Weekly Wrap-Up ~ I think we’ve finally found our groove :)

Ah…it feels like we have finally found our groove, our school day groove that is ;).  Despite the really bad cold that descended upon our house {cold as in sickness, not weather} I can honestly say that I am very pleased with how much we accomplished this week…we actually came really close to doing everything that I had planned for the week :)

Reading/Spelling ~ Dd6 is steadily working her way through her Level One All About Spelling Book.  She took her first spelling test this week {I didn’t even realize it was a spelling test until after she took it…it was so painless :)}.

I am going to have to adjust the way I am currently assigning ds8’s reading…he has a list of books that he has to read by the end of 3rd grade posted on the refrigerator…he has read one of those books since we began school five weeks ago!  Now you must understand, he has been reading a ton for these last five weeks, he just has not been reading his assigned school books…he’s been reading baseball books.  So we must adjust :)

Math ~ Ds8 moved up to the next level, this level seems to require a bit more independence {that’s a good thing}.  Dd6 is working on basic addition facts and understanding place value.

History ~ This week we read about the Vikings…man, those guys were not very nice, were they? I read aloud from A Child’s History of the World, and the kiddos and I reviewed the “Viking” pages in The Usborne Time Traveler.

Geography ~ We worked our way through France this week {leftover from last week}.  We spent time reading some fun fiction picture books about France, and I also read a chapter from I Heard the Good News Today about Louis Braille {who was French}. 

While exploring the kids’ news magazines that just arrived in the mail {God’s World News}, I came across a biography lesson about Mr. Braille on the magazine’s website.  The lesson included a cool braille activity…after deciphering the braille message, the kiddos had a great time making up their own message in braille, tonight we’ll see if daddy can decode their messages. 

We finished up our tour of France and stamped our passports.  Next week we’re off to explore another European country {yet to be determined}.

Science ~ We learned about the sun in our astronomy studies this week.  I really appreciate the way our astronomy book {Exploring Creation with Astronomy} explains things.  We did a couple of very short activities to help us understand some hard-to-explain concepts like “if the sun is so much bigger than the earth, why does it look so small to us?” {‘cause it’s over 92 million miles away}.  I also made myself very dizzy while trying to demonstrate the differences between revolving and rotating :)  And ds8 began working on some of the notebook pages that go along with this study.

P.E. ~  Our kiddos do get a fair amount of outside running around time, especially when the weather is as mild as it has been this past week.  But we have noticed that dd6 complains a lot when we take long walks {or even short ones, for that matter}.  We’re pretty sure it is because she would rather be doing something other than taking a family walk.  But we have decided that it would not hurt for us to build up her endurance {and ours too, while we’re at it} by planning to have a more consistent physical education plan.

We went on a family hike on Monday, took a walk around our neighborhood on Tuesday night, played outside for about two hours every night this week, and played at the park with friends for 2 hours on Thursday.

Read-Alouds ~ We began listening to our Ginger Pye {Core 2} audio book this week.  I was so glad that our library had this resource for us, especially after hearing how long the first chapter was!  We also continued our bedtime read-aloud ~ The Family Under the Bridge {Core K}.

You may wonder what ds3 does while we are “doing school”…sometimes he makes a lot of noise and tries to distract us with his toys, sometimes he listens along while coloring at our little preschool table, and sometimes he busies himself with puzzles…

This post is being linked to Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers