Sunday, January 11, 2015

Educational Report: Week of January 4, 2015

My hope is to post these reports on Friday but I never pushed the "publish" button, so here you go. :)

We finished our first week back to lessons & started a new academic year. I anticipated a rough week but by God's grace, it went really well. The children were happy to get back to lessons... after I finally got them out of bed, that is. :) We'll slowly keep working on waking up earlier. We did have a lighter week than normal, as I was waiting for several books to arrive in the mail but I'm thankful to the Lord for what we accomplished, even when it wasn't what I had planned.

Covenant Classes: the children had their first class this week since mid-Decemer. They were thrilled to get back at it! Jonathan & Elizabeth learned a bit about knights & cowboys. Patricia started studying. Benjamin & Matthias' Latin class was cancelled due to a sick teacher but they will go on to study chapter 16 about numbers on their own. All of the children had Bible classes with Pastor. He is continuing to take them through the various promises of God in the Bible. They will begin memorizing Psalm 110.

Reading Aloud: I'm still waiting for our new book to arrive so this didn't happen this week beyond picture books with the girls each night before bedtime. We did read aloud for the younger children's history.

Memory Time: lots of review this week, especially with Scripture verses, & assessing what everyone remembered. We have a new speaker set up for our laptop, which is a tremendous help!

Abigail: I think this little girl was the happiest to return to lessons. (Followed closely by Elizabeth.) I love her enthusiasm & I look forward to starting my day with just her. :) She still has a few letters to finish learning but we've begun Phonics Pathways. Just the first 6 pages which cover vowel sounds. I'm planning on using PAL from IEW along with Phonics Pathways. We are continuing to work our way through Singapore's kindergarten book A with LOTS of hands on playing. Abigail loves to copy- she often grabs a paper & pen when the other children are doing their work.

Art & Music: We traveled to piano but our teacher wasn't there. It was a long day to go back & forth but it was another lesson to give our plans up to the Lord. We ended up learning that our teacher was very sick but we're grateful she's recovering now. We continued to practice at home. We need to pick up more of our stringed instruments.

History: Patricia & Benjamin listened to a lecture on federalism. Wow- I learned so much! They also caught up on reading & began a new book, American Short Story Anthology. The younger children & I studied about battles in New York, Washington and the Delaware and Nathan Hale. We read a good bit & did several projects for their lapbooks & mapwork. I'd prefer us to get 2 lessons done per week but I'm thrilled we got done with one! :)

Language Arts: This year, Benjamin & Matthias will be working on finishing up SICC-A from IEW. I thought I'd also have them both work through Writing With Skill but I'm putting that on hold right now. They adore IEW & it's easier to get accomplished. Plus, I think they know many of the skills in WWS. I'm not saying we will not do it. Just not right now & I'll evaluate later. :)

This week's lesson introduced creative writing from three pictures. It was a new concept & Matthias was bit uncomfortable, while Benjamin wrote a novel. :) Patricia will focus her writing on her literature class at co-op & she will begin a new course from IEW soon. She's also done with spelling, so she's thrilled. Everyone else continued to work through their spelling. Some of the children did copywork. Patricia & Benjamin covered chapter 10 of Our Mother Tongue. The topic was "kinds of sentences."

Latin: Patricia completed chapter 23 about partitive expressions and constructions of price, time and space. Benjamin & Matthias reviewed vocabulary & chants all week. I should have done the same. :/

Logic: We are still waiting for it to arrive.

Math: Every child did math EVERY SINGLE DAY! Can I get a high five? Matthias especially enjoyed learning Singapore's method of making bar graphs for word problems. Benjamin studied factors, Patricia covered division & estimation, and Jonathan & Elizabeth continued to work on addition & subtraction, The older three children did Calculadder each day. I think. ;)

Science: Patricia & Benjamin began module 11, which covers the basic parts of the human body. The younger children studied about their digestive & circulatory systems. Elizabeth was thoroughly disgusted. :)

2 comments:

dawn said...

That's a great first week! Well done!

Unknown said...

Lizzie a Hoot! She has such cute expressions.
Nothing like trying to get back into the school routine. Mom