Weekly Report: Feb 1-5

We did do school this week, right? Yes, every day...but it sure doesn't seem like we accomplished much!

In our Bible reading this week from the Orthodox Typicon, we read most of First John, and from the Gospels, we read out of Mark. Every day, Elyse would say, "Oh, I don't want to read this!" because it was about Jesus' betrayal and crucifixion, and then at the end of the reading, she would say, "Keep reading!" On the surface, it really is a tragic yet riveting story...Thank God, there is more to it!

We made it to the Vocabulary section in Lesson 2 of Lively Latin, and it was nice to see that Elyse knew some of the vocabulary as well as the second declension m. chant from previous programs already. It's a good thing because I'm not sure what those other chants that we're learning are yet, but they seem tough!

We've finally found our groove (and hopefully our long-term plan) with math. I'm so impressed with CLE that we will be doing only the CWP and IP (just a page from each a day) from Singapore instead of the whole kit and caboodle. Yay! I am so glad to let go of that. She needs the daily facts practice and the spiral method of CLE, but I have been a little concerned about the "mental math" aspect of it. Looking ahead through Math 300, however, eased my fears. The mental math is in there, it's just much more subtle and incremental than RightStart. That's good because sometimes the conceptual leaps that were required towards the end of RightStart C were frustrating Elyse. Between the time left over in her speed drills to the tricky problems she's solving on her own in IP, her math confidence is through the roof!

As for the other subjects, we've moved to doing R&S Grammar mostly orally. Don't get me started on WWE (see previous weekly report for context). She loves the stories in CLE Reading, and she really needed the practice in reading and following directions. Her cursive in Italic Handwriting is getting really beautiful. She studied about zoo animals in Patterns of Nature. I'm upping her required piano practice time from 8 minutes to 15 minutes. We really enjoyed reading about West African Kingdoms and their rulers, Sundiata and Mansa Musa, this week in history.

Nana got Elyse a small mp3 player for Christmas and we just got it going this week. I put the Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang on it because she loved the Blue Fairy book when we read it last year.

 

Aidan really got into making some ... well, I'm not really sure what they are ... OK, I just asked him what they are and he said, "humans." lol!  He especially enjoyed using the hole punch. These have been an ongoing weekly project, and the two pictured are only two of the lot! ;) He's since proudly displayed them in his room. :)

Aidan also begged to play on Starfall every day this week, and he's almost gotten through the second section "Learn to Read." 

Ash surprised us all this week by volunteering the names of words that started with the letter I was showing to Aidan on his flashcards. He was supposed to tell me the name of the letter and what sound it makes, and sometimes even before he said either one she would see the letter and blurt out a word. She saw a "W" and said, "watermelon!" She saw an "E" and said, "Elephant!" She saw a "Z" and said, "Zebra!" and so on...She had us all in stitches because we were so amazed!

Have I said that homeschooling is such a responsibility, yet such a joy! And writing it all out helps to know that we did accomplish something! :)