've read about birds in general and about identifying birds based on their field marks. We picked up a field guide Monday afternoon which has the birds of Virginia sorted based on color. Below on the left are the girl's first 2 pages for the tabbed booklet that we are making for this lesson covering some general information and mapping the bird's field marks for identification. Benny insisted that he needed a bird to color as well.


ART / MUSIC
We're still slacking here. Maybe next week.

BENNY'S PRESCHOOL

Benny's preschool is still going well. He is singing the alphabet song with me most mornings now. I've started doing some ASL signing along with the song. So far Benny has just picked up to point to himself when we get to the word we. Thursday, Benny decided that he preferred to sit on my lap while I was working with Violet on math. He pulled out his Kumon books and finished up the first cutting book. We also finished all of the stickers in the sticker and paste book. He basically has all of his letters from Aa through Ii as well as Oo memorized. He can match them with ease. Sometimes he forgets the name of a letter, and I'll give him 3 or 4 names from which to choose. He always picks the correct one, so I guess we'll move on to adding more letters next week. For numbers this week we just counted different things: letters on the drawing board, fingers, number of animals in a picture book, etc.

That's about it. Hope you all had a great week also.