Weekly Wrap-up: Power Outages result in plan changes

It has been another crazy week weather-wise. We've gone from snow covered grounds to flooding and back to snow covered grounds; from wearing winter coats and boots to spring coats and boots and back to winter coats and boots. Crazy times! One day this week we were without power for most of the day, with the power flicking on for a bit but quickly disappearing again. That particular day we chose to stay cuddles under the blankets in bed to stay warm, and we brought our school work in bed with us. It ended up being a pretty fun day.
Bible
Anna continued to use the Bible.Is app most of the week and read/listened to chapters 5-8 of Matthew with it. Then she discovered the newly released YouVersion Bible App for Kids and devoured it. She worked her way through all the stories presently available on the app and hen proceeded to go through them all again. She loves it. I have informed her, however, that while she is welcome to play with the app as much as she wants in her free time it does not count as Bible reading and she must continue to do additional Bibke reading. She seemed to understand.
Once again she seems to have come to a stand still in learning scriptures and hasn't added any new verses. I have a plan to help with that next month.
Art
Anna made a beautiful art project in her art class at the recreation Center this week. She decided to give it to her sister and she loves it. Anna suggested she could use the box to hold her CDs.

Anna also did a couple of art projects on her own at home. She made a doghouse for her new stuffed dog and also made her a food and water bowl and a bone. :-)

I absolutely love this picture that she did all on her own. She was inspired one day by the view out our back patio door.

Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar)
We learned about adverbs and reviewed adjectives while completing lessons 45-49 in First Language Lessons. We also did a picture narration and learned how to address a post card.
We made our way through review test 3 of level A of Spelling Power. Anna struggled with a lot of the words in the last few groups of words and I expected her to struggle more with the review test but it seems she may finally have mastered many of these words.
We layed aside our formal writing program this week and writing was done through our other subjects.
We have been listening to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and we're almost finished it. We are enjoying this recording.
Math
Math continues to be a favourite time for Anna as we continue to play games to help her learn the facts. Anna came up with another new game this week. Its a card game to practice doubles. You have to try to get pairs and you must tell what the pairs add up to when you lay them down. She also decided to add a bit of French to her math lessons. She insists that we say the numbers in French. She uses a French app to help her with the numbers. Somehow or another multiplication came up this week and we spent a bit of time playing around with that concept with the cusinaire rods. I've been encouraging her to do more of the writing for math and most days we end up with a sheet like this one from one day this week. On this sheet she recorded the answer to a How Much Money game, five addition puzzles, and practiced writing some numbers as I called them out. I wrote the multiplication and addition sentences at the bottom as we discussed them.

Music
The only structured music this week has been her piano practice, which she continues to do great with. Other than that Anna has been almost constantly in song, singing her own made up tunes.
Science
We are really enjoying our Exploring Creation With Zoology 1. We are learning about the five different kinds of feathers and the importance of each kind. It has been very interesting.
Social Studies
We finished Chapter 11 and 12 in Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages. Anna did great on the tests for both chapters. We learned about the early history of France and Spain.
And that's it for this week. We are taking a cue from the power outrageous and we are changing things up a bit next month. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.
Weekly Wrap-up Posts inspired by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up Meme.

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Weekly wrap-up: sloppy inside and out

The weather is starting to get sloppy here. It fluctuates between sunshine, rain, and snow. It kind our mirrors our homeschool this week. There have been great moments, okay moments, and extremely frustrating moments. I'm choosing to try to learn from the frustrating moment and then trying to forget them, concentrating more on the great moments. :-)

No weekly wrap-up last week; we took the week off because my sister was visiting.

 

Bible

Anna completed the Courageous Kid's Bible reading plan in YouVersion and, as she couldn't find any other reading plans that included videos, decided to take a break using YouVersion. Instead she decided to do her daily Bible reading using the Bible.Is app. She is using the NIV dramatized version and she listens to the audio while following along with the text on the iPad. She listened to chapter 1-4 of Matthew this week.

She's been kind of slack with her Scritpure memory. She has only been reviewing a verse or two and not adding any new ones. I need to encourage her more with that.

Art

Anna did a neat picture at her art class at the community center this week.

At home our art time has been taken up with fingering knitting. Anna loves it! We started with one finger knitting and have moved on to four finger knitting.

Here are some projects she made with one finger knitting - the two top pictures show a bracelet she made. The bottom. Left picture is a small wash cloth she made for one of her miniature figurines. I showed her how to sew the string into a circle. The bottom left picture is a collar she made, using a thicker wool, for her stuffed dog.

Here's her first attempt at four finger knitting. We made it into a headband.

 

Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar)

We completed lesson 41- 45 in First Language Lessons. We learned about indirect quotations and review the four kinds of sentences, parts of speech, direct quotations and titles of respect.

We made it through group 17 words in Spelling Power. She flicked through most of them but there are a few that she struggled with so that it took most of the week to actually be done with whole list.

The copy work, narration, and dictation exercises in Writing With Ease this week were based on passages from 101 Dalmations. Anna has seen the movie a couple of times and she also has a couple of different picture books based on the story so the story is very familiar to her. I'm not sure if we'll take the time to read the original book or not.

We finished reading Pippi Longstocking together this week and I found a Pippi Longstocking movie available on YouTube. Anna enjoyed watching that and comparing the scenes to the chapters in the book. The movie was quite different from the book.

Math

We are continuing to play games to review facts and money values. This week I decided to start each math session with a couple of quick review activities. The first activity reviews counting money. I simply place a handful of coins on the table and Anna has to figure out how much money it is. I write down the amount after she's figured it out to get her used to reading the amount. The other activity is for reviewing facts. I take a handful of cusinaire rods from the bag and arrange them into addition problems. Anna has to figure out the answers. The first part of the week I wrote out the equations as she figured the out but the last part of the week I had her write out the equations herself. She continues to enjoy playing Go to the Dump, Math War, and Capture the Looney.

Music

We didn't pick a song to learn this week. Instead Anna's been working in learning how to play some Christmas song on piano. This is in addition to her piano lessons. She's doing great.

Science

We finished chapter 2 and have started chapter 3 in Exploring Creation With Zoology 1. Anna enjoyed doing the bird map in her note booking journal.

We were supposed to make bird feeders but we've decided to out that off until the spring. In Chapter 3 we are learning about birds feathers. We are both enjoying all that we are learning.

Social Studies

We finished chapter 10 and have started chapter 11 of Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages. We had a great time learning about the early history of Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Anna loves doing the chapter tests and does great on them. Today we started learning about the early history of Gaul. Anna loves to find on our big wall map all the places mentioned in our lessons.

 

So, inspite of the sloppiness, we did manage to accomplish a fair amount of work this week. That's one of the great things about doing these weekly wrap-ups, it helps you realize learning does take place, even in the craziest of weeks.

Weekly Wrap-up Posts inspired by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up Meme. Check out her wrap-up for this week and scroll down to see the links to check out weekly wrap-ups from others.

 

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Weekly wrap-up: picking up the slack

Part of the reason why last week was such a struggle for me was because I was starting to get slack. I didn't pay as close attention to things as I could and should have. This week I changed that and it was a much better week.

Bible

Anna finished the Book of Daniel with Kids reading plan and is still working on the Courageous Kids reading plan in YouVersion

She added another verse to the mastered list in ScriptureTyper, bringing her total to 15.

Art

I recently came across the 17 Playful Doodles that Incorporate Everyday Objects blog post and bookmarked it, thinking it would inspire Anna to do some artwork, and it did.

Anna has started going to some after school programs at our community recreation center and has been doing some art projects there so I've cut back some on our art projects. This is one of the projects she did at the Center this week.

Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar)

Lessons 37-40 of First Language Lessons had us addressing an envelope and posting a letter, discussing direct quotations and quotation marks, doing a story narration of The Little Red Hen, and working on memorizing a new poem.

Anna got through the group 16 words of Spelling Power without too much trouble and rather than go right into the next group in the book I decided to spend a couple of days working on words she had been constantly misspelling in her journaling. She was quite happy to do that and proud that she could now spell them.

The copy work, dictation, and narration passages in Writing With Ease this week were from Nurse Matilda by Christianna Brand. Anna continues to do great with the required work.

We finally finished listening to The Jungle Book and we were both quite happy to be done with it. We really didn't enjoy the last few chapters. I found Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren at a local library and I've started reading it aloud to Anna. We're both enjoying it.

Math

We learned two new card games this week, Go to the Dump and Math War. These games provided Anna with more review of the facts. She's still struggling with Math concepts. They do not come easy to her and having her encounter the facts in all this different ways should help her to grasp them eventually. One day this week we reviewed odd and even numbers and made a doubles tree to give some practice with doubles.

We also had some fun playing a game we call How Much Money? We take turns dumping a handful of coins on the table and figuring out how much money it is.

Music

The Sound of Music is one of our favourite movies and this week Anna decided to work on learning Do, Re, Mi. She actually did the taping herself today and I think she did a pretty good job.

She continues to do great with her piano lessons, too.

Phys. Ed.

We went swimming twice this week. We both find it refreshing and reviving.

Science

We are still working our way through chapter two of Exploring Creation With Zoology 1, learning more about field marks, habitats, and songs and calls of birds. We share the reading of the text by taking turns reading paragraphs. After each section we talk about what we learned and I write some notes. One day this week Anna decided she wanted to write the notes herself for one section and she did a great job.

 

Social Studies

We learned about the early dynasties of China and Japan this week as we worked our way through chapters 8 and 9 of Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages. Anna did great on the test for chapter 8. We just finished chapter 9 today and will do the test next week. She loves doing the tests.

 

And that was our week. It went a little better this week than last week, thank goodness. How was your week?

Weekly Wrap-up Posts inspired by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up Meme. Check out her wrap-up for this week and scroll down to see the links to check out weekly wrap-ups from others.

 

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Weekly wrap-up - I'm starting to Lag

This week was a struggle for me. I struggled to stay motivated and positive. Anna was so good, but I was miserable. I pushed to do what had to be done and didn't take time to do things thoroughly or with a good attitude. I took the fun out of learning most of the week. There were some bright moment and thanks to Anna's great attitude we had a a good week in spite of my miserableness. I took myself in hand today and tried to make up for it.

Bible

Anna is still working her way through The Book of Daniel With Kids and the Courageous Kids Bible reading plans at YouVersion and she's still working on her verses in ScriptureTyper. She didn't add any new verses this week.

Art

For art this week I bought Anna a face painting kit and she's been having fun with it all week.

She also did a couple of spontaneous sketch on the white board one day

and set up another art lesson with the pastel chaulks for both of us another day. I got such a kick out of her giving me step by step instructions. Her picture is the top one and mine is the bottom. I love the bold, brightness of her picture.

 

Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar)

Lessons 32-36 of First Language Lessons introduced us to interjections, conjunctions, and letter writing, while at the same time reviewing nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives.

 

We were stuck on the group 14 word list in Spelling Power all week. Anna was tired of using the sugar box for writing the words in as one of the steps in studying her words and started using Doodle Buddy on the IPad and then gravitated to using the white board. She was struggling to keep a good attitude as she was stuck on the same words so long but she finally made her way through the list today.

 

The narrations, dictations and copywork in Writing With Ease were based on passages from Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and, needless to say, Pippi Longstocking has been added to our want to read list.

We finished listening to the Mowgli part of the Jungle Book this week and we're working our way through the rest of the book. I didn't realize that there was more to it then the Mowgli story. As a reward for finishing the Mowgli section I downloaded the 1942 Jungle Book movie and the 1998 Mowgli's Story and we discussed the similarities and differences between the movies and the book.

Math

Inspired by the Jelly Beans Game Math Video at Education Unboxed we practiced our facts with our own version of the game which we called Lazy Daisy. We took turns rolling two dice and deciding if we were going to use the addition or subtraction equation that could be made using the two numbers to cover one of the numbers on our board. The first person to cover all the numbers on their side of the board was the winner. There were a few times when we decided to call it a truce because it was taking for ever to get a couple of numbers, but Anna loves the game and it got her thinking how the same two numbers could be used for either a subtraction or addition equation.

One day Anna asked if we could play Race to the Looney again so we did and then she came up with the idea for another game which she decided to call How Much Money do I Have. She took a handful of change and we had to figure out how much money was in the handful. We took turns picking handfuls for each other to figure out. She used the cuisenaire rods to help her. She loved this game too and got practice with the values of the coins along with addition practice.

 

Music

Talk to the Animals was one of the songs in the Dr. Dolittle movie we watched a while back. That's the song Anna decided to work on this week. We found a YouTube video of a version of Talk to the Animals that we liked best and Anna listened to it and sang along with it all week. It is a really fast song with a lot of unfamiliar words in it so it was a bit of a challenge. There were also a couple of words in it that I didn't want her using so we had to adjust the lyrics a little. She stumbled a little in the taping today but I think she did a great job.

 

Science

We started chapter two of Exploring Creation With Zoology 1. We learned that feathers are what makes a bird a bird, that birds belong to the phylum Chordata because they have a backbone, that they belong to the class Aves, and that they are warm-blooded. We learned that scientists that study birds are called ornithologists and that the study of birds is called ornithology. People who enjoy bird watching are called birders. We also learned that birds are beneficial because they help keep the insect population under control. We discussed how to use field guides and field marks to help identify birds.

Social Studies

We completed chapter 7 in the Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages and learned about the spread of Islam after Muhammad's death. Anna was excited to do the end of chapter test today and she did great on it.

 

And that was our week. How was your week?

Weekly Wrap-up Posts inspired by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up Meme. Check out her wrap-up for this week and scroll down to see the links to check out weekly wrap-ups from others.

 

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