Saturday, March 06, 2010

Weekly Report

I've really desired to be more consistent with writing about our educational pursuits but is has been tough to find the time on the weekends! Ugh. I'll try better... I promise!

I recently switched up our schedule so that I can alternate the days I spend one-on-one with Jonathan and Elizabeth. I really drug my feet about making this decision- I longed so much to have that time with every child every day but you know what happened? LIFE and LOTS of interruptions! Eric encouraged me to try alternating days & spend a longer set of time with the younger children. He said I could drop it if it didn't work. Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about that flexibility. ;) Well, it has worked BEAUTIFULLY! I spend 1 hour in the mornings 2 days a week with Jonathan and then 2 days with Elizabeth. I bumped up my one-on-one time with Matthias to 1 full hour each day. The older children's schedules didn't change.

Elizabeth: One-on-one time with mama was spent shopping. :) What a great time we had together! Boy, can she talk! Wonder where she gets that from? ;)

Jonathan: We started working on the letter M this week. (Go here to see about that.) Jonathan also made a page in his letter book for the letter B- we covered the page with buttons, baseball stickers and pictures of a bear, butterflys and a bird. We moved on to the number 4 and color white this week- yahoo!

Circle Time: Didn't happen this week. We all really missed this and it showed in attitudes! I'm reminded why I "never" let this drop from our schedule!

History: We caught up (or almost) on lapbooks this week. We've been studying this for geography and this week we focused on learning North, South, East & West. The children really enjoy going through this book and workbook!

Science: No formal lessons. Big sigh. But we did do this which was totally FUN! AND we learned so much that day! Eric and I were impressed at how much information the various people shared about the animals. They also seemed to enjoy interacting with the children. We're hoping to go back next week & do a page for our nature journals!

Latin: Patricia completed lesson 5 & the review lesson. She covered adjectives. Her vocabulary is SO MUCH better than mine. Sigh. Benjamin worked on reviewing vocabulary this week.

Math: Matthias worked on adding by 5s, Patricia continued to practice mulitplying & dividing by 6s and Benjamin worked on adding 2 digit numbers. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our math curr! It has a great balance of drill & word problems!

Language Arts: I combined Matthias' grammar & copywork this week- names of the months. He started reading his first "real" chapter book this week- "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Matthias is so excited to read this with me- so cute!

Patricia and Benjamin completed 2 weeks of writing & 2 lessons of grammar. Benjamin has started dictation and he is enjoying it. I am so thankful to have boys who enjoy writing! :) Both Patricia and Benjamin copied the poem we are memorizing, The Captain's Daughter.

Pre-Logic: Patricia completed several Mind Benders puzzles- she is more than ready for the next level but that will have to wait till I get back from the homeschool convention in April.

Music: No formal instruction this week but lots of practicing for their upcoming recital!

Art: No formal lessons. Sigh.

Miscellanious: Patricia finished knitting a toy for Jonathan's birthday gift. This book has been very helpful and fun to work through! We enjoyed getting OUTSIDE this week, as the weather is finally warming up. We are making some changes to fit in time to walk more during the week!

Phew! It was a busy, delightful week!
- Heather
(Again, you can go here to see some of the resources we use.)

9 comments:

dawn said...

Awesome! So glad to see your post :)

Is your circle time Bible & Memory Work? I know you just sent me your schedule, but how long do you schedule this for?

Lizzie & R-girl would have great conversations, eh?

Great job, Matthias! How do you introduce chapter books? Do you have him read to you or with you?

Tully Family said...

Circle time is Bible time, memory work & singing. The memory is Bible & academics. We spend 1 hour each day. I wish we had longer but I just do not have the time in our schedule right now- way too many littles! (Fridays are usually longer than the other days.) I hope to post more about Circle time soon!

Matthias reads aloud to me- first his phonics book and then we alternate days b/t McGuffey & the chapter book (we were doing short booklets like Bob books but we have finished them all). The McGuffey is much harder than the chapter book! I can honestly say he enjoys both. I try to ask ?s after read to make sure he comprehends what we are reading.

dawn said...

Our circle is 30 minutes, so you're confirming that we're going to need longer :)

OK, I think I'm going to add chapter reading for M-girl to her time ... super helpful!

Tully Family said...

Do you own the McGuffey readers? I'd highly recommend those + another easy chapter book. I find the Veritas Press catalog helpful for reading suggestions- oh, and the book list I got from Dr. Perrin! (Bummed he will not be at the conference this year!)

dawn said...

I do have them. That's a good idea. She's been reading the CLP Nature reader on Wednesdays, but maybe we'll do the McGuffey's on Mondays ...

Looks like Classical Academic Press will be there, I'd imagine that would include Dr. Perrin even if he isn't speaking.

I'm going to stalk Martin Cothran & Leigh Lowe from Memoria Press instead ...

Tully Family said...

Why? What topics are they covering? Eric and I need to plan what sessions we want to go to!

Julie said...

Thank you for posting! Your family is beautiful.

Robin Johnson said...

It sounds like you all had a lovely week. I'm glad you are taking advantage of the flexibility of home school and finding a groove that works for all of you.

Daisy said...

Great idea to alternate days! Sounds like you had a wonderful week. I know what you mean about circle time. I tried totally splitting up my kids this year and we are now finally back to "group" time. My children enjoy so much more when we have Bible, etc. together and it gives me a change to really discuss issues with them.