Week 3 in Review

This week has been our best so far!!! Our schedule seems to be working fairly well this week with only a few minor changes needed. We actually accomplished almost all of our scheduled work.

MATH
Jessie finished up with long division on Thursday. She is thrilled to be on to multiplication facts 6x6 to 9x9 in Singapore. Friday, she actually finished both math assignments in a record time of 40 minutes!!

Violet is starting to take some more responsibility with her math work. Two or three days this week, I suggested that she try solving the problems with her Cuisenaire rods before coming to me for help. I think I had to walk her through one problem with the rods, and then she was off. It was a real confidence booster for her to realize she can figure the problems out on her own without me walking her through each step. She also finished in record time on Friday, two assignments in 25 minutes. (Can you tell Friday was a good day yet?)

LANGUAGE ARTS
Both girls missed three spelling words on their Thursday test, so I had them write each word twice for copywork on Friday. If we still have problems next week, I'll consider whether we need to slow down the pace or incorporate some other type of review or study method for spelling. Both Jessie and Violet have also already finished memorizing the poem Who Has Seen the Wind?. At this pace, I may have to add a few poems at the end of the year.

HISTORY
History this week was a tad bit overfull, but we made it through all the reading by Friday (skipping Art) and finished up maps and booklets on Saturday. We covered Amerigo Vespucci briefly. Then we read biographies on Balboa and Ponce De Leon. The girls were thrilled with all the pictures in the texts. I was thrilled with good content that held their attention. (You have to love those older, OOP books). We decided to color code the booklets based on which country the explorer was working for at the time. Now if I can just keep up with the 1x2" scrap of paper with the color code for the next three weeks we'll be in good shape.



GEOGRAPHY
We finished up with our overview of the United States and put together 2 very nice tabbed booklets (on Saturday). Jessie was thrilled with her booklet. Violet was glad to finish and get back to her free time. Our booklet has 6 tabs. The first is the cover with a map of the US which the girls labels USA. The second is a world map where we colored in the United States. On the third map we labeled the countries and bodies of water around the US. The 4th shows the different time zones. The 5th show the US divided into 5 regions (NE, SE, Midwest, SW, and West). The last map shows the Rocky and Appalachian mountain ranges and the Mississippi River. I had a few other rivers labels on my copy that I decided we could learn about later in the context of history.



BENNY
Benny has also nicely settled into his new schedule. On Wednesday, I asked him if he would sing the alphabet song with me for preschool. He replied that he wasn't very good at singing. (I'm not sure were that came from.) I told him I love to hear him sing, and he joined in with the parts he knew for the rest of the week. He's still mixing up A and C, which hopefully the review weeks I outlined a few days ago will help slow our pace enough for him. The weather has been beautiful here all week so during his playtime with Jessie, they have been going outside blowing bubbles, drawing with sidewalk chalk, and running around. This has made playing with Jessie one of his favorite parts of the morning.

Benny has also taken a sudden interest in drawing. One day while the girls were finishing up their work, he brought our small drawing board in with a picture to show me. I told I thought the picture looked like a fish. He erased that, drew another picture, and held it up for his sisters and I to guess what it was. I'm not sure if he decided ahead of time what it was suppose to be or if he just agreed with whoever's guess he like the best, but he and the girls both thought it was a great game.