Sunday, November 21, 2010

WEEKLY REPORT - Week 9 - November 1-5, 2010

I was so busy this week. Diva had a play she was in, which required hours sitting in rehearsal. She didn't have a speaking part, but had to simply get dressed in costume and look cute. At 3, she pulled it off :) She and the other little girl had a blast, and at the end Diva didn't want to get off the stage!

Boy was excited this week, as we discussed Korea in History, and he loves tae kwon do. As a result of learning taekwondo, he counts to ten in Korean, and learns the blocks in this language as well.

ENGLISH
We did some good copywork this week in PLL, and Boy did a good job filling in the correct answers as he was copying. He doesn't balk at the work, as I give him 2 or 3 sentences at a time. He gets to work on penmanship as well. Copywork and dictation are the strengths of this program, and I like for Boy, as he's 7, to have a good, yet gentle, introduction to grammar.

PHONICS
Lessons 20 and 21 of Tanglewood Phonics were covered this week, in which I did a lot of clear enunciation as we sounded out those phonemes.

READING
On Monday, Boy read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Mary Pope Osborne's Favorite Medieval Tales. He thoroughly enjoyed the story, and at 7, he's not the least bit bothered by the fact that Sir Gawain cut the Green Knight's head off. Especially as the Green Knight reattached it.
On Tuesday, it was back to Tales of King Arthur. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Boy read The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks, a Japanese story that matched our History studies.

LITERATURE
We are nearing the end of Pinocchio. I read aloud to him Chapters 29 through 33. Diva sometimes joins us, but she's more inclined to do her own thing.

HISTORY
SOTW Ch. 9 was East of China this week. We first learned about the Yamato Dynasty in Japan, and Boy did the review questions. The second day Boy did the coloring page and watched an amazing program on origami on Netflix with Daddy. The third day we listened to Three countries: China, Korea, Japan, and discussed the interactions between each. Boy also did the mapwork. The fourth day we read the encyclopedia on medieval China and Japan.

MATHEMATICS
Math Mammoth 1B: Place value, pages 35 and 36. We did very few pages this week, as I wanted Boy to really grasp and practice place value. The first two days he completed two busy worksheets, and the rest of the week he got the drill and practice he needed through the computer games Math Mammoth has listed. They are free online games! I notice Boy not only enjoys them, but gets some good practice too.

NATURAL SCIENCE
On day 1 we watched a Happy Scientist video related to flowers, put some wildflower stickers in his book and learned about two new wildflowers. On the second day I read him the Kingfisher Young Discoverers Book on Flowers, Trees, and Fruits and Boy played the Eye Spy on this page. The rest of the week we didn't do anything else for Natural Science, as frankly, being 26 weeks pregnant, I was too tired.

SPELLING
We did our required three pages in Spectrum Spelling Grade 2. Ho, hum. Boring. I'm not crazy about workbooks. Hopefully it's not just busywork and he'll remember these words a few months from now.

THEOLOGY
I read to him from the Bible again (365 Children's Bible Stories), this time the story of Jacob's Strange Wrestling Match.

POETRY
We read two poems this week: God's World, which is Edna St. Vincent Millay's homage to God and His beautiful world. The other was Beyond the Great Mountains, a gorgeously illustrated book about China, which included a pretty poem.

SPANISH
On the second day Boy did copywork in Spanish - that's it.

PICTURE STUDY
We continue looking at paintings of Giotto and learning about his life and times. Picture Study is one of Boy's favorite subjects.

COMPOSER STUDY
We were reading about Tchaikovsky, learning about the mysterious benefactor whom he dedicated one of his pieces to.

ART
More Drawing With Children exercises for the kids to practice.

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