Weekly Report #3

Another week has come and gone so quickly! We are really into the swing of things, now, and it feels good. In the interest of getting to bed at a decent hour (which is crucial to my success tomorrow,) and not wanting to waste the valuable time of my limited readership, I am going to be as brief as possible. Here's our week in a nutshell:

Math:
Kimball completed SM 15-21 this week (we skipped a few of them) and aced his assessments. Henry did SM 27-30 and love his doubles math facts. His response to a math facts worksheet is so different from his brother's--pure glee. Ian did SM 4-6 and learned to make a pictograph by graphing the people in our family.

Grammar:
We only got to one grammar lesson this week, even though I had three scheduled. We did FLL Lesson 5 on narration. I read the story of the Turtle and the Hare to the boys and then they narrated a summary to me. Kimball struggled with knowing which details to include and which to leave out, but that was to be expected on this first lesson. I wrote up what each boy said:

Spelling:
We're still doing it. Nothing big to report. Spelling drills/workbooks at least four days this week.

History/Art:
We lingered this week over the New Kingdom of Egypt. The boys were so fascinated that I didn't feel ready to move on. On Monday, we made a false beard like Hatshepsut's.

We spent the rest of the week working on Pharaoh's death mask. We haven't finished it yet--we did three layers of paper mache. The boys were so thrilled to be doing paper mache that I almost felt sorry for them. Their mother is just not the crafty type (or the messy type). I made a note to do more of these kinds of activities, since they seem to bring such joy.

We are also reading aloud His Majesty, Queen Hatshepsut, although not very quickly.

Reading:
We finished Babe, the Gallant Pig last night for another read aloud. Everyone enjoyed it and we look forward to watching the movie together soon. We also finished our last Narnia book, The Last Battle, which we had been listening to in the van. The boys "didn't get" the ending, so we spent some time discussing it. I love C.S. Lewis and really enjoyed listening to these tales with my kids. I read The Chronicles of Narnia many times over in my childhood and still was captivated by them this time around.

Kimball has almost finished The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle. He spent more time this week reading the other library books we had around (see last week's post.)

Henry read aloud from our library books as well. I haven't taken a picture; the only one I can remember was Felix the Worrier by Rosemary Wells. But he read aloud to me every day and is obviously improving. I'm not sure how much he is actually reading when he has his independent reading time, but I'm not sweating it right now when reading aloud is his main task.

Ian and I read tons and tons of books, mostly from his bookcase, which is overflowing, and looked for the letter B. Which brings us to . . .

Letter of the Week:
We did the Letter B again this week because I didn't feel like we'd done enough last week. Ian doesn't know very many of his letters and so I'm trying to remember that the point is to help him learn them, not to race to the end. This week we listed tons of B words in his little journal dictionary. His "B" words there were bear, bean, baby, Bronwen, blueberry, baseball, balloon, and bus. We also made some "B" treats, including blueberry muffins,

bean burritos, butterscotch bonanza cookies (a recipe that my sister and I came up with on Monday when we really wanted to justify making cookies), and a friend dropped by some banana bread! We've started talking about the letter of the week at our Morning Meeting and everyone suggests words then, so it reinforces the learning. Bronwen mimicked us saying "Buh-buh-bear" or whatever b word were were saying all week long.

Russian:
Kimball started lesson 2 this week, while Henry finished up lesson 1. Kimball is doing the complete curriculum, which includes reading, writing, spelling, grammar, speaking, listening, etc. Henry is doing an abbreviated course that focuses on speaking, grammar, and listening comprehension. Ian is participating every day but isn't moving as quickly as his brothers. I'm okay with that.


P.E:
Besides Soccer and Tae Kwon Do, we added a bike ride this week. Henry started his speech class at the public school on Wednesday, so we decided to walk (me with the double stroller) and ride bikes (the big boys) the 3 mile round trip journey. They had a great time and I wished I had a bike (and a trailer). Maybe it's time to check craigslist. While Henry was in speech, we played at the park adjacent to the school. It felt like a nice break mid-week, even if it meant we were doing seat work later in the day than usual.

Hymn of the Week:
As I Search the Holy Scriptures, Hymn 277

Field Trip:
As Jared and I were having a get-away (local) weekend, Grammy and Papa took the kids to the circus on Friday. They had a fabulous time and came back with tales of acrobats, bubble-blowing clowns, motorcyclists who did amazing feats, and more. I was thrilled that they got the experience (the second year that their grandparents have taken them) and even more thrilled to get a break with my sweetie. We took our own field trip to Lake Natomas and kayaked until my arms wouldn't move anymore. Then I loaded up on ibuprofen for the rest of the weekend!:)