Homeschool Week-in-Review: Week 6

This week was busy as usual. We added Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to their outside programs this week. Cati and Matteo go on Tuesday morning, which presents a new scheduling challenge! Maria goes on Tuesday evenings. The program is a great complement to our catechism study at home. It focuses on liturgy and the Bible.

Maria also got her orthodontic night brace this week, which included yet another orthodontic appointment, of course, and the addition of break-in bracing-wearing time to our schedule, as she works towards wearing it at night. The good news is that she doesn't have another check-up for 5 weeks!! We've been going to the orthodontist every 1-2 weeks for more than a month now. But, this week I will have my 1st prenatal appointment (always exciting!), and Chiara will have her 18-month check-up. We're never at a loss for places to go!

Onto the school work we managed to accomplish:

Together:

In history, we studied the beginning of Assyria and read the story of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest fairy tales.

In art, they started on their 1st shading project. They only completed half of it. This is the 1st time that it's taken them more than one session to finish a project. Hopefully, they'll finish this week, and I can post them next week.

Poetry - You can see their recitations from this week in the post below this one. They began new poems this week, too.

Maria:

In math, we continued working through these beginning review lessons. We've switched from addition drills to subtraction drills, which are proving to be a challenge! On Friday, she made a huge leap in these, though!

In spelling, she completed a couple more lessons, including words spelled with the soft "g" sound, especially ones needing a "silent e" at the end of a word. Only 4 more lessons until she's done with this level!

In reading, she continued reading "Fr. Marquette and the Great River" and wrote a narration of one chapter. We're enjoying this book. I try to read ahead of her so that we can talk about it. On Fridays, she works though Seton's Reading Comprehension and Thinking Skills books. She enjoys these. They have great saint stories and also good vocabulary exercises. I like them because it gives me a good idea about how well she's reading and comprehending on grade level.

In writing, she gave narrations and took dication from "Farmer Boy" by Laura I. Wilder. I love using a different book each week to practice these skills. It gets the girls interested in many different books and makes them want to read the whole book. In these writing exercises, we focus only on a couple of brief passages.

Latin was a review week.

Grammar was a review/test week. She did very well!

In science, she did the classic vinegar and baking soda experiment. Here's a video of her explaining her experiment:

Cati:

In math, she focus on adding 2 to an even or odd number, noticing that this is really counting by 2s. I love how her math program teaches math facts. During the week or 2 before this, there was a lot of time spent on counting by 2s and identifying even and odd numbers. Now, adding 2 to a number is nothing! She does her fact practice so easily! She also filled a large triangle with pattern blocks 4 different times, sorted and recorded the number of different shapes she used. Activities like this are the reason SHE loves the program! They frequently have fun, yet useful, activies to break up the tedious memorization of math facts.

In spelling, she continued working on "silent e" words. She should know these well once she's through the lessons! She's such a good speller for her age!

In reading, she continued working through the Faith and Freedom reader, and she read to me from her religion book. We also started "The Blue Fairy Book." These stories are rather long, so we take turns reading paragraphs, but she enjoys them much more than the reader.

In writing, she gave narrations and did copywork from the book "Mary Poppins." It's always fun to read from a book that you know so well as a movie.

In Grammar, we started talking about different kids of sentences. This week was about statements. She loves grammar so much! I'm not sure what the appeal is, but I'm glad. She even asks me on weekends if she can do it, but I'm keeping her on schedule. The study of words and sentences can be rather abstract and can take time to really GET. It's not just about completing pages. She could probably complete grades 1 and 2 easily this year, but I just don't think she would developmentally ready for 3rd grade next year!

Science took a backseat this week with our schedule. We did manage to start talking about monkeys and apes at the orthodontist's office while Maria was back with the doctor :) We'll read about these more this week.

Matteo:

Well, I forgot the camera (AGAIN!) for his swimming lessons. Maybe next week! You can see his poetry recitation below. It's really funny! I discovered this week that he's learned to play the 1st piano piece that the girls' learned. Go figure!

Chiara:

People often ask what I do with Chiara while we school. Well, she makes messes! I've learned not to let it bother me. So long as she's safe and happy, I can clean it up later!