Week 24: Icy outside, steady working inside

The kids were all very disappointed this week. They saw the weather forecast on Sunday calling for snow. (To be fair it also said turning to a wintry mix but they were to busy celebrating the snow part to catch the rest.) So Monday, I dragged them through school when they would have much preferred to stare out the window dreaming of snow, sledding, snowmen, and snowball fights. Tuesday, I dragged them away from the window where they kept running to watch the snowfall. By Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday, it was all ice. Benny still wanted to go outside, but I told him that if he stepped out the back door onto the ice he would slide all the way down to the woods. Although sledding on the ice might have been possible, there are too many trees for it to be safe. I'd prefer to avoid unnecessary trips to the ER. So they trudged through their work and here is what we accomplished.

MATH

Jessie completely finished the Intensive Practice section on decimals a day ahead of time despite the fact that I had already combined some lessons. She did very well with all of her math. A few careless mistakes here and there when she forgot missed writing down a zero or didn't read the directions carefully, but overall I'm proud to say she seems to have firmly cemented the decimal concepts in her brain. Friday, she completed a review exercise in the textbook.

Violet's had another easy week in math. She's started a new section in the textbook and workbook on picture graphs. She has done an excellent job. I expected a few mistakes once the pictures began to stand for more than one object. Not a mistake to be seen all week. I'm very proud of her for staying focused and reading carefully. I also had to introduce her to the bar diagrams for two of her CWP problems this morning. Since this was her first foray into bar diagrams, I drew the diagrams. After several tried, she finally understood what I was trying to say well enough to solve the problems.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Spelling for Jessie this week has been up and done. A much larger percentage of the words now are ones that she has not heard so it takes her longer to do the exercises when she has to constantly look words up in the back. Even then the answer in the back are not always very clear. I may have her try using a different dictionary next week. In grammar, we've finally finished the pronoun unit and begun a unit on adjectives. This times nicely with our CW lessons where I'm asking for more description. In dictation, we're jumping around The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to using smaller passages. We spent a few days at the beginning where Lucy and Edmund are looking at the picture of the sailing ship and another day on a paragraph containing Reepicheep's little verse. For CW, we finally stayed on track the entire week and completed Jessie's version of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff". We're still struggling a little bit with CW. Jessie is so used to summarizing everything for history that she has a hard time adding in details. She's continuing to read Caddie Woodlawn this week. I have finally settled on a consequence for "forgetting" to do her independent reading. If she's not ready to give me her oral narration at the appropriate time, then she has to complete a written one on her own time.

Violet's also been studying adjectives in her modified FLL program. Her spelling is going well and her cursive handwriting is coming along very nicely. This week when I had her write the alphabet, she didn't look up any of the letters. She's even begun doing some cursive writing on her own for fun. For reading, she has been thoroughly enjoying Five Children and It. We did have an issue with her story from The Blue Fairy Book. Since she couldn't remember much of the story, I made her reread it and write her narration later that afternoon as well. Hopefully, we can find a better balance next week between speed and quality of work.

HISTORY / SCIENCE

We've spent the whole week reading Little House on the Prairie. I have a couple of activities which we have not completed yet, but I'll add some details and pictures once they are finished.

Science this week has been all about sea turtles. Tuesday's lesson covered all of the general information. Thursday's lesson describe the 8 different species of sea turtles. As usual we completed booklets for each.

ART / MUSIC

This week's art lesson was drawing sea turtles. Jessie's is the spotted one, and the other is Violet's. Benny did draw one but it disappeared before I had a chance to take a picture. For music, we finished the woodwind section covering the bassoon and contra bassoon from a couple of weeks ago. We also started the brass section and learned about the trumpet and the french horn.


LATIN / ASL / OTHER

Jessie completed lesson 20 in LfC. We've finally switched back to nouns and learned about one of the jobs for the accusative case, acting as a direct object. Jessie did very well over all. The only surprise for her was that the words in the sentence could be scrambled in any order and still have the same meaning.

In ASL, we watched the first DVD in the second series. I think next week we'll take a break from the DVDs to work on mastering the signs that we have learned so far.

I haven't talked about our memory work for several weeks, but we are keeping up with it still. Both the girls have decided to take a break from the Sunday School memory verses to start memorizing something together next week. Jessie is still progressing through the list of poems for the year. I'll try to update the layout later this afternoon to reflect her progress. Violet has needed some review of some of the longer poems after the two week Christmas break, so we've been shuffling old poems back up into the daily slot. She should be ready to begin a new poem in the next week or so.

I also wanted to say our geography drill is going very well. Violet only has 3 states left to learn. YEAH!! Jessie is about halfway through learning the capitals.

BENNY'S PREK

Benny is doing a great job. In counting today, we made it up to 80 with only two hints from me. In phonics, he is doing an excellent job with his three letter words. He likes to whisper the sounds to himself and then just tell me the word. We may take a break next week and try another Bob book. Our reading has just been off the shelf again. He's been building puzzles, playing with his space shuttle, and writing letters. He did make a few snowflakes on Monday, but I don't have a picture to show.