Week 2 Wrap-Up!

I'm not sure if I'll be continuing weekly wrap-up blog posts.  I will do my best!  Instead I may just highlight certain subjects for each child as they work on them.  The first week of school, we eased into a few new lessons and reviewed a bit.....the second week (last week) we went full throttle and started every subject back.  The kids handled it quite nicely! Earning a quarter to the gumball machine (our m&m machine) wouldn't have anything to do with it, would it?  If we have a smooth day....no complaining, whining, dwadling, etc....they earn a quarter or two (depending) at the end of the school day.

Flower started Analytical Grammar Season 2 doing it 4 days a week.  She feels pretty confident and remembers Season 1 very well.  She started Treasure Island in Lightning Literature and she is so far glued to the book!  We just recently started our last Book Club book: Huckleberry Finn so after that we will start some American History read alouds together.  She also started Science Fusion Module G Matter & Energy on Monday.  When she doesn't have a hands-on lab in SF, she will join Bambi & Thumper in an activity or experiment. She made an atomic model with them last week in science.

Science & History schedule goes like this:
M: History lesson & Science Virtual Lesson: following along in the worktext.
T:  History lesson & Science Lab OR review page in worktext & take virtual quiz
      (if no lab)
W: History lesson & Science review page in worktext/virtual quiz OR new lesson                  (depending on day before)
Th: Science lesson/using Handy Science links, videos w/Disc. Education, youtube, &             Netflix.
Fri: History lesson, Current Events (See Handy History links on the right), History                                              documentaries/movies

(In Science this year I am going to have everyone study Scientists that come up in their lessons they are reading.  We will add in some more science readers & biographies, videos, and keep a notebook page for each scientist.  I'll add pictures of those as we learn them!)

Flower is still enjoying America the Beautiful! She started Unit 2: Spanish Explorers Come to America.  We have added Howard Zinn's Young People's History of the United States and read through Chapter 1 Columbus And The Indians.  I love this book!  She is also reading the Hakim History of US books to go along with each topic in ATB.  She has outlined her history readings this week and added notebooking pages to her notebook.
Teaching Textbooks Alg.I is still going strong for her.  You can see the guidelines I have set for their lessons in Weekly Wrap-up Week 1 post.  I've noticed that some days lessons take maybe 35-40 minutes.  When this happens I have Flower work on XtraMath, Algebra concepts in Khan Academy, ixl.com, or Life of Fred to fill the rest of the 1 hour time slot that I want them to have for math.  She usually has enough time to do a couple from that list.

Flower & Bambi started The Institute For Excellence in Writing SWI-B on last Tuesday.  I watched the lesson video the night before so I would know what to expect for the next day.  Tuesday I just lingered in the classroom while they watched the first 38 min. video.  It was quite enjoying!  I thought I would be annoyed by him, especially the second time watching, but I was not.  The girls seemed to like Mr. Pudewa and I even heard them laughing a bit.  Flower had an easier time with it than Bambi.....of course there is a major age/growth difference.  Flower is a strong writer and Bambi is a beginner.  Bambi asked me to pause it once so she could quickly right down neurotoxin.  She doesn't write very fast and that is something Mr. Pudewa wants them to do.  We will have to work on her speed!  They were relieved when he said they could have messy writing!  Hopefully Bambi will be able to keep up but I may have to pull her back a bit if she struggles and let Flower continue at her own pace.  Bambi should be fine and having a little challenge may stretch her to become an excellent writer!  We are using the A level Reinforcement paragraphs for Bambi instead of the B level. They both did really well with SWI-B.  I can see them using these writing skills in other subject areas, too.

Bambi is still truckin' on in her TT Math 6, too!!  She LOVES TT!  I do have her work a page from Math Mammoth each day as well (just front & back of one page) b/c TT lessons are fairly short and don't fill our 1 hour math time.  She works on her math facts as well!  If she continues on this way with MM, then she will finish all of the rest of MM4 & the first little bit of MM5 by late April!  I'll cross my fingers that she won't have any troubles along the way!
Bambi & Thumper started SOTW Ancients this week.....we started with the Introduction: How do we Know what Happened?  We read:

• Usborne Archaeology (as Bambi's reader this week b/c she is reading Huck Finn for BC) 
• Human Odyssey pgs. 9-15 Introduction (talked about outlines)
• Usborne History Encyclopedia pg. 103-104(Bambi made her list of important facts)
• Archaeology magazine
• Watched Archaeology videos on Discovery Education & Magic Schoolbus with Thumper.

Bambi was eager to start Jr. Analytical Grammar again this week!   She watched the Lesson on Monday about Adjectives & Articles.  She's got it down pat so far!
Logic Of English Advanced Spelling Lists went smoothly.....you can see our method in Week 1 Wrap Up. The activities I planned each day with her worked out just great and she got plenty of practice with her words.
Bambi & Thumper  do science together.  I am using RS4K Chemistry, First Encyclopedia of Science, Simple Chemistry Experiments, Eye Witness Chemistry, Eye Witness Great Scientists, and LOTS of resources online listed in my Handy Science Links to the right side of this blog.  I also have Ellen McHenry's Elements but not sure how to incorporate everything together as a whole.  We may jump into that after RS4K Chemistry!  

Last week, DAY 1, we made an atomic model with clay(Simple Chemistry Experiments), sketched the model, and added it to our science notebook behind our SKETCHES tab.  Read RS4K Chp.1 Matter Sections 1.1 - 1.2.  DAY 2 Read Chp.1, 1.3 Periodic Table....used the periodic table to add (green clay) electrons to atomic model we made on Day 1.  Checked out Periodic Table Videos.....a big hit!  DAY 3 we read Great Scientists (eyewitness book) and added Dmitry Mendeleyev to our doorway.  We (including Flower) will be adding scientist figures around the classroom doorway as we study them.  I was going to add it to our wall timeline but some of our figures were way to big for it.    

Thumper did really well with Lesson 1 of Logic of English.  The spelling words were pretty simple for him.  I did like having grammar tied in with his spelling/phonogram lesson.  I still will add in some poetry & picture study from First Language Lessons 2.  It's a bit early for a review about Logic of English.  Hopefully by the end of next month I can give a better picture of how things are really going!
He continued with Billy & Blaze last week reading Blaze and the Forest Fire.  He added his narrations to his reading notebook along with drawings.  Nothing too formal as of yet.....I'm trying to encourage as much reading as possible this year!