Week 8: Ready for vacation!! (As soon as I finish packing.)

It's been a tiring week between school and packing, but amazingly we got everything done. The girls are definitely ready for a week off and so am I. Monday was a long dragged out day with lots of dawdling and grumbling. Tuesday started out the same until I announced that any school work not done this week would go with us to the beach next week. (I know I'm a mean mommy.) The girls have been very diligent about getting their work done ever since then. Jessie even did math and her Reading Detective assignments first thing Wednesday morning (before breakfast even.) Here's the breakdown of our week.

Language Arts

Violet finished memorizing the poem An Evening Hymn. Both girls started working on our next poem, The Arrow and the Song by Longfellow. They began copying the poem for handwriting. On the left is Jessie's version of The Towne Mouse and the Country Mouse for Classical Writing. I was surprised when she added in the quotations since I hadn't ask for them. We only had to discuss the punctuation of the city mouse's last quote. I'm glad to see that the lessons in her Rod and Staff grammar are actually sinking in well enough that she can also apply them to her other work.
Violet and I skimmed the FLL lessons again. I definitely need change things up a bit there. In spelling she insisted that I take a picture of her work on Monday. She was very proud to have completed her first word scramble puzzle without any help from me.

MATH

Jessie really struggled with the x9 exercises at the beginning of the week. Apparently part of the problem was her frustration over our dry erase markers not working. (I'm never buying any brand but Expo again.) She switched to doing her work in pencil in a separate notebook. The only downside to this is when she decides to write as small as possible, and then I have to try to read it. On the left is her review exercise on Thursday.
Violet has moved on to a time section in Singapore, which so far has just reviewed what she already learned in her Time and Money workbook. She was excited Thursday when I told her to pull out the addition wrap up. Groans quickly replaced smiles when I told her we were going to try the +3 and +4 keys. The +3 key was review so that went fine. The +4 key gave us a chance to review a couple of adding strategies. For 7+4 and 8+4, we made 10 first and then figured out the answer. For 9+4, I simply had to ask what's 10+4 and then she figured out the answer to 9+4. In the end, the keys were easier than she expected. I just have to remember to take it slowly enough for her to gain confidence before moving on.

HISTORY / GEOGRAPHY

For geography, we finished up Colorado and began our Connecticut booklet. I actually kept forgetting to review the Fifty Nifty United States song. Finally after 3 days of practicing it on their own, Violet reminded me on Thursday to review the song, and we added on the states Iowa through Louisiana. On a cuter note, guess who I overheard quietly singing the girls' geography song. It was Benny. He's picked up parts of the chorus from the girls. It never ceases to amaze me what he learns just from hanging around his sisters.

In history, we had to make a few adjustments this week because of our vacation next week. I had intended to cover just the beginnings of Jamestown now and save the biographies of John Smith and Pocahontas until we return. Unfortunately our biography of John Smith came from ILL and was due back next week so it has to be returned before we go out of town tomorrow. We focused hard on getting through the reading and didn't have time for all of our hands on stuff. The timeline is done, and Jamestown was added to our colony map, but we didn't get to make any booklets again this week. That just means we'll have a booklet day after vacation to catch up. The Pocahontas biography won't take us 4 days anyway.

ART / MUSIC

For art this week we drew frogs using the cover of the book Jump, Frog, Jump as a model. Violet and I sat down to talk about the picture and worked through the elements step by step again for her first frog. Then she decided to add a second one all on her own. The frogs on the left are Violet's, and Jessie's frog is on the right.


BENNY'S PRESCHOOL

With DH home 3 out of 5 days this week, I gave Benny the week off to spend with him. He's been feeling a bit Daddy deprived because DH has been teaching the last three weekends. We read a couple of books informally. On his own he's been practicing holding up his fingers for different numbers. Thursday, he proudly showed me how he can count to five with his fingers without having to use his other hand to get the fingers where he wants them. Then he counted out loud to 12 just because he knows how. DH quizzed him a couple of times on the letters on the fridge, and he actually decided to show off what he knew. (E and e still need some work, but he did great with the others.)

That's our week. Now to finish up some last minute packing... It's VACATION TIME!!!!