Week Three

We are on a roll! The kids and I have gotten into a great routine and schedule. Our schedule allows for breaks throughout the day, which I believe has really helped Isaac's attention span issues, and it allows time for me to tackle other chores around the house. Last year I really tried to get all of our school done by noon or a little after. I found I was always stressed to "to hurry up and get it done". This led to a lot of frustrating days. This year I have had to adjust my thinking and know that school is an all day affair now. This gives us freedom to go at a good pace for us, accomplish all that needs to be accomplished, and not stress over it.

I started the week with a little treat. Just a little something to brighten their day!

Bible

This week we began our study of the book of Matthew, which we will focus on throughout the school year. We read and discussed some introductory stuff about Matthew and talked about how it was originally written in Greek. On Friday the kids made a bookmark to keep in their Bibles with Matthew written on it in Greek.

We also read about Dwight L. Moody in Hero Tales and began discussing the character traits of repentance, boldness, and strength.

Geography

We have enjoyed studying map skills and world geography. This week we began to focus on North America. The kids and I have had fun locating lots of features of North America like bodies of water, rivers, countries, U.S. states, vegetation, mountain ranges, etc. It's been awhile since I have studied this type of geography and I found it so fun to locate all these places in the atlas and label them on our own maps. Yes, I am a nerd like that!

I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but each week the kids will have two geography vocabulary words to define. So far they have defined  ocean, ocean ridge, continental shelf, and continent. This week they defined forest and isthmus. At the end of the 6 weeks, we will review and test these vocabulary words to make sure we have them tucked away in our memories.

On Friday we did a project called "My Place in the World". I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to include it this week. The kids really enjoyed making these and will be a great keepsake for the geography notebooks.

My Place in the World

My Place in the World

They just can't resist being a little silly!

Science

We began studying forests in science this week. We talked about the different layers of a forest and did an activity where the kids had to place different animals in the correct layer. For example, a bald eagle would live in the emergent layer and a rabbit would live on the floor layer. I also saw this project on Pinterest and wanted to include it this week but didn't get around to it. Maybe next week!

After learning about the layers in a forest, we focused on certain types of forests such as deciduous and temperate. The kids labeled a world graph with areas of different types of forests and made a map key on it as well. We are rockin' these map skills lately!

We took some time on Wednesday and went on a Leaf Collection Nature Walk around the neighborhood. Isaac and Julia collected two interesting leaves. They did a bark rubbing of the tree, drew a picture of the tree, and spent time at home later figuring out the name of the tree from which their leaf came. We will do this periodically throughout the year and keep our collection in their science notebooks.

Nature Walk

Love his sweet little smile

Caleb found a leaf too!

I let Caleb "walk" Ollie. Not sure who was doing the leading!

Tree bark rubbing

Tree bark rubbing

Working on their leaf collections

Music/Art

This week we began learning the song "The Crooked Path" which is an Omaha Indian child's play song. The children would sing it as they played follow the leader. So we did the same!

We also studied the artist Georges Seurat who is known for pointilism. We looked at and discussed his painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Then the kids made their versions of pointilism. I told the kids to draw a simple drawing then use the Q-tips and paint to fill in their color. They all enjoyed doing this little art project!

Pointilism Painting

 

Caleb's painting - he started with the "dotting" and soon gave up and did his own thing

Isaac's painting - as you can see by his tree on the right that Isaac can get a little impatient with tedious art projects!

Julia's painting - there is a cat in there somewhere. It just so happens to be the same color as the rain.

Read Alouds

We are still immensely enjoying Kingdom Tales. Isaac and Julia are able to relate the stories and lessons to their own life. I love when they get it! I am also still reading through the Little House series. We are on the book On the Shores of Silver Lake. Not sure when we will actually finish this series, but it is a fun to read none the less. I am convinced that all the reading aloud I have done with my children over the years has helped them become great readers. And more than just being great readers, they truly enjoy reading. I often catch them with their noses in a book. LOVE it!!

Isaac

Isaac worked on learning how to write a paragraph correctly. It was another week of review in math as he worked on skip counting by 2, 5, and 10. Easy Peasy!! Spelling is going well but I have noticed that he gets really frustrated when taking the tests. He gets upset when he knows he can't spell a word correctly. I try to tell him that we are only taking the tests everyday to see which words he needs to study which is usually only 3 or 4. Sometimes I don't know how to get past his perfectionist tendencies. For Language Arts, Isaac read a poem and then found and labeled the adjectives, nouns, and rhyming words. He also learned the uses of go, went, and gone. I am really liking the Primary Language Lessons book. The lessons are short and sweet, but teach a lot of grammar and language arts skills.

We finally got our Rosetta Spanish up and running this week so the kids are continuing with their lessons.

Julia

I don't know what I have done while teaching my children to cause this, but Julia also struggles with perfectionist tendencies. I tell her over and over that I am more concerned with her doing her best and trying her hardest than I am about her getting everything "right" all the time. This week Julia struggled with this during her spelling test. She HATES to get a word wrong. I just have to gently remind her that this test only shows us which words we need to study further. She didn't buy it. I will keep working on her in this area!! She had another easy week in math. I am liking that the first weeks of math are review so we don't have additional meltdowns over challenging work. For writing, Julia became a reporter. She learned how to observe an event, take notes, and write a short report. For language arts Julia worked on writing complete sentences with capitalization and punctuation.

This was Julia's journal from last week. Isn't she a sweetie! Totally made my day!

The house got quiet one day which usually signals trouble. I went to investigate and found this. Big Sis reading to her little brother. Love it!!

Caleb

Because of all the sickness lately, we used this week to catch up on all the activities that we didn't get to last week. Caleb continued to review Humpty Dumpty and Hey Diddle Diddle. He sorted ovals by color and made oval bean art. He also played some balancing games with me in the hall with a piece of painters tape. We played catching, throwing, and kicking games as well. I let him finish painting his color book and on Friday he got to do Sticky Art. I gave him a piece of contact paper, sticky side up. He tore pieces of colored paper and decorated his sticky paper. We back it with another  piece of contact paper and ta-daa.... we have a beautiful piece of art that is proudly displayed on his bedroom window. Isaac and Julia like it so much that they want to make one now!

Balancing Games

Working at the Chalkboard

Oval Bean Art

Markers at the Easel

Sticky Art

Fine motor: tearing paper

Caleb was so proud of his art

Caleb decided to practice his scissors skills. Don't worry this was an approved activity!

Phew, three weeks of school are behind us. I can't believe we are about to head into our 4th week.... a full month of school already!!! Two more weeks of regular school then we will take a break and have our first project week in which we will do a book study of Charlotte's Web. I am really looking forward to the fun of that week!