Saturday, January 26, 2008

Weekly Review #1

This week has been rather unconventional for us. Sara, Abby, and Debbie have had a half week of school mostly because of various scheduling conflicts. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I took Marie in to the library for the statewide Analytical Writing Test required of all 5th graders. She was extremely nervous before the testing began. The fear of the unknown, I think. After the first day though she was pretty happy about the whole process and didn't mind having to go back for one more day of testing. It also helped that her writing prompt was "Tell about something awesome that has happened in your life." I had given her a similar prompt a couple of months ago so she 'recycled' what she wrote - about finally getting a little brother.

Here's what we did get accomplished this week.

Debbie:
Language Arts -
Practiced her 'A' family words - at, an, ad, am, etc.
Sight words - the, like, was
She is left-handed and still struggles with writing on paper but loves to practice her letters by drawing in rice. We place rice in a pan just until the bottom is covered and she'll practice her letters for a long time. She has made quite an improvement with her letter writing and correct positioning of her paper since we started using Handwriting Without Tears.
Math -
Did several worksheets from LearningPage.
Rolled two dice and added the numbers together. This has been a favorite game this week.

Science -
We learned about our skin, how it stretches and contracts, why we sweat, and how our 'touch' sensors work.


Abigail:
Language Arts -
Read the stories of "David and Goliath," "Best Friends" and "King David" from The Beginner's
Bible.
Handwriting Without Tears - beginning cursive!
Learned how to substitute pronouns for common or proper nouns.
Spelling Rule - When two consonants are between two vowels the words is almost always divided between the two consonants - vc/cv. Words - under, problem, number, basket, winter, escape, magnet, bandit, sister, picnic.
Math -
Counting money - pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters
Two digit addition
Rolling three dice and adding the numbers
Science - learned about skin
History - Minoans on the island of Crete. The people of the Indus Valley.

To see how our skin stretches and contracts we drew caterpillars next to our elbows. We made them 'crawl' by bending and unbending our arms.


Sara:
Language Arts -
Read five chapters in "Riding the Pony Express."
Synonyms - using them in writing
Quotations in conversational writing
Learning about Topic sentences
Sequential Spelling
Handwriting Without Tears - cursive
Math -
Multiplication tables - 1, 2, 5, 10
Roll two dice and multiply the numbers. They had so much fun with this I will start keeping dice in my purse so they will have something to do when we have to wait - at the doctor's office, in line at the store, etc.
Counting money
Science - Skin
History - Minoans on the island of Crete. The people of the Indus Valley.

Marie:
Language Arts - regular and irregular verbs, "Rip Van Winkle",
Math - tree diagrams for probability
Science - Weather: fronts, forecasts, climate change
Music - folk music of New England, Piano - "Love One Another" simplified hymnbook
No history or science because of her two test days.

Eve:
Math - Proportions
History - Greece
Language Arts - reviewing past, present and future tense of verbs, writing a personal narrative, "Vocabulary From Clsssical Roots"
Science - asexual reproduction, sexual reproduction, Life cycles
Literature - 'Lord of the Rings'
Music - Hymn 142 "Sweet Hour of Prayer", played this at Mutual to accompany the youth during opening exercises!
Art - Beauty meets Function: Chinese, Luristan, Italian and Viking artists created beautiful and functional gear for horses.

And finally the local homeschool group went on a field trip to the newspaper office. It was so interesting! The presses were rolling while we were there. There were six presses total the first being the blue ink, then the red, then yellow, and the final three were black ink presses. The press is so old parts are no longer made for it. It's also not digital so when the final layout for the newspaper is complete it is 'stamped' onto plastic sheets that are then placed on the rollers which in turn pick up the ink and transfer it to the newsprint. The first photo is of the red ink press. The second is where all the pages some together, are cut, and then folded.

4 comments:

Kodelle said...

Wow! What a schedule. How do you keep everyone on schedule and all the schedules coordinated?

wild murdocks said...

Loved the caterpillars on the arms! What an amazing mom you have to do so many interesting projects and teach you so much!

Lei said...

Homeschooling is so appealing to me right now... I love seeing how moms tailor it to their families' needs. You've got some great ideas.:)

Sonja said...

AACK! You guys are amazing! I love how you detail all the things each person is learning.

The caterpillers are such a great idea! We love to read the newspaper at our house, maybe we should take a trip presses too.

Thanks for sharing your week. =)