Week 10: Ready for a break...

It has been a very busy week here. I am so ready for a break. (OK. I still need to pack and do a ton of other things, but you know what I mean.) The girls' attitudes were excellent this week. On Monday, they were already suggesting doubling up lessons so that we could spend more time at the end of the week getting ready for vacation. Here's a quick look at our week. Then I really have to get back to work.

MATH

Jessie cruised through most of her math lessons this week. On Tuesday's lesson, however, (on the left) she really struggled. The idea was to find fractions of a whole number, but this time the answers were all mixed numbers instead of whole numbers. The basic conversation went something like this:
J: You can't divide (pick a number) by (whatever other number).
M: Sure you can. It just doesn't divide out evenly.
Two minutes later.
J: This won't work.
M: Yes is will. When you divide there should be a remainder.
Five minutes later.
J: I can't do this!!! (dramatic tears)(Never mind that she did it perfectly fine in the textbook exercises.)
M: Let's go step by step. 5/6 x 9 = 5x9/6 = 45/6 = 7 R3 or 7 3/6. Now reduce 7 1/2.
Move to next problem and repeat.
She did catch on after a few more problems, but it definitely made for a long morning on Tuesday. Otherwise she zipped through the rest of her assignments. I truly think it was simply a matter of her needed to write out her work (GASP!) instead of working it all out mentally.

Violet has spent the entire week reviewing multiplication and division by 4s, 5s, and 10s. There were 3 review exercises in the text and two assignments in the IP. It was nice to have some extra time in the morning.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie also struggled with her spelling test on Tuesday. It wasn't that the words were hard. It was another case of zipping through the workbook without taking time to study how the words were spelled. She did much better on her Thursday test and was able to correctly spell all of her missed words from the previous lesson. In grammar, she still cruising through the section on nouns with a brief poetry lesson thrown into the mix. In CW, our story for the week was "The Lark and Her Young Ones". Jessie decided to skip the outline this week because this is one of her favorite fables. In editing, we really focused on expanding her vocabulary in for direct quotations. Not only was said off limits, but I required a different choice for asked and replied (her too favorite substitutes). We should be ready to move on to level 3 in the writing section after break. Dictation is going better. If she pays attention, Jessie's hand grip is correct without the writing claw. She'd already broken 2 of the grips sliding them on and off pencils and dry erase markers for school and using them on her pens when drawing and coloring so I'll have to order some more.

Violet had the same problems with spelling as Jessie on Tuesday and likewise had corrected her mistakes by Thursday. She finished up copying our current poem for handwriting. In grammar, we're starting a unit on sentences and sentence types for the next few weeks.

MEMORY WORK / MUSIC / LATIN

Both girls are halfway through our current poem, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Their Bible memory is going well also. In music, we did manage to finish up the string section before vacation. The girls learned about the double base and the harp this week. There was a unanimous vote in the van Wednesday to listen to all of the string selections one last time before dropping the book off at the library.

In Latin Jessie completed lesson 8 in LfC A. This week introduced declining a neuter noun using the work donum. It also means that we are now one fourth of the way through the book and still enjoying ourselves.

HISTORY / SCIENCE

This week's history topic was the Oregon Trail. We read a couple of different picture books to get an idea of what life was like on the Oregon Trail. The girls both read the same biography of Narcissa Whitman. It was interesting to hear the differences in their narrations. Violet had apparently been more interested in Whitman's childhood while Jessie focused mainly on her desire to be a pioneer. Although I did type and print out the narrations, we just didn't have time to get them assembled this week. Timelines and mapwork also fell through the cracks amid the packing and organizing. We'll catch up and post pictures when school resumes.

In science, we finished up Zoology 1. We learned about the leps (butterflies, skippers, and moths) on Tuesday. On Thursday, we focused on their differences and how to tell them apart. We'll be ready to assemble our lapbooks after break.
BENNY'S PREK

Benny's topics for the week were Britain and sheep. We didn't get his craft completed this week, but he was too excited about going to the beach to care. He did learn the n sound in PP. He still has mastered the concept of blending letters together. Hopefully, a week off will help.