Books to read this week

For Jhoshua this week, he will be reading:



and



He is finishing this book this week.

For my read alouds to my 2 younger ones ( Alden and Taylor)

We are reading this classic:



And for our science books this week, I chose:



and



We are studying birds right now, so this is our supplement reading for this week.

Our 14th Week

This week is a very relaxing week for all of us. Everything went smoothly. Most of the things were done on a timely manner. No crying and complaining about work this week. The weather is a bit cold and a few showers this week so we weren't able to go nature walking and spent little time outside. P.E. was also canceled due to wet field (kids didn't like that). And the only thing we were able to do this week outside of our home was AWANA night which was on Wednesday night. Here are some pics of their art projects this week.


My first grader's work (Alden)


My 6th grader's work (Jhosh)






Here is what my 6th grader did this week:

Math: He is slowing down right now, using Life of Fred for review and fun. I also have him do some problems from BJU 6.

Grammar: He did review questions from R/S and did very well.

Writing: He is learning narrative writing on first person view right now from Writing Strand. We are also on Week 6 of Writing with Ease and he is doing great. Some of the dictation exercises are long but he is able to hold it in and write it down easily.

Science: We just started the second book of God Design for Heaven and Earth, Our Planet Earth. So far I like this curriculum. It's easy to use and not too busy, gives us time to read outside source to supplement our studies.

History: He has been doing 2 chapters of SOTW 4 every week. One chapter per day and all mapping and time lining are done on Wednesdays. He also outlines 2 pages of Children's Encyclopedia of American History. It seems to be a lot of work but he loves History and enjoys reading about it.

Reading: He picked the book for this week. He is reading The Hound of Baskervilles. He likes mystery stuff. He was talking about this book a lot so I didn't feel like making him write about it.

My first grader:

Math: We did measuring by inch this week, a lot of it. Everything he can measure, he did. We also use our balance scale this week. Alden and Taylor had fun comparing weights of everything they can put in the scale. He is doing great in his addition facts.

Reading: Getting there... He loves to read about insects so he is reading Nature Reader 1 for his daily reading practice plus other stuff he picks up around the house.

History: Finished reading Squanto, Friends of the Pilgrim this week and started reading Stories of the Pilgrims.

Science: Read about birds today, why birds have different bills and why some birds can't fly. Kids enjoyed the readings.

Writing: We are on week 6 of Writing with Ease 1. Everything is good.

These are our accomplishments this week. I am not going to complain, it has been a great week for us.

Have a great weekend!

Week 13

This week we started our school with some changes. Jhoshua is getting to the point where Saxon 8/7 is becoming confusing and he started to get frustrated. And this is my advanced child in math that have always enjoyed doing math every morning. But I think he started hitting a wall and was vocal enough to tell me. So I thought I'd give him a break and hand him something new and enjoyable to do that will recover his joy in math again. I got him the Life of Fred Fraction and Decimal books. And he can't put it down. He laughs while reading, though he thinks it is easy for him but willing to do them. I think going back and reviewing his math skills will give him more confidence when he goes back to Saxon again, which he said he will, not just now.

He had also started using Writing with Ease Level 4 combined with Writing Strand. I think we have found something that he can do that I don't get too much complaints and generate good results. His dictation skills are being developed and does help him hold his thoughts longer enough to be put in the paper. I like that he is learning to identify main points of the story and focus on those rather than narrate everything that happened just for the sake of narrating. This greatly helps him in his outlining. Writing strand helps him a lot in organizing his thoughts, writes it down and builds sentences, in a small chunks of work that it does not frustrates him. That is good. I think frustrations in kid's work hinder them greatly to develop their skills. It is not that they do not want to do the work rather it puts them to a negative vibe that stops them from trying.

The rest of their work this week were done. I am amazed how quickly we finished each day this week. I hope it carries on for the coming week.

Alden has been doing well in his reading, more fluent and less difficulty in decoding. Finally, I think he is getting there. We are almost done with Saxon 2 and I bought Math Mammoth 1 for him as a review material when we finish Saxon. We are right on track on his science schedule using Elemental Science. Finally, I found something that we can use that I don't have to tweak a lot. History is fun. Just started reading aloud Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims this week for him.

We were busy today. We went to our biweekly nature walk in a marsh area near our place this morning. It was very cold but we have seen a lot of birds around. We were also able to watch an education movie about marsh land in the visitor's area. We ended our nature walk with a lunch picnic with their friends. Wonderful day.

I know sometimes, starting school again after a long vacation is difficult. But I am grateful for the attitude that my kids have shown me this week. They have been good and cooperative this week and I hope this will continue.
Have a wonderful weekend!

School on Monday

We are almost done with our 2 weeks vacation and everyone is not so excited about it. Of course, why would you want to start school again after all that fun. Everyone had fun including me. I had spent most of my time decorating the house, baking, cleaning, reading and just hanging out with the kids. Though it rained most of the days, it did not dampen the spirit of vacation around here.Kids had so much fun playing and just being kids. And now that vacation is almost over, I can barely look at my lesson plan again and start school on Monday. Not to mention I have to submit the semester report of the kids to our PSP school and that takes me forever to do. I don't do well with deadlines and it seems I have a hard time keeping up. So for the next 2 weeks I will be busy making the kids grades.
Well I guess, I just have to stop complaining and move on. Just like what I have told the kids this morning. Vacation is over and time to do school again. One step at a time, we will get there and soon enough summer will be here.
Happy New Year to all. And welcome back to school.