Week 8: Moses, Pyramids, and more...

It's been a good week here. I made a few changes to our schedule, which have made things a bit smoother. (Henry, for example, hasn't gotten into nearly as much trouble this week although he did manage to spill tea on my ergonomic keyboard. I hope I can get it to work again. The regular keyboard is killing my wrists.) The hardest part about the new schedule is remembering to read to Benny after lunch before I get on the computer.

MATH

Jessie finished up adding and subtracting mixed numbers this week and has moved on to multiplying fractions. The hardest part of the week was convincing her that it was easier to simplify the fractions before multiplying instead of the other way around. We worked out a few problems both ways so that she could see that the answer was the same and then she took off on her own and did just fine with all of her exercises. She also finished the last word problem in CWP 4 where we've been work on the reviews at the end of the book since the start of school. She's excited to be moving on to the CWP 5 book next week.

Violet continued multiplying this week. First she learned to multiply multiples of 10 and 100 by a single digit number (which she caught onto very quickly) and then she began multiplying a 2 or 3 digit number by a single digit number. Friday's work involved some regrouping during multiplication as well. She finished the last problem in CWP 2 on Thursday and started CWP 3 on Friday. In Miquon, she finished the section on prime numbers and has been working on a new section dealing with weight. Each problem presents her with two balances that she has to compare in order to determine the weight of one of the objects in the picture. We worked through a couple together, but once she caught on, she was able to work independently.

Benny finished up the IP section on number bonds this week in Singapore 1A. In Miquon he's started the C section which deals with addition. We built several walls of cuisenaire rods similar to the one in the picture for different numbers and used them to fill in the information on the page. Benny liked the problems that were filled in with all ones the best.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie spent some more time on nouns this week in grammar. We did finally hit some new material and learned about appositives and nouns of address. We also did some more subject combining this week. For her grammar assignment that was to develop a paragraph using a sequence of steps. I had her write about building pyramids instead of using one of the suggested topic sentences. In CW Homer, she rewrote "The Frogs Desiring a King". She did an excellent job on her rough draft so we really didn't end up doing much editing. I'm looking forward to starting some new material next week as we'll move on to the second skill level. Spelling was rough this week. All of the words ended in either -ence or -ance. She missed 5 on her test Friday, so we're going to spend another week on the lesson and just do some copywork and writing the words in sentences next week before retesting. She read 2 more chapters in Age of the Fable and completed reading God King on Friday so we'll discuss and complete a book report next week.

Violet rewrote Androcles and the Lion this week for CW Aesop. Her original rough draft was much shorter than the original so I made her go back and try again the next day because she had left out some important parts. The second time she did a much better job so there wasn't really much editing to do. Spelling went well. In grammar, we're still working with common and proper nouns. She had a light week in literature since the next literature book was not yet available at the library. (It's very frustrating to be waiting for a book that is now a week overdue.) Her only reading for the week was another fairy tale from The Red Fairy Book and a chapter from The Complete Peterkin Papers.

Benny finally finished the section on double consonant ending in Phonics Pathways and we're working on the corresponding section in Pyramids. He tends to sound out the first two letters, then the third, then the fourth, and then puts them all together to tell me the word. I'd like to get to where he can at least blend the first three letters together before we move on to the next section. In handwriting this week, he learned the letters S, s, T, t, and U, u. (As you can tell by the picture I have our upcoming trip to the beach on my mind.)

HISTORY / ART

For OT history this week, we finished up the story of Joseph and have finally moved into the book of Exodus. We covered from Moses' birth to his first appearance before pharaoh. The girls finished their Joseph summary from last week, made a map of Jacob's journey to Egypt and put together a page for their notebooks. In Egypt this week, we learned about Menes and the unification of Egypt, Cheops, and the pyramids. Jessie outlined the information on the Old Kingdom in Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World and took notes on the role of pharaoh and the Egyptian government. She used this information to write a essay on Monday. She also read Pyramid by MacCauley to write her paragraph on pyramids. In The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt a large portion of the chapter on Cheops talked about life in Memphis during his reign so I had her write a summary of the information. Violet read some more of The Gift of the River and Life in Ancient Egypt. She also read a section of Pyramids by Millard. She wrote a narration of Menes and another for pyramids. Both used the Draw and Write book to draw small pyramids and sphinxes for their notebooking pages. For our timeline, we added Menes, Cheops, and Israel's Slavery. Benny and I read a book called Pyramid by Delafosse. We're still waiting on the rest of his history books from the library. I had planned to build a lego pyramid with him on Friday, but since DH was off he decided he would rather go fishing.

GEOGRAPHY

We got to geography this week!! YEAH!!! This week we filled in a notebooking page for Turkey. Violet did a great job with the top and bottom portions of the page. I had to help her identifying and labeling the information of what was around Turkey because the map we were using in the atlas didn't have any of the countries in Europe to the north and west. Jessie was a bit dubious when I told her what I wanted in the center map. She added the cities on her own. I drew in the rivers for her to label this week and will probably continue to do so for the rest of the Middle East. Hopefully, by the time we get to Africa, she'll be more comfortable and will try drawing them on her own. She decided to write all of the economic activities on the map so I had her underline the top three when she finished her list.

SCIENCE

We did some extra science this week because I want to cover the chapter on leaves so we can identify some of the trees in our yard before the start changing colors and losing their leaves. Tuesday we completed all of chapter 4 on fruits. The orange booklet covered the importance of fruit and the different methods of seed dispersal. The light green shutterfold booklet covered the types of fruits. On Thursday, we started chapter 5. The booklets covered, the importance of leaves, what they need to make food, and photosynthesis among other things. We chose to skip the activities in chapter 4 since we covered so much material.

LOGIC / LATIN

In logic, Jessie has finished the Mind Benders B1 book this week. In Latin, we learned plural third person pronouns along with some additional vocabulary. I changed the schedule a bit so that Jessie and I either watch the DVD or review the vocabulary and grammar chant together before lunch and that seemed to help a lot.

Violet is on lesson 5 in Prima Latina. We're not doing any of the prayers, but she seems to be enjoying herself while learning a bit of Latin along the way.

OTHER

Henry has caught on quickly to our revised schedule. I took this on Wednesday morning. He came looking for Violet about 9:00 since it was her time to play with him. When he couldn't her to put down her history book (which she was close to finishing), he decided to sit down and join her instead.
(Yes, if you look closely, his book is upside down.)