Poetry
Both girls have already memorized our first poem. Jessie says she loves the poetry and prefers to sing the poem to her own tune, and Violet was very proud of herself on Friday when she finally put all the pieces in the correct order without my help.
God Hath Not Promised
by Annie Johnson Flint
God hath not promised
Skies always blue
Flower-strewn pathways
All our lives through.
God hath not promised
Sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow,
Peace without pain.
But God hath promised
Strength for the day,
Rest for the labor,
Light for the way,
Grace for the trials,
Help from above,
Unfailing sympathy,
Undying love.
History and Geography
I'm happy to say history and geography have both been deemed "fun" this year. Hopefully all the planning and prereading will continue to pay off. Both Jessie and Violet love lapbooking so we have separate lapbooks for each activity. New this year for Violet, she gets to tell me her own narration, which then gets typed and printed off the computer to glue into the lapbook.
Week one in history covered reasons for exploration, Prince Henry the Navigator, and Leif the Lucky. Week 2 included Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, John Cabot, and directions on a compass (mainly for Violet). We still have a few booklets to put together. Since the girl's consider that fun we may do them this evening since it's way too hot to be outside.
Week 1 Geography Topics: the continents, the oceans, the equator, northern and southern hemisphere, and a lesson on latitude and longitude. This is all new for Violet so I helped her more in putting together the map. I was glad to see Jessie remembered most of this information from the last time we covered it.
Math
We had some struggles both weeks in math. The girls yo-yoed from either "This is easy. I love math." with bright smiles to "This is too hard. I don't want to do math today."and tears. There wasn't really much in between. Jessie picked up part way through Singapore 3A and is working on long division. Violet started at the beginning of Singapore 1B. We have yet to finish math in the one hour of time alloted partly because this year I'm not in the hovering around the table making them stay on task and answering questions. Sigh.. We'll give it a couple of more weeks and then see if we need to make some adjustments. Both girls did fine with their Miquon assignments, and Violet loves doing her Time and Money book on Fridays.
Language Arts and Latin
Spelling went fine. In grammar, Jessie isn't too thrilled to be doing Rod & Staff alone. I ended up working with her a few of the days, which meant the laundry didn't get done. We'll see how it goes next week. Classical writing and Latin both got a big thumbs up from Jessie. Violet liked the poem The Catepillar in FLL and memorized it as well. In copywork, we mainly focused on hand position and how they hold their pencil. Violet is left-handed, and I can't quite figure out how she can write with her hand laying on its side and the pencil pointing out to the right. I gave up telling her to turn her palm down more and actually held her arm in place a couple of days to try to show her what I meant.
Literature
We've been enjoying Red Sails to Capri. We didn't finish it last week as I had hoped, but I'm that's probably for the best. I had scheduled Secret of the Andes as the next read aloud, and after finishing prereading it on Wednesday, I have decided against reading it this time. I'm not sure the girls would really understand or enjoy it. Hmm... I'll have to find a replacement tomorrow.
I think that covered everything except Benny's preschool time. More to come on that later.
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