Short week this week – only 3 school days between our holiday Monday and co-op day today. I feel like we didn’t get much accomplished – one of those “brick ears” weeks.
Just when you think you have everything in the schedule figured out, it needs re-tweaking. That’s what this week has been all about. And because of the re-tweaking, it hasn’t left much time and room for poor Keekers, which translates to a grumpy toddler interrupting lessons constantly. I obviously need to work more time in for her at the start of the day in order to give her what she needs and help the rest of the day go more smoothly!
Bible
More lessons through Pearables: The Narrow Way. We’ve been talking about trust and faith – relying on God and not ourselves. Stories about Daniel and Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego – The Boy read both of them on his own willingly during our morning study time :D
BFIAR – Blueberries for Sal
This is one of my favourite books of all time. The kids have never read it, I’ve been saving it for when we can make blueberry jam! Ingredients are on the grocery list and we’ll make it tomorrow! (all printables from Homeschool Creations)
Keeker doing size sorting – it is truly amazing to me how much she picks up just by watching us. She had no problem figuring out big and little, medium was a little trickier!
We also did number matching – she’s pretty good at finding the matches!
Learning positions – on, over, under, beside, up, down, etc.
JJ is loving the read, build, write mats – next week we’ll try letters with play-doh to switch it up a bit.
Just for fun – they made a spider! So they say :D
Science – Apologia Land Animals of the Sixth Day
We just started chapter 2 on carnivorous mammals. Learning the characteristics of mammals – most have fur, young drink mother’s milk, warm-blooded, vertebrates, etc.
We also did an activity from last week on animal habitats and their survival based on camouflage. The boys had to find as many M&Ms in the basket in 1 1/2 minutes (same amount per colour were put into the basket). They had a blast and learned that animals camouflage help their survival in their habitats.
Math – Right Start Level A (SK) and C (Gr 2)
We went back over Roman numerals with The Boy – he seemed to get it quicker the second time, but is still really balking at adding numbers higher than 10. He seems to have his momma’s propensity for math anxiety, and I’m having a hard time getting through to him! Still plugging away at it, we may have to go back to last year’s material if we can’t make any headway.
JJ is still loving his math lessons! That’s one at least :D We just introduced even and odd numbers and how to tell the difference, with our two fingers.
Phonics – Christ Centered Curriculum Level B2 (SK) and C3
with First Language Lessons Level 2 (Grade 2)
I am really thinking about dropping this all-together and going with a more stream-lined program off the top, like All About Spelling. While I really like the activity book for CCC for The Boy (C3), a lot of the stuff in the lesson is just too much, especially when we’re doing First Language Lessons as well. We’ll stick it out to the end of this term maybe and go from there.
FLL we are learning, writing and illustrating the Months of the Year poem.
JJ – Level B2 in the CCC – also a lot to cover and he doesn’t like a lot of the repetition and drills. So we split the lessons up into 2 and only do drills on the first day.
He’s really connecting with the sounds in words and has started reading the easier words in the Usborne Phonics readers we just got. He’s excited to do it too, which is great!
Reading – Anything and Everything!
Parables From Nature was finished this week – I started giving them colouring sheets relating to the story to keep them occupied if they finished their snack. I found the last few stories in the book to actually be a little off-base biblically, something silly like man’s best friend in the garden decided to go out of it with Adam and Eve when they were exiled…maybe it was just me, but the kids like the book, so we’ll keep it for future use (skipping the silly stories).
We started the next Thornton Burgess – Danny Meadow Mouse! And the emphasis – on contentment. Perfect! That’s a lesson we’ve been working through with our oldest a lot lately, especially with his attitude. So this is a great extra.
Nate the Great – we finished off two more of these books and NOW we’re finished. I found a lot of great activities and ideas online for these, I’ve linked them below. They’re great, easy read books and the kids love the detective stories – they turn everything into a mystery!
A Great Detective Web Quest – this one we LOVED! We are working on making our own cross word puzzle with Puzzlemaker at Discovery. There are lots of ideas here for pulling information out of a story, researching, working on the computer – all geared for 2nd grade.
Nate the Great and the Big Sniff resources
Various Story Comprehension Questions
Developing Thinking and Reasoning Skills Using Detective Literature
In other news, we got a photo copier! I have so much stuff I need photocopied and I just have not had time to get out and do it, so we decided to just bring one in. This should allow us to start back into our Handwriting Without Tears next week.
Final subject to add in yet – Canadian History / Geography / Social studies. I’m using a combination of books from Donna Ward, wall maps and charts and online focus on individual provinces. Here’s hoping I can schedule that in next week.
Linking up with Elementary Round-Up and Weekly Wrap-Up
