Friday, November 2, 2012

Weeks 10 and 11

Jessie's 8th Grade

  • Jessie spent the last two school weeks in algebra working on multiplying or squaring binomials and factoring polynomials in chapter 5 of Foerster's.  Friday she completed her chapter 5 test.
  • In language arts, she finished reading Ivanhoe and Pilgrim's Progress before break and has had the week off from literature this week.  She completed two more vocabulary units scoring 96 and 98 on her quizzes.  She also completed her grammar unit on mechanics before break.  This week she has been working with nouns and substantives as well as completing a couple of lessons on outlining.  For writing, she is still finishing up her second writing assignment which slid by the wayside before break.
  • Latin is chugging although well.  She completed a quiz from chapter 6 on comparative adjectives and a quiz on chapter 7 covering adverbs and comparative adverbs.  She is about half way into chapter 8 today.  Greek has continued to practice third declension nouns and review vocabulary.
Violet's 6th Grade
  • Violet finished up her textbook section on percentages last week and has really struggled with her IP section this week.  She's asked to redo the section so we'll back up on Monday.
  • In spelling, she's completed two more lessons.  Her grammar has covered the perfect tenses in English, some outlining, and a few other topics related to verbs.  She is still continuing to read My Friend Flicka and should finish it up next week.  In CW, she's been working with adverbial elements, practicing different ways of summarizing, and starting a second two week creative writing project with an emphasis on credibility.  Again the project isn't from the book, but I didn't have an old piece of writing that I thought had an issue with credibility.  I challenged her to pick any animal of her choosing, think about what that animal is typically like, and write her own story.
  • In Latin, she worked on the pluperfect tense last week and the future perfect tense this week.  She memorized the present perfect tense Greek ending and began conjugating a few verbs in EG1.
Benny's 3rd Grade
  • Benny really struggled before break with the topic of long division, so we agreed to start fresh this week and work through that section a second time.  I'm using some of the practice problems in the textbook as assignments for additional practice, and I'm glad to say that it is going much better this week.  His Miquon assignments have had a rule such as add 34 to the given number with several numbers listed, which have allowed him to take advantage of patterns in his calculations.  If the number goes up by ten, then the answer will go up by ten etc.  He also completed his CWP 2 review problems and began CWP 3 this week.
  • He finished reading James and the Giant Peach this week.  We finished Miss Bianca before break and starting By the Great Horn Spoon for our read-aloud.  He's getting much better at not skipping words or mumbling when I have him read aloud.  He has completed all of the spelling lesson in SWO C except for the last review lesson and will be ready to move on to the new book next week.  In addition to cursive copywork and dictation, he completed a narration of the tale of King Midas before break and has been analyzing the myth of Pandora this week.  In grammar, he's been working with pronouns.
HISTORY

Before break, we had pioneer week.  The girls read Along the Santa Fe Trail by Russell, outlined portions of The Great Republic covering the Fremonts as well as the Mormon church, and enjoyed The Story of the Oregon Trail by Stein and Frontier Fort on the Oregon Trail by Steedman.  They had the week off from summaries.  This week they read and summarized Marcus and Narcissa Whitman by Daugherty, The California Gold Rush by McNeer, and Mr. Blue Jeans by Weidt.

Benny and I read several fictional resources last week including:  Covered Wagon, Bumpy Trails by Kay, Bound for Oregon by Leeuwen, and Wagons West by Gerrard.  This week he did summaries of Narcissa Whitman  by Sabin, Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea by Johnston, and the first part of chapter 42 in SOTW 3 covering the gold rush.  We also enjoyed Snowshoe Thompson by Levinson for run.

SCIENCE

Jessie did better at her second attempt of the chapter 3 test in BJU science before break.  We ended up skipping science for the second half of that week.  This week we worked our way back through chapter 4.  I'm going to try allowing her to use her notes for the test this time.  Some of the questions are really things that I don't consider very important, and we may end up doing the tests open book.  I thought we would try open note first especially since she gets to compare my notes to hers and add in anything not included.  She is supposed to be taking the test today, but may end up doing it in the morning since she's running behind.

Violet and Benny completed about a week and a half of science covering topics such as the nitrogen cycle, medicines, fertilizers, etc.  I honestly don't remember all of the topics.  They haven't done any of the activities because either I didn't think they were that interesting (drawing the nitrogen cycle) or they were longer term projects that I didn't want to do (like comparing the growth of a fertilized plant to a non-fertilized one).

ART / MUSIC / OTHER

Art is in the previous post.  Music we'll start up again next week.  Jessie's been doing geography, but I'm not sure which continent.  Violet hasn't done any.  Benny completed his Georgia booklet and started on Hawaii this week.

HENRY'S CORNER

Henry spent a lot of the week before break following DH around while he was getting the fishing supplies ready for the trip.  Our theme was leaves changing colors.  We read Why do Leaves Change Colors?  by Maestro and Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Levinson.  Most of the Halloween books were checked out this week, but I found The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest  and The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree which were close enough to call this Halloween week.

Henry learned the letters Kk before break.  This week we just reviewed.  He's been learning the numbers, 8, 9, and 10 by playing Go Fish with regular cards but doesn't have enough confidence to try to name them yet.

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