Bible
We are still reading through Matthew. Our memory verse this week is Matthew 5:44 which has started a lot of conversations about loving and praying for our enemies. We read about the persecution of Christians in Romania and how we take for granted the availability of God's Word to us. I love the age of my children and sweet moments we have together as we study and discuss God's Truth which is evidently tucked away in their hearts. My desire for them is to live out these Truths for the glory of God.
Though I cherish simply reading, studying, and discussing scripture, I have decided to add a little more to our Bible time. I found some hands-on object lessons that incorporate science and Bible lessons together. We will add these in next week.
Geography
We last studied South America and now moved to Europe. This week included a lot of introductory information about Europe focusing on Norway. We learned about the metric system and my oldest son was miffed that we don't use that system. He said that is WAY easier! He is learning to convert measurements in math this year. We also started the Europe geography game (as well as reviewed N and S America) I always enjoy playing these games. I learn a lot about locating all these countries. Before the games I probably could have located just a hand full of the countries. Sad, but true!
Science
We read about Northern evergreen forests (coniferous forests). This week our science was pretty light. There were some other tree activities planned but we ran out of time to complete them.
Read-Aloud
We got back to reading Kingdom Tales this week. The kids were so excited to get back to this story and I have to admit, so was I. Such an exiting and imaginative story.
Other
I changed up the structure of our days as well. Before, we tried to get every subject done every day. I knew I wouldn't be able to swing that anymore once Benjamin was born. I changed it to where Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the kids do work stations or independent work which includes math, handwriting,writing, and reading activities after we complete group work. On Tuesday and Thursday, I work with the kids in writing, Language Arts, poetry, and spelling after group work. This has helped free up some valuable time each day. I also had to bail on Spelling Power. It was stressing Isaac out too much. So I order All About Spelling to try. We will start this next week.
Caleb
My little Caleb seems so grown up now compared to his baby brother. Each one of my children seemed to suddenly grow up when the new baby is born and the same was certainly true for Caleb. He is not my baby anymore. This seemed the perfect time to start introducing early reading and math concepts to him. We began with Letter A this week and will spend another week on it as well. I found a great website full of preschool ideas. I will be using a lot from this site for Caleb's school. Here are some things he did this week....
*learned to recognize the Letter A
*learned the sounds A makes
*apple taste testing
*apple size sequencing
*made A alligators
*learned to recognize and make number 1 and 0
*counted objects to 5
*one to one correspondence
*memory verse Matthew 7:7 "Ask and it will be given to you" (we talked about prayer)
*began making his ABC book
*began tracing skills
I also signed Caleb up for ABC.mouse He really enjoys completing his lessons on the computer. This is his "reward" time after we finish our other activities.
Benjamin
Thought I would leave you with a picture of Little B. He is absolutely precious and I feel abundantly blessed to be his Mama!
