Homeschool Week Review

I don't know if this is something that many of you will be interested in, but I'm going to post a weekly review of our homeschool week. We'll see how it goes!



This was our 4th week of the new school year.



The girls study history together. This week we talked about God's call to Abraham and his journey to the land of Canaan. We also discussed the sons of Jacob, especially Joseph and his time spent in Egypt. I think it was an eye-opener to see how stories of the Bible are really part of history that we've studied!



Maria:
Maria actually complete 3 lessons of Saxon 65 (math) this week! We've been trying to move from 2 lessons/week to 3. At this pace it will take her around 15 months to finish this level, which is what I want since she's in the 3rd grade doing 5th grade math. She's rather bored with it because it's all basic review so far: adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers, writing the numbers of a sequence, greater than/less than, etc. The reason she hasn't been able to complete more than 2 lessons/week so far is that she has trouble transitioning quickly between the different 'warm-up' exercises at the beginning of each lesson. There's a 5-minute fact practice. Then mental math exercises: This week she had to count up and down by 50s from 0-500, and up and down by 500s from 0-5000. Then there are simple mental problems, such as 400 + 300, 175+175, etc. that she must write the answers to. Then there is a simple word problem. This should take her only 5-10 more minutes. Then she's supposed to listen to her instruction CD, but we've been skipping that this week because these lessons have been simple review. In the transition between these activities she often loses focus and takes forever to move onto the next activity. The 28 or so Lesson Practice Problems only take her about 20 minutes. Anyway, she did much better this week and completed 3 whole lessons!!! Yeah!! She does Saxon 4 days/week. On Thursdays, she and I work together on Singapore Math's Challenging Word Problems. The problems over the past 3 weeks have been relatively easy, mainly practice in learning to set up and use 'bars' to solve problems. This week we got to our 1st challenge problem: A + B is "Some amount" more than C. C is "some amount" less than A. What is B? Oh, you can't use algebra...this is a 3rd grade problem!
Language arts: She's been reading "Fr. Marquette and the Great River" and did a narration on Wednesday. She did 2 narrations and 2 dictations this week for writing from the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." She's really improving with her writing! This was a review week in vocabulary with a test over the 3 previous lessons. In spelling she studied words with the 'or' phonogram and took a sentence dictation test yesterday. We started a new lesson today with words using the 3rd sound of 'u.' In poetry, she finished memorizing "Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue." She memorized the words easily, but we've been working on the rhythm when reciting it. In grammar, she continued to work with compound sentences and diagramming questions.
In science she did an experiment in which she mixed 1/2 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water and did NOT get 1 adn 1/2 cup of a mixture. There is space between the sugar crystal solids! She wrote up the experiment.
Latin: She's using "Prima Latina." She completed one lesson, learning 5 new verbs, and started another lesson in which she finished learning the Sanctus in latin.
Music and art: She practiced the piano this week. Dany gives her a new lesson on Saturdays and she practices all week. We also listened to Handel this week. In art, we did contour drawings with the new colored pencils that she got for her birthday. It's not finished yet, though, so no picture for the blog yet.

Cati:
Math: Cati worked on skip counting a lot this week--up and down by 10s from 0-100 and up and down by 2s from 0-20. She also worked on telling time on clocks. She continued counting dimes in her daily "coin cup."
Language arts: In grammar, she studied predicates in sentences. In writing, she did copywork and narrations from "Alice in Wonderland." In reading, she read "Mouse Soup" A LOT. It's a new favorite that she won't let me return to the library :) She also read to me from the 2nd grade Faith and Freedom reader. In spelling, she worked on V-C-silent E words. Today we started on similar words, but focusing on rules about when to use 'C' and when to use 'K.' In poetry, she copied "By the Sea," which she finished memorizing last week. Today, she started on a new poem, "Rain."
Science: We're studying animals this year. We spent the 1st few weeks reading about animal habitats. This week we talked about the characteristics of mammals, and read about the big cats: tigers, lions, cheetahs, and leopards.
Music and art are the same for Cati as for Maria.

On Thursday, they had Swim and Gym at the YMCA. After a great 1st week, Cati had a tough week this week. She is the youngest in the class and was not interested in playing soccer. Aggressive is not a adjective anyone would ever use to describe my girls, and Cati's definitely not ready to go challenge the other kids for the soccer ball. It was like watching the end of "Top Gun" when Maverick doesn't want to enter the dogfight against the Migs: "Come on! Engage!" "No, no. It doesn't look good! It doesn't look good!" Oh, well. Maria was very shy during her 1st gym classes last year. Cati will do better in time. She also wasn't happy to have her 1st day in the "big" pool. Until now, she's always had lessons in their small pool that is 3 feet all the way across.

Today was Step Up at St. Vincent. The kids LOVE their classes their. Cati came home with 2 styrofoam cups with grass seeds planted in them. We have to water them and watch them over the next week, with one in the kitchen window and one in a dark closet. She also brought home play dough that she made. Maria came home with 2 ziploc bags of her creations from her cooking class: a fruit kabob and chicken salad :) She also came home with her interpretation of the Mona Lisa. Matteo came home with a yellow and green paint spotted cow and a paper plate scribbled pink with pink triangles and circles that I think is supposed to be a pig :)

Whew! That turned out to be a long post!