Week 9: Fumbling Along

After a full week of fishing and fun at the Outer Banks last week, it was a little hard to get going again this week.  Everyone got the week off from history, and Benny got the week off from science.  Hopefully, I'll be a little better prepared next week...

Jessie's 7th grade

• wrapped up the chapter on word problems and began working on integers in NEM
• worked with noun clauses and substantives in R&S
• parsed nouns, did more work with noun clauses, and 4 six sentence shuffles in CW
• completed lesson 5 in CE2 and began lesson 6
• continued reading The Nine Tailors by Sayers and began On the Incarnation of Our Lord by Athanasius for Omnibus
• covered 3rd declension nouns in LA1 and the genitive case in EG2
• discussed the Salem witch trials and appeals to fear for logic

In science, she completed chapter 7 on genetics, had fun making her spudoodle and figuring out his genotype, struggle with the chapter test, and began learning about mutations in chapter 8.

She got the week off from art but did begin learning about percussion instruments for music.

Violet's 5th grade

• finished the last of her IP work and began working on fractions in Singapore 5A
• completed the unit on nouns and began reviewing verbs in R&S
• received a 100% on her spelling test
• did random dictation selections and rewrote "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" for CW
• continued reading Around the World in 80 Days by Verne
• learned first person pronouns in LfC B
• finished MindBenders B1 and began B2

She completed the science unit on waves and sound with a lesson on musical instruments and enjoyed making music with some glass jars with different amounts of water.

She began the final unit on light and looked at the shadow of a book noticing the lighter and darker shadows.  Our prism has gone missing, so for the lesson on color she made a color wheel for one of our spinning tops.  When the top was spinning, it looked like there was a white line around the stem of the top.

For art, she drew some pumpkins, but hasn't quite finished coloring them in yet.  She did complete the music lesson with Jessie.

Benny's 2nd grade

• completed the unit on measurement in Singapore 2A and continued working on multiplication charts in Miquon
• passed another spelling test with flying colors and did random copywork
• continued listening Five Children and It by Nesbit and reading A Lion to Guard Us by Bulla aloud
• began learning the location of the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio
• drew several ocean animals using our 1-2-3 Draw Ocean Animals by Levin

Henry's Preschool

Honestly, this week we just read whatever he wanted each morning and still had a great time.

Week 8: A brief look

I've reached my storage limit in Picasa Web Albums and don't have time to rummage through it today to find pictures to delete, so this report will be very brief and sans pictures this week.  Sorry.

Jessie - 7th

• finished the text portion of the third chapter on a combination of measurements and word problems
• learned about noun clauses in R&S and had it reinforced in CW Diogenes
• began reading The Nine Tailors by Sayers for Omnibus secondary
• completed her 4th CE lesson and regular logic exercises
• knocked out the 9th Latin chapter and the unit 2 reading and test this week.
• sailed through the accusative case in EG2 because of its similarities to Latin grammar
• scraped through another Life Science test and began learning about genetics

Violet's 5th grade

• spent the entire weekly working through the IP section on double digit multiplication and division with steady improvement in her computational accuracy.
• continued reading Around the World in 80 Days by Verne
• wrote paragraphs for R&S and passed another spelling test
• rewrote "The Prodigal Son" for CW and began working on the six sentence shuffle technique
• continued working on 3rd person Latin pronouns in LfC B
• learned more about sound waves in God's Design science

Benny's 2nd grade

• completed his IP section on addition and subtraction and began working on multiplication tables in Miquon
• is still listening to / reading Egermeier's Bible Story Book, Five Children and It by Nesbit, and A Lion to Guard Us by Bulla.
• learned plural pronouns in FLL and completed writing "The Shepherd" for copywork.
• continued practicing his states.
• got another week off on science.

History for all:

• Everyone learned about the colonies of Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware.
• Jessie and Violet read a combination of The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by Guerber and The Story of the Thirteen Colonies  by Alderman and did a combination of outlining and summarizing.
• Benny read portions of The Colony of Maryland by Coleman, The Colony of Connecticut by Whitehurst, The Colony of Rhode Island by Whitehurst, and The Colony of Delaware by Whitehurst.
• We ran short of time Friday and will complete the maps and notebook pages next week.

Henry's Preschool

• I didn't have a theme for this week planned so we just read books from our shelves.
• He spent all of his free time shadowing DH, who was off for the week after working a ton of overtime the previous three weeks.

Confessions - Book 20, 52 in 52

Confessions by Augustine has long been listed as one of the great books of civilization.  It is the amazingly honest spiritual autobiography of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.  It recounts the mistakes of his youth, his misplaced desires, and struggles of faith, while at the same time continually giving glory to God.

I have to say, I was quite surprised, but I truly did enjoy reading this book overall.  Augustine can be a bit verbose and overly philosophical at time (IMHO), but his message is timeless and well worth the effort to read.  Given that the term confession today generally means laying out all of the sordid details, I was completely surprised at the tone of the book and how uplifting it was.  When Augustine confesses a sin, he explains what he desired, how he tried to find it, and where he should have turned (to God) instead to be truly satisfied.  I wish I had read it at a younger age and learned from Augustine's mistakes instead of making a few of my own, but I was very glad I decided to go ahead and discuss it with my 12 year old.

The Wheel on the School - Book 19, 52 in 52

The Wheel on the School by DeJong is a wonderful tale based on the dream of one young Dutch girl to have storks nest on the roofs of her town.  Spurred on by their teacher, the whole school joins in on the project to find a wagon wheel for the school roof.  Soon, the whole town pulls together and takes part of the project.

Both of my girls loved this book when they were younger, so I was curious to see how my 7 year old son would react.  The book does get off to a slow start, but it has hilarious moments and some action packed scenes as well.  By midway, he was excited enough to start asking for extra chapters (and the girls were listening in as well).  I would certainly recommend this one as a great family read aloud.

Blackthorn Winter - Book 18, 52 in 52

Blackthorn Winter by Douglas Wilson is a delightful piece of historical fiction for children set in the Chesapeake Bay area in the early 1700s.  Fifteen-year-old Thomas Ingle has finally finished his lessons and is ready to begin working at sea.  He sets out on his first sea voyage on the Prudence Hannah working under the honorable Captain Monroe only to be boarded by a band of pirates.  There are buried maps and hidden treasure and a mix of foolish and honorable characters for the hard-working young Ingle to navigate and shape his character as he enters the world of men.

Overall, this is an excellent piece of well-written historical fiction for the boys and girls in the 8-12 year range (and adults who enjoy a good pirate tale).  I thoroughly enjoyed the story (as did my 10yo daughter) and am planning to order the remaining books in the series soon.

Week 7, the girls: Colonies, replication, and electromagnetic waves

MATH

Jessie finished her section chapter in NEM 1 this week and took her first test.  She scored a very respectable B+ after a few minor computation errors.

Violet moved on to double digit multiplication this week in Singapore 5A in addition to continuing to make a daily multiplication chart. She did very well with her division and moved on to the corresponding IP section on Friday. It great to see her making some forward progress again in math.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie moved into her second unit of CW Diogenes Maxim this week. She focused on the encomium paragraph and also completed some grammar analysis lessons. She completed 4 lessons and 2 worksheets for R&S and two more lessons in Caesar's English 2 for vocabulary. For her Omnibus primary lessons, she finished reading Augustine's Confessions and just has a few discussion questions to finish up on Monday. In Omnibus secondary, she was supposed to start reading The Nine Tailors by Sayers, but we were unable to get it from the library on time. On the bright side, at least we helped the library figure out that 2 of their 4 copies are missing.

Violet began reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne this week for literature. She did very well on her spelling test, completed several grammar lessons on nouns, and finished the chapter in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban covering the final Quidditch match for dictation. (It had plenty of practice for that cursive capital Q. Now if I could just find something for Z...) She also rewrote "The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard" for CW Homer and began working on the first step of the six sentence shuffle.

LATIN / GREEK / LOGIC

Jessie finished lesson 8 in LA1 and 6 in EG2, while Violet began learning the third personal personal pronoun declension in LfC B.  Logic was also completed by both girls.  Violet had a very long Mind Benders puzzle, which she did an excellent job working.

HISTORY

 The girls covered three TruthQuest topics this week.  Both read and summarized a chapter from Guerber's The Story of the Thirteen Colonies covering New Hampshire and a portion of New Amsterdam by Emerson for the beginnings of New York.

 They outlined a chapter from Miller's The Story of the Renaissance and Reformation covering King James' son, Charles becoming king.

They also summarized another Guerber chapter covering the Massachusetts Bay Colony and marked the colonies on a map color coding by nationality.

SCIENCE

Jessie finished the book section covering mitosis and meiosis.  We still need to look at our mitosis slide in the microscope.  (Henry did not nap much this week.)

Violet finished the chapter on magnets and began learning about electromagnetic waves.  I know she modeled a wave using a jump rope and watched sound waves vibrate a piece of paper, but I missed getting pictures this week.

GEOGRAPHY / ART / MUSIC

Both girls continue to play online games covering US geography and are steadily improving.

For music, they learned about the trumpet and french horn and added to their orchestra folder.

Jessie chose to draw a picture of a sea turtle from one of Henry's touch and feel books this week.  Next week we'll add some background details and hopefully some color as well.

Violet drew two lighthouses

Week 7, the boys: Colonies, seals, and fish

 MATH

Benny spent most of the week in his Singapore math program completing review pages in the textbook and workbook before moving on to the corresponding IP chapter on addition and subtraction on Friday.  His Miquon work has been focused on multiplication which he has determinedly worked on without using the cuisenaire rods.

 LANGUAGE ARTS

We continue to read aloud together from the New Testament portion of Egermeier's Bible Story Book, Five Children and It by Nesbit, and A Lion to Guard Us by Bulla, the latter being read aloud by Benny to me.  He started learning a new poem this week called "The Shepherd" which he also used for part of his copywork.  In grammar, we began writing and memorizing the personal pronouns and made it through the third person singular.  He also completed two more spelling lessons in SWO B.




HISTORY

 Benny learned about three new colonies this week in history.  We read portions of The Colony of New Hampshire by Whitehurst, a portion of the SOTW 3 chapter on New Amsterdam, and a portion of a chapter from The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by Guerber to cover the Massachusetts Bay colony.  He found it funny that the streets of Boston were originally built on cow paths.  We didn't do any hands on this week other than the map work since Benny wanted to enjoy the nice temperatures outdoors.

SCIENCE

 This week we covered some general information about pinnipeds and learned to identify true seals, sea lions, and fur seals.

 Benny didn't want to make a clay seal, so I let him trace the outline of his seal booklet and just add in the lines for the flippers and facial features.  He did a great job of identifying the types of seals pictures in the book.

GEOGRAPHY/ART/MUSIC

 For art, he drew a lighthouse.  We didn't get to music this week.  In geography, he up to Michigan in his states song and is working on identifying Wisconsin and Illinois on the map.

HENRY'S PRESCHOOL

It was fish week for Henry.  Of course, we read The Rainbow Fish by Pfeister and its sequels.  The other hits for the week were Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark by Geist and A Fish Out of Water by Eastman.

 Henry was his normal boisterous self all week.

 He kept hiding every time I tried to take a picture,

but when I did manage to sneak one in he always came running over to see the picture.

WW: Boys After Cinderella

When my girls were little, they would pretend to clean house or dress up for a ball after watching Cinderella.

Apparently in the boys' minds, the mice are the most interesting part of the movie.  Here's Gus and

Jaq hiding from Lucifer (Jessie) in their mouse hole on Monday.