Week in Review: October 12-16, 2015

We finished Unit 12 in Bigger Hearts for His Glory and Little Hearts for His Glory! These units are flying by. It's hard to believe we are 1/3 of the way through our school year already.

Little Hearts: Unit 12 - Silas {5 years old}

In All About Reading {pre-reading}, he learned the letters I, J, and K. We took two days to review the letters A-K because he has trouble remembering them! He glued yarn scarves on the I, drew ears on the jackrabbits for J, and glued a pouch on the kangaroo for K. His favorite part of AAR is the alphabet sheets.

Each day, we use our flashcards to review the letters. Then I have him put them in order {which he does pretty well most of the time}, and we sing the alphabet song while pointing to the letters.

I have him use some sort of tactile activity to form the letters. He loves the salt tray. He also used craft sticks to make the letters this week. {Kind of tough for rounded letters, but he did it!} I also placed several magnetic letters on our fridge and had him find a certain letter. We also scattered them on the floor, and as I held up a flashcard, he had to find the letters to match.

He played a few rhyming games with Ziggy the Zebra. He had to give jungle animals rhyming names {Miger the Tiger, Wion the Lion, Merret the Parrot, etc}. He did well on most of them.

He also had to pull an object out of a paper bag {spoon, sock, car, pen, etc} and find a word to rhyme with it.

In math, he is reviewing size and measurements. I also made him a math journal out of a spiral notebook. I created several pages for him. The first page is patterns. I used star and animal stickers to make a pattern for him to finish, and then gave him space to create his own patterns.

Next, I printed out a fruit graph and glued it in his journal. He had to cut out the fruit and glue it in the correct place on the graph. He also had to answer questions orally about the graph - which fruit had the most? which had the least? how many more grapes were there than bananas?

I also printed out and glued in his journal, a 100 chart. He has trouble counting past 13, so I showed him how to write the numbers 1-30 in the chart. We use a pencil to point to each number as he counts each day.

I am excited about these journals, and made one for each of my kids.

He learned about Jesus this week in Bible study. We read about Jesus being baptized by John, Jesus turning water to wine, and Jesus telling the disciples to fish on the other side of the boat.

I had him perform a simple experiment to see if he could turn water into wine like Jesus. I filled a cup with water and had him take a sip. Next, I had him drop a few drops of red food coloring into the water, and we watched it turn the water red {which he thought was super cool}. I asked him if he turned the water to wine, and he said, "Yes!" So, I had him take a sip, and he thought it was funny and strange that the water was still just water. {And then all the kids had to take a sip, because it seemed so "cool".}  We talked about Jesus being able to do miracles, but we cannot.

He glued paper squares and a wiggly eye onto a fish shape, and we talked about being fishers of men.

We also talked about the importance of water. I printed out some pictures of water, and he cut and glued them to a piece of paper.

He completed several pages in his Thinking Skills workbook and worked on his handwriting.

He also colored a color-by-number that revealed a scarecrow! This helped him with his numbers 1-9.

Bigger Hearts: Unit 12 {Eli, 10 and Mercie, 7}

In history this week, we read about George Washington. We talked about his rules of civility and manners. My husband was talking to Mercie last night and when he yawned, he talked through his yawn. Mercie said, "George Washington said to never talk when you yawn, Daddy!" I laughed because you never know just what is going to stick with your kids! They made a notebooking page on George and put him on our timeline. We also defined vocabulary words this week - unbroken colt, militia, and survey.

They also had a painting project to do. They folded a piece of paper in half and unfolded it again. Then they painted half a tree right next to the fold. Next, they folded the paper rubbed it. When they unfolded it, the tree was there. We talked about symmetry, and I thought these paintings turned out nice.

They also demonstrated why the sun is hotter at the tropical zones than in the temperate and polar zones using a flashlight and piece of paper.

In science, we continued reading about Jean Audubon. They read about different types of bird beaks and drew four types.

We talked about food chains, and they had to draw their own. Eli's turned into a food web, but I didn't complain. He had previously learned about food chains and webs, so the more complex, the better.

We cracked an egg and talked about the different parts of the egg.

They memorized Proverbs 21:23 this week, "Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble." Our character trait was self-control, and we had several great discussions on both. Our hymn is "Amazing Grace", and the kids always ask to sing it just one more time!

For story-time, we are almost through with The Sign of the Beaver. They have enjoyed this book, and although Mikaela had to read it for history, she is listening in with them.

Our genre for Drawn into the Heart of Reading is humor. Mikaela is reading "The Middle Moffat", Eli is reading "Centerberg Tales", and Mercie is reading Amelia Bedelia books.

Mercie and Eli both are still working in their Cheerful Cursive book, and they are doing so well!

In math, Mercie is learning multiplication by 2's. In her math journal, I had a few activities to count by 2's, and then she made flaps with the 2 facts.

Eli is reviewing division; three and four digits divided by two and three digits.

In grammar, Mercie is learning pronouns, and Eli is learning predicate nouns and linking verbs.