Week 3

Things are settling in more this week. I seem to have a better handle on the schedule now. The beginning of the week was a tad rocky though. Both kids had eventful weekends and it showed with the way Monday dragged. My patience was tested several times throughout and I didn't always pass. With a lot of prayer we made it through and have some stuff to show for it.

Math: Quinn (end of 3B) seems to be grasping the concept of equivalent fractions better than I thought he would. However when it came time for a review lesson I noticed that he had completely forgotten how to do long division. (patience testing time!) Of course, the info was still in his brain I just had to find a way to pull it out. I know that it is the numerous steps involved that he has trouble with. It boggles his mind to think about it all at once. I'm trying to help him to only think about one step at a time. His memory seemed to come around by the end of the week.

Evelyn (middle of 1B) is learning double digit subtraction. It has been hard for me to fight back the urge to just teach her the way I was taught. I know that eventually she will learn that way but that it is in fact beneficial to learn the mental way first. It will help her to understand it better....right??

Read Aloud: We finished Red Sails to Capri. It was not one of the easier read alouds we have done. There is a lot of tricky dialogue. But the story is great and the kids really liked it. We looked up pictures and videos of the Blue Grotto online after. Quinn says he wants to go there.

Blue Grotto Wikipedia Entry

Spelling: We do spelling through dictation with a neat program called Spelling Plus. It introduces 20 new words every week and then you learn them by writing meaningful sentences that spiral the new and old words in a perfect way. This has been the most helpful for Quinn who is NOT a speller.



History: This week we read about Charlemagne and Alfred the Great. For Charlemagne we did a keyword outline and then wrote it out. For King Alfred I had them do a one sentence narration afterward and they drew a picture to go with their narration to put in their notebooks. Quinn read three chapters on Alfred in Our Island Story. He says King Alfred is cool...


Bible Study: CBS is going well. We all seem to be keeping up with our homework.

CO-OP
Quinn recited a joke called "These Ducks Want Books" for his humorous interpretation speech. He did pretty well. This time he even remembered to do some of his hand motions. His volume was perfect and stumbled minimally.

Evelyn is learning tons of new signs in sign language class and she loves it.

Quinn's rocket class was spent learning that rockets don't fly and why they need nozzles. There was much saliva involved..ick!




Evelyn's art class produced some beautiful butterflies that they have been working on for a while now.

Quinn brought his skateboard for a still life in art and ended up deciding that it was too difficult. I need to help him find something else. He is usually very good at drawing rockets and ships...