We started off our week with another holiday. In Australia we get the Monday after Easter as a public holiday. Kind of like in America when July 4th falls on a Sunday and you get Monday off work. But since the day after Easter is always Monday they just call it Easter Monday. We had our annual Easter egg hunt at their grandparents’ house. So much fun. Pa goes all out, the kids really look forward to it.
After a long weekend it was hard to get back into things. Our whole week felt off, we had to travel a bit for our weekly homeschool group, had a birthday party to attend (during the week because it is school holidays), and had our friends over for weekly art lesson which necessitated cleaning our messy house beforehand. So our schoolwork was light, but next week we should be back to normal.
Human body: We finished the heart, did kidneys and bladder. Next was supposed to be the cell but we skipped it since I want to make a cell model and didn’t have the supplies on hand. We did the pancreas, gall bladder, and spleen. We’ll come back to cells next week.
History: finished up Alexander the Great. Did the chapter on the Americas, hoping to do some sand art over the weekend as our project to go with the chapter. Since we’ll come back to the Americas in the next volume of SOTW we didn’t spend a lot of time on this chapter. My grandparents were a missionaries to Native Americans, so we’ll be sure to learn more about them at some point.
Read-alouds: Lion, Witch, Wardrobe. Continued but not finished. We’ll finish next week and hopefully assemble our lapbooks. I’ve got to go buy the movie so that Skeeterbug can watch it once we’ve finished the book. Started Jitterbug with Uncle Wiggily. He was very wiggly while he listened! No pictures, so it’s a challenge for him to stay focused. I ask him lots of questions while we are reading to make sure he is getting it. He can sit still quite well for picture books but otherwise he is practically doing handstands next to me.
Easter: continued with some Easter things. Post coming, so that I can look at it when I’m planning for next year!
Math: We’ve been supplementing RightStart C with Singapore Challenging Word Problems. It’s recommended to use CWP one grade level behind, I decided to start Skeeterbug in the grade one book since the book is indeed challenging as the name implies. The math itself is simple for him, but the word problems are still challenging. Because the math is simple he is able to fly through the book, so he is now halfway through. I’m intending for him to do both the grade one and two books this year, but I imagine we’ll take the next book a bit more slowly. In RightStart he is still plugging away with his drawing lessons, dividing triangles into thirds, fourths, etc.
Writing: Because of our short week we didn’t get far, just finished up what we’d started last week. We’ve got three weeks left in Level 2, then I am thinking of taking a break and using something else for a little while before starting the next level of Writing With Ease.
Reading: I think Jitterbug might be blending! Might. Our free trial with Reading Eggs expires this week, I’m waiting to see if they’ll send me any deals that are better than the price offered through HSBC. I printed off some of the I See Sam readers to go through with him next week. I started AAR Level 1 with him this year but put it aside after only a couple of lessons when he was getting frustrated with blending (actually we were both getting frustrated!). I’m hoping that Reading Eggs has gotten him over that hump and we’ll be able to start it again soon. Jitterbug will probably finish his Get Set for the Code book next week.
Devotions: dolphins, whales, cleaning wrasses. Those cleaning wrasses are so neat, I’ve never heard of them before. See the second video below. They are these little fish who will clean bigger fish, even cleaning their teeth! The devotional was about how God wants us to help our neighbors. 🙂
Art: Another Home Art Studio lesson, this time we made butterflies. Here’s Jitterbug’s (5).
Handwriting: Our new handwriting books arrived this week. Somehow I had failed to order Jitterbug’s book at the beginning of the year. I ordered from CBD and since I have to pay international shipping it made sense to order a couple of extra books to go with it. I was pleased when my shipping came out to less than it used to be before they changed their shipping costs. Jitterbug was happy to get his new book and to use the HWT app. I also got the Get Set For School CD for Ladybug to go with her preschool book, she is thrilled to have songs to go with her ‘Green Book’. I’ll have to do a separate post on how we use Handwriting Without Tears. We’ve actually stuck with it through cursive, I know many abandon ship at this point because they don’t like their cursive font.
Spelling: Skeeterbug completed Step 23 in Level 3. We had a new rule-breaker to throw in jail today: two. I coloured and laminated our jail to make it last through four kids. (Assuming that AAS suits all four of my kids, that remains to be seen.)
Science: I actually pulled out our Zoo 1 book this week. We started it at the beginning of our school year and then haven’t picked it up since. We are at the end of Lesson 2 and our project is to make birdfeeders. Hopefully we can get that done soon, it’s autumn here so we’ll see how far we get with this book before the cold sets in. I’ve got Zoo 2 on hand (shhh, don’t tell Skeeterbug!) and we can always jump to the other book and pick up Zoo 1 again in the spring.
Grammar: We didn’t get to Grammarland this week but did read I and You and Don’t Forget Who: What is a Pronoun? by Brian P. Cleary. This whole series of books is fantastic. The illustrations make us laugh. I’m trying to determine what we will use after we’ve finished Grammarland, I’m leaning toward MCT. The only thing holding me back is the price!
I hadn’t started the kids on calendar notebooks this year but finally got around to it this week. More on these later. They all have one, Skeeterbug for practice writing dates and spelling the days of the week, Jitterbug to learn them in the first place, and Ladybug because I just can’t leave her out!
I think that’s most of what we got to this week, looking forward to a full week next week. It’s still school holidays here so we might head out and take advantage of some of the special programs that happen around town this week.
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