WEEKLY REPORT - WEEK 3, September 20-24, 2010

I'm a bit behind in my posting, but here's Week 3.

ENGLISH

We did Lessons 4-6, and Son, to my surprise, really enjoyed dictation. He liked the challenge of memorizing the spelling of the words, then writing the sentence including these words on his own. We use the Charlotte Mason method of dictation. He's doing well, especially considering it was his first ever try at doing this! Very happy with our gentle yet effective this method looks to be.

PHONICS

We reviewed Lesson 5 and 6 orally. We're reviewing Tanglewood Phonics, which is a free program you can download at the Tanglewoodeducation.com site.

READING

He finished reading Fantastic Mr. Fox the first day of this week, and a few days later we all watched the movie featuring George Clooney and Meryl Streep as the voices of the Mr. and Mrs. Fox. The only way I can describe this movie is quirky and cute. Our youngest enjoyed it the most. We all did, but she was riveted. Son contrasted the book and the film, and found that the original story was simple, as they added a lot to the movie.

LITERATURE

Chapters 11 through 14 this week. Son looks forward to Pinocchio every day, and I find myself intrigued as well. It's tempting to read ahead, but I want to share in the experience with him. The story has many twists and turns, which keeps him on the edge of his couch seat.

HISTORY

SOTW Ch. 3, Christianity Comes to Britain. We had so much fun this week, and Son really understands monks and monasteries. I have a much deeper understanding as well, and their role in recording and preserving the literary treasures. Husband and Son made a cross out of foam and tied it with a simple rope for him to wear around his neck, and we visited the Usborne Quicklinks (corresponding Internet pages to the Usborne World History Encyclopedia) and delved rather deeply into monastic daily life. We listened to Gregorian chants, saw ruins of old monasteries and monasteries still functioning today. He marveled at how strict their lives were (at least for the first few hundred years), and in took a quiz testing his knowledge. He learned about Gregory and the pretty children, and how Gregory told Augustine to spread the news of Christianity to all the Angles in Britain. I find it interesting how quickly and easily the Anglo Saxons converted to Christianity from paganism.

MATH

This week took a short break from Math Mammoth (after regular days), and focused on money. I printed off pages from Enchanted Learning and we reviewed pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters, and how to count and add them.

NATURAL SCIENCE

The focus this week was on human bones and the skeleton. For us it was a review, as we studied the Human Body last year. We revisited the joints, how they move and how in turn muscles move them. After reading his Kingfisher Human Body encyclopedia (four pages), Son rebuilt our miniature human skeleton and spent quite some time manipulating it.

SPELLING

Finished the writing part of Lesson 2, then went on to do all of Lesson 3. New set of words. This reminds me, I'm going to quiz him on both Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 next week.

THEOLOGY

We discussed the other five commandments: do not worship other gods, do not say God's name in vain, etc. It seemed pretty self-explanatory and easier to understand for Son than the last five commands.

GEOGRAPHY

I read Maps and Mapping Chapter 2 to Son, and he was able to give good directions from our house to Grandma's house and Publix (the local supermarket).

HEALTH & SAFETY

We discussed preventing accidents, e.g. seeing a toy on a flight of stairs (removing it), seeing a baby playing with something she can choke with, etc.

PICTURE STUDY

We are reading from Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists, Giotto. We examined typical figures from the medieval times, which looked like flat cut-outs with mysterious eyes, without any continuation or backgrounds. We read that Giotto was the first painter to change all that.

ART

This week the kids practiced the five elements of drawing. Daughter participates in art as the program is for 3-9

POETRY

We continued with the biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and read about her childhood, and how her mother Cora made sure she had plenty of books and time to write her poetry. She started writing poetry at five! What a talented lady.

COPYWORK

This week Son copied from three of Millay's poems, a fact about bones, and History (about Augustine and the other monks to came to settle in Britain).

SINGING

We actually skipped this this week. We were thrown off by the change in plans, when Daughter had swimming lessons that Friday.