Weekly Report

I'm excited to finally get to posting our first educational weekly report! I first explained about this series of posts here. (If you read this post & are confused about what we are using, check out that first post b/c I list the curriculum we use.) This past week was a lighter week of lessons because Eric was out of town on a business trip. Phew- I was tired!

Jonathan: I think he finally has the letter F and the color blue down! :) He is still learning to recognize the number 3 and count all the way to 10. Using real M&Ms is helping! :) I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he knows several of his shapes. I hope to narrow down what he needs to learn next week. Jonathan completed several pages of Get Ready for the Code Book A, as well as some other fun worksheets. (I'm not big on workbooks for littles but Jonathan begs to do them and "be like the big kids." So, we do them!)

Circle Time: In addition to working on their catechism, the children recited Matthew 5:1-12 (the Beattitudes) for Eric this week. Matthias is working on Exodus 20:1-17 (the Ten Commandments), so I had Patricia and Benjamin focus on reviewing this also (they already have it memorized). Jonathan is still working on Philippians 2:14. We are learning a new hymn- "We Gather Together." (We review a few past catechisms, Bible verses and hymns each day.)

I FINALLY re-started Veritas Press Bible cards! This week "Creation" was the topic. We worked on memorizing "In the Beginning", a song about the days of creation by Jamie Soles.

The children also memorized the second paragraph of the poem "The Spider and Fly" by Mary Howitt. This is a long poem but the children love it! :) (Jonathan is working on two smaller poems- "Ooey Gooey" and "Celery" by Ogden Nash.)

Latin drill focused on chapter 2 from Prima and we sang "Dona Nobis Pacem" each day. Matthias has that song down now- yahoo!

History: We worked on week 12 of Year 2 (week 2 of unit 2) for TOG this week. Our topic this week was "the southern renaissance and early explorers" and we covered men like Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco de Gama & Christopher Columbus. This unit of TOG covers a lot of art, so we also we studied Leonardo da Vinci.

We will have to finish up map work, lapbooks & timelines next week. Oh, and I bought a mosaic project to do with the children- FUN! It has been taking us two weeks to cover each week of TOG. I know a lot people do this but I hope to speed us up a bit and get done with the lessons each week. We'll see how that goes!

Science: Formal lessons didn't happen this week. :(

Latin: Patricia completed Review Lesson B. I think Latin finally began to click this past week after taking such a long break when Eric lost his job. (NOTE TO SELF: do not take long breaks from Latin or math!!!) I found that we need to take book 2 slower than book 1 but that is okay b/c I'm not in a hurry to start Wheelock with her! (Though she has told me she is eager to "finish Latin so I can study Greek.")

Benjamin completed lesson 21, which means he is only 4 more lessons away from finishing his book. I really like Prima Latina b/c it is a gentle introduction to Latin. I also like that everything in Prima is in the first book of Latina Christiana- really helps make LC go smoother! :) Not sure if Benjamin is ready for LC but I'm also not sure what to do with him once he finishes Prima. I need to pray about this!

Math: Patricia completed pages 149-152; Benjamin completed pages 12-15. Benjamin enjoyed counting money this week. Matthias continued to work on lesson 13, which covers adding 3 to all numbers up to 10. For drill, all of the children did flash cards & skip counting.

Language Arts: For handwriting, Patricia completed several pages of cursive and also copied two paragraphs of "The Spider and the Fly" in her copybook. She only did two days of grammar and spelling but we did get a full week of writing done (week 5).

Benjamin recently began cursive and this week he practiced letters u and e. He also copied two paragraphs of "The Spider and the Fly" in his copybook. We were able to breeze through lessons 85-92 in grammar and did several days of spelling. He completed week 21 in writing and finished several pages of Explode the Code 4.

Matthias completed lessons 29-31 in grammar. He is still learning his address and phone number. (Come to think of it, I wonder if the older two have their new address memorized?) For handwriting, Matthias practiced lower case s. He also completed several pages of Explode the Code 1.

Pre-Logic: Patricia completed pages 35-42 in Building Thinking Skills, which covered combining shape patterns. This was a bit tricky for her. Matthias worked on a few Mind Bender puzzles each day with me- he LOVES this! This has been a good way to re-enforce his knowledge of shapes.

Music: We met with Mrs. McKeown for piano lessons on Tuesday and practiced at home.

Art: No formal lessons this week. :(

Miscellaneous: With Daddy out of town, all of the children had many opportunities to do real life skills. They were great at helping with extra chores! Patricia finished the first project in her knitting book- a knitted square. (She plans on using it for a cloth wipe for her dolls. She is so much like her mama! Jess would be proud!)

Okay, if we did more I can't remember!
- Heather