Weekly Review 5/14-5/25/12

What's new:

We are so close to the end of our year but there is still much to do.  The hard part is listening to everyone else finish their year while we are still working hard.  But the finish line is in view and we are almost there. 

Science:

The caterpillars hatched and we released them this Tuesday. The butterfly experiment was great though, I wish someone would have told me about the shaking chrysalis.  We ended our butterfly study with a trip to a butterfly garden. The boys were so excited to observe the butterflies daily.  It was kind of sad to let them go but I’m sure there will be other opportunities to raise butterflies.  Joshua can not stop saying butterfly. 

 

There were so many beautiful butterflies at the butterfly garden.  Unfortunately, I was unable to capture many of them on film. 

Math:

Studied polygons, place value using base 10 blocks.   We have two lessons left before we are done with this curriculum.  Christopher really enjoyed working with the base 10 blocks.

Reading:

Christopher is almost done with his reading curriculum.  We are halfway through our current unit and have one more and then it’s a wrap.  He is still learning to scan stories for information and answering questions about what he is reading.  Christopher was introduced to the Nate The Great series this year and reads these books during his independent reading time.  He has about five books left in the series before he completes the entire series.  I am on the hunt for another series for him.  Please let me know if you have any ideas.

History:

Learned about calligraphy in China, Qin Zheng the first Emperor of China and how the great wall which is a series of walls were built to keep Mongols out. Christopher cooked his first pot of rice during this time. 

In addition we began our chapter about Julius Cesar and how he rose to power.  During the next few weeks we will take some time to update our time line. 

LA:

Continued our work with suffixes, changing the y to I before adding a suffix,  keeping the y when there is a vowel before the y.  We also learned the are family contractions and reviewed a capitalization rule for the days of the week. 

Preschool:

Emmanuel is completing his last workbook of the year.  We also continue working on his motor skills.

 

Character Building:

Diligently we are practicing the characteristic of orderliness.  We will probably work a week or two more before adding another characteristic to our list.  I have found that working together as a family helps to get the jobs done faster and the boys like helping out. 

Goals for next week:

Continue planning for next school year.  Ideally, I would like to finish the majority of the planning stage.  Christopher’s studies are mapped out but I have to finalize the plans for the other boys on paper. Also I would like to complete my third and final video on planning your homeschool year.  

Lastly, I have to find a new photo editing site.  The former company I used went out of business and I am just not happy with the photos on my site now.  *sigh*

Sites I visited this week:

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/

http://itsthelittlemoments.blogspot.com/

http://wildflowersandmarbles.blogspot.com/

http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/