Week 12: Back up to Speed

It's been a great week albeit a slightly disorganized one. While it's always great to have DH home (even if it's by injury), it does require a bit of flexibility in how we schedule school. Here's our week.

MATH

Jessie really struggled with the IP section of the percentages book this week, so Friday we decided to stop the IP work and go back through the textbook and workbook to try to figure out which concepts she needs to work on. She's not thrilled, but hopefully the second time through will be easier for her. We've also temporarily stopped the CWP book because she is already in the section on percentages and has struggled with the problems. On the plus side, it gives her a little free time first thing in the morning for a few weeks.

Violet has spent the four days doing various reviews in the textbook and workbook before finally starting the fractions section of the IP book on Friday. Overall, she did an excellent job this week.

Benny has moved on to a new section on shapes in the textbook and workbook this week. In Miquon, he also finish the F pages on multiplication and division and started the G section on a combination of addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie is moving steadily along in grammar covering predicate nominatives and adjectives and spelling completing lesson 29. She got the week off from literature because I hadn't picked out the next book selection yet and instead spent the time writing a book report on Tolkein's The Two Towers. I think she's already mastered level 8 in CW Homer, so I'll probably have her move on to level 9 a week early.

Violet continues to read Pollyanna for literature. In SWO, she successfully completed lesson 10. Grammar was more verbs, helping verbs, and verb tenses. In CW, she rewrote and illustrated "Canute and the Sea". She continues to copy Psalms for cursive handwriting.


Benny finally reached the first page in Phonics Pathways covering two letter blends at the beginning of words of Friday. He's been struggling a bit with the blends in ETC 2, so hopefully having both books on the same topic will help next week. This week he copied by poem "Hearts Are Like Doors" for handwriting. We finished reading Viking Adventure, picked up in Mike's Mystery where my Mom left off reading while we were at the beach, and are nearing the end of Little Pilgrim's Progress.


HISTORY


In history, Jessie learned about the expectations surrounding the year 1000 on Monday. Tuesday, she read about William the Conqueror in both The Story of the Middle Ages and The Norman Invasion by Hodges.
She mapped the locations of Normandy and the Battle of Hastings, wrote an essay on William and a very brief summary of his sons,

and finished off the rest of her reading with a couple of outlines.

Violet, Benny, and I read about William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings in SOTW. Violet also read additional information in FMMA. They mapped the locations of Normandy and the Battle of Hastings. We read about all the different languages that English words come from and completed a map illustrating what we learned.

We also read about the feudal system in STOW, Constantine and Methodius in Monks & Mystics, and medieval feasts using A Medieval Feast by Aliki. For hands on we played the trivia game called William and Harold from the SOTW activity guide on Monday with mixed responses. Violet loved it, and Benny didn't. He kept getting the hard questions that I had to look back in the book for the correct answers.

Wednesday we tried our first sewing project of the year, making coin purses. Violet loves to sew and was very excited. Benny didn't want to make a coin purse at first (he was thinking purses were girly) until I explained what they were. He did a great job weaving his yarn around the fabric.

Both of them were very proud of the results.

They also tried playing a medieval game called Fox and Geese. Benny found the strategy game to be a little frustrating, but he liked it enough to ask me to play it with him a second time.

SCIENCE

This week in anatomy, Jessie studied the nervous system and the endocrine system, and has only the chapter test to take on Monday to complete another lesson. She did the normal outlining, summarizing, and review crossword,

made a playdough model of a brain showing the 3 parts (cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem) in 3 colors (the blue and green are blending together in the picture),

and a playdough model of a neuron.

This week in astronomy, we covered 2 lessons on space exploration and the Apollo program. Most of the time was spent with hands-on launching of various rockets.

We used our T&K kit to launch a tiny plastic rocket off of a straw using air pressure.

We took the same plastic rocket, added some baking powder, placed it on it's base filled with water, and

anxiously watched the reaction start seeping out of the bottom

until the carbon dioxide finally built up enough pressure to launched the rocket a little more than a foot in the air before heading down to the grass.
Next it was time for a single stage balloon rocket taped to a straw on a line of dental floss.

The rocket successfully reached it's destination, the door handle.

Finally, our most complex rocket, the two stage balloon rocket.

We went for a steeper angle of ascent and reached the top bunk with plenty of fuel to spare every time.

HENRY'S CORNER

With DH's ankle still badly swollen, he was home with us for another week. Henry, of course, was thrilled. They went outside a couple of days and mowed grass together.

They started an evening game of tug-o'-war

that everyone joined in on.

When investigating the cause of Henry's gales of laughter one morning, I discovered them using the UNO attack game to shoot cards out at themselves.

Both boys were having a blast. Overall, it was a great week!