Week in Review: November 9-13, 2015

We finished our 16th week of school this week! This school year has flown by. The kids used their Do-It-Yourself Homeschool Journals all week.

Mikaela - 7th grade

Some of the books she read this week were on Ancient Rome, sewing, baking, cheetahs, Louisiana, Nicaragua, and Clara Barton. Biographies really are the best way to learn about history! She watched some YouTube videos on how to pierce an American girl doll's ears and how to fix their hair so she could help Mercie with her dolls. That may not seem "educational", but I think it is. Life skills are some of the most important things a child learns!

 

I love these journals because of the mixture of activities. Several times a week she has Screen Time {watching a tutorial or educational video}, Creative Writing, Spelling Time {finding 20 words with a certain number of letters}, Reading Time {an hour daily}, Copy Work {from one of her books}, Coloring Time, Fun Pages, World News, and many more.

She worked one page a day in  both her Daily Grams and Easy Grammar workbooks. She worked on probability this week on Khan Academy.

Eli - 5th grade

He chose lots of topics this week: Presidents, the Moon, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, frogs, explorers, and the Titanic {which he currently obsessed with - all of his drawing and sketching journal pages were of the Titanic!} He watched videos on the Titanic.

He writes and draws very lightly, so it's hard to see what he has written!

He had Nature Study {he drew frogs}, Reading Time {an hour daily}, Creative Writing, Travel Dreams {read about and write 3 interesting facts about a certain city}, Copy Work {from one of his books}, Spelling Time, and more.

He worked a lesson a day in his grammar workbook {G.U.M.} and Cheerful Cursive. We dropped Rod and Staff for now because it was so teacher-intensive and wordy! He also worked in his math journal and Spectrum math workbook on measurements and conversions and perimeter and area.

Mercie - 2nd grade

She chose books on Helen Keller, frogs, math problems, camouflage animals, freaky flowers, and electricity. She watched some science experiment videos.

She had Reading Time {an hour daily}, Spelling Time, Nature Study, Meal Plan and Recipes, Listening Time {she draws or colors while I read}, Copy Work, and more.

She is also using a G.U.M. grammar workbook and Cheerful Cursive. In math, she is learning multiplication and division by 2s and 3s. She also works in her math journal.

Silas - Kindergarten

Silas reviewed his uppercase letters this week with flashcards, letter tiles, and magnetic letters. He is only having trouble with the G, H, and N now. In math, we worked on 1 more and 1 less, which he understands perfectly. In his math journal, we learned the numbers 11, 12, and 13. He counted to 30 each day and we practiced the months of the year. {Rote memory is very difficult for him.}

He has a journal for 3-7 year olds. He has drawing time, listening time, art and logic, nature study, and more. There are copy work pages, but he doesn't really understand what he is writing and has trouble forming some letters.

All Together Learning:

We read from this devotion each morning and then we each take turns praying aloud.

Next, we sing a few songs and go through the books of the Bible or memory verses. Then we have a read-aloud book. We finished "The Indian in the Cupboard" today, and will start "The Return of the Indian" Monday. This has been the kids favorite book I have read to them this year. I am going to order the movie from Amazon as a surprise!

We will be busy cleaning this house over the weekend! Hopefully sometime next week, we will be heading to Louisiana! We are all ready to go home for the holidays!