A Bi-Weekly Wrap-Up: 11/28-12/9...

It has been a good, and fairly full, couple of weeks. I decided to stop pretending that we were (or are for that matter) going to do organized history and science studies, so we have felt more relaxed. With just reading, writing, and math as basics, they have found plenty else to occupy themselves! I did adjust my Curriculum Page to reflect reality.

Here they are working together to disassemble a wireless router (yes, an old one)

I think they worked on this for an hour or so, carefully sorting each piece into a divided plastic tray. Although they never did get it apart all the way!

There has been math. This week we used Life of Fred and Developmental Mathematics. I like the simple and clear layout of the latter, as do the kids.

Here Bug is working out a Life of Fred set of equations. He had to find the number of seconds in an hour, a day, a year, and 31 years, which, in case you're curious, is nearly one billion!

We started using The Sentence Family. That's Bug's work above, with great sentences like "I ate three green beans today." (declarative) and "Did the aardvark ever dance the polka?" (interrogative)

And Cricket wrote things like "I have a dog." (declarative), and "Do you know where the train station is?" (interrogative). I did notice that her sentences focus more on the story and the artwork, while Bug seems to write fairly random things.

Cricket drew some leaves on the whiteboard, outlining real leaves and then detailing them.

And of course we read a lot!

Besides all that, Bug is still working on learning computer animation. He also formed a Greek Mythology Club at our Park Day, complete with little booklets that he handed out with Cricket's help. Cricket has been a constant helper in the kitchen, and we're enjoying learning about Sweden as our country of the month. Both wrote letters to Santa, Bug worked on spelling, and Cricket read another reader to me.

We have one more week before winter break... some more math, some more reading and writing, more phonics for Cricket, and of course more fun!

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