Weekly Review 2/13-2/17

What’s New

This was a great week.  I was refreshed and full of vision.  It was one of those weeks where you set out to accomplish x, y, z and you get it done.  Don’t you just love those weeks?

I am still researching curriculum for next year.  I am keeping my current selections for language arts and math but I am not sure about history and science.  Also there are a few other loose ends to tie up as well foreign language and other electives.

The classroom plan is coming together.  We went to IKEA last weekend with the blueprint of what we want (or what we thought we wanted).  Once there my head began spinning with all the possibilities.  We have decided to delay renovations until the close of this school year.  I was hoping to complete the project during our spring break in March but since we are doing some work in the bathroom next door it just makes since to have it all done at the same time. 

Math

Completed lessons 91-94.  We worked a lot with subtraction facts, adding 10 to a number and switch around facts which are examples of the commutative property of addition.

History

Read through Onward a book about Matthew Henson.  Matthew Henson was the first African American to go to the North Pole.   We used our map to locate all the locations Matthew traveled.

 

Science

Learned about gravity and conducted an experiment to see which objects would fall to the ground first.  Our observations showed us that the heavier an object is the more gravity pulls on it.  Read about Galileo.

 

Language Arts

We continue our work with suffixes, root words and contractions.  Also we are learning more about silent letters. 

Reading

We will finish our last Light Unit in the Learning to Read series.  Christopher has to take his exam which I will administer over the weekend.  So on Monday he will begin his Reading 100 series.

Pre School

Math

Completed pages 97-109.  Emmanuel is really doing well with recognizing patterns. 

Emmanuel came to me one day while I was working with Christopher on his math. He said look mom its seven o'clock. He had configured his clock to seven. I asked him to show me three o’clock and five o’clock and he did. Christopher said mom he’s learning to tell time before I did.

Reading

We are almost finished with our Hooked on Phonics workbook.

Motor Skills

I cut up a few pieces of construction paper so Emmanuel can practice putting the pieces together.  Here he assembled the capital and lower case A and N.  There are pieces of wood that you can purchase for this but I am cheap resourceful.  Perhaps I could laminate several pieces of of paper and that would make them more durable.

Science

We learned about animal habitats this week.

Extra Stuff

Completed our first Five In A Row book Owl Moon.  It was really fun.  I checked out several of the manuals from the library and read through them and decided this will definitely be something I will add into our days for next year.   I searched the internet and found an owl craft, plus I picked some vocabulary words out of the book for Christopher. I wrote the vocabulary word on the front of the card and he wrote the definition on the back.

If I were better prepared we would of dissected an owl pellet.  However much that grosses me out, we would have done it because I’m a trooper.  Perhaps another time, when the boys are older.  I have to remind myself there will be other years to do cool projects.  I have the tendency to go overboard.  It’s almost as if I want to cram all the cool things into one year. My husband says I am an overachiever. I think he’s right but I will never tell him so.

Goals for next week

My goal is to get back on track with my schedule of chores.  I have been so focused, preparing for next year that I’ve neglected some of my other duties.  So I am going to stop focusing so much on next year and be present in the here and now.