Week in Review: September 14-18, 2015

We completed Unit 8 in Bigger Hearts and Little Hearts this week! Here is a summary of what we did.

Bigger Hearts: Unit 8

In history this week, we read about an Indian called King Phillip and a man named Benjamin Church, and the war that took place between the white men and the Indians. The kids made a wampum belt with purple and white rice:

We added Captain Church and King Phillip to our timelines. These are starting to look really nice!

We defined vocabulary words for this week {wampum, plunder, and sachem}:

In science, we continued reading in our Science in Colonial America book. The kids like listening to this science book. We did an experiment showing the path of light. We read about some the transit of Venus and watched a video on YouTube showing the one in 2012. We then drew the planets in our notebook, and using the NASA website, colored the planets correctly.

Our poem this week was titled A Prayer, and the kids illustrated it:

Our memory verse this week was Proverbs 29:25, "Fearing people is a dangerous trap,  but trusting the Lord means safety." We had some really good discussion on peer pressure and trying to please our friends, versus pleasing God and going against the grain. Our character trait this week was Courage.

They are both still working in Singapore Math and Rod and Staff grammar. They each have devotions they do daily, and Mercie has handwriting. We are doing HOD's spelling lists for Mercie. I found a free e-book, The Modern Speller Book Two for Eli to begin dictation. He likes it a lot better than spelling lists! He really needs to work on his handwriting, so I ordered him Cheerful Cursive. He can write a little in cursive, but I think it will be much easier for him to write in cursive all the time. I also ordered Mercie a copy, so she will learn right along with him.

They both finished their books for Drawn into the Heart of Reading. This program is fantastic, and I have enjoyed watching them get so much from their books.Some of their answers in their workbooks surprise me with the depth of understanding. Mercie read Dolphin Adventure and Eli read Cabin on Trouble Creek, which he loved!

Little Hearts: Unit 8

This week, I stopped our "phonics" lessons and started working on basic letter sounds. We started simple, with A, B, and C. We practiced writing them on the board, played listening games, and tried to sound out "cab". He seemed to have much more fun with this, and his attention span increased to about 15 minutes of lessons. 

He worked on A, B and C in handwriting book, so that gave me a few minutes to practice the sounds with him {without it being "phonics"}.

In math, he practiced counting 1-10 and 10-1. I made some index cards labeled 1-10 for him to put in order, and he did a pretty good job. He gets confused with 6, 7, 8 and 9, even though we've been working on them for a few weeks. He is getting much better at forming and writing numbers.

 He also practiced his shapes - square, triangle, rectangle, and circle. He already knows these, but it was good practice to trace and draw them. I even had some shape buttons that I had him sort {no circles}.

He memorized Psalms 56:3, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You." We talked about being afraid, and how God is always with us to help us.

He made a tambourine to celebrate with singing and instruments, just as David did with the Ark of the Covenant was brought back to Jerusalem.

He also had to use his "wisdom" to guess items in a paper bag just by feeling them. I put a paintbrush, feather, crayon and pair of scissors in the bag. 

God's Design for the Human Body: Eli's extra science

I don't feel like the science in Bigger Hearts is sufficient for a 5th grader, so he has been going through this book for the past month or so. He read about the digestive system this week, and had to label the parts:

 He also read about taste buds, and had to label them by color.

 He enjoys this book, and he is always telling us really cool facts about the human body.

7th grade week in review: Mikaela

Mikaela had a good week this week. I didn't get many pictures, because her work is mainly independent. She is almost through with Book 3 in Key to Fractions. In Easy Grammar, she is finding the predicate adjectives and direct objects in sentences. I love how they teach to mark out the prepositional phrases first. It helps so much in finding the other parts of speech.

She had some writing assignments in her Spectrum workbook, and worked in her Art book. She had several science experiments this week; one was on buoyant force. In history, she continued working in her America the Beautiful curriculum. As I said before, this is one of her favorite parts of homeschooling.

She finished reading The Little White Horse for Drawn into the Heart of Reading. We start our project next week! 

So, we had a productive and busy week!