Weekly Report... 3/4-3/10...

A very good week indeed. I have, for the most part, managed this week to shush that nagging inner voice that says we need to schedule more, and do more, etc., and so we went with the flow! The week started off with Miss Cassia's 9th birthday! (Can you believe she's NINE already?!?) We didn't do anything very fancy for it... just family, good food, a delicious cake, and a couple of good movies (Hugo, which was wonderful, and Puss in Boots, which the kids loved!) Definitely a good way to start off a week!

Language Arts

Cassia did very well this week. She is showing a lot more initiative when it comes to reading, and related work. We're still doing things the old-fashioned way at the moment, no snazzy computer programs! We worked on long vowels with the help of Nora Gaydos. Cassia also read aloud from Little Bear's Friend, and I went ahead and bumped her up a level in Explode the Code! She even worked on reading at bedtime with her dad!

Cyrus read a lot, as always. He's working on writing a dragon handbook (heavily influenced by Dragonology and Drake's Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology), and two stories. I had him work on some vocabulary as well, which ended up in very silly sentences, such as:
"Aww man, I have flatulence!" and "You have flabbergasted me!"

All this from a boy who claims to not like writing.

Math

We actually got around to Life of Fred (Apples) this week! We read three chapters, with the kids laughing the entire time. We reading it mainly as a living math book, though I do have the kids run through the "Now It's Your Turn" problems at the end of each chapter. They do this orally, so no writing!

Bug continued to work on division with remainders in Math Mammoth as well, and Cricket worked through several more pages in her "new" workbook. The page on telling time was very handy, since Cricket was given her first watch this week as a birthday gift from her brother! She's been practicing her time-telling skills all week!

Science
We read a bit this week, more about evolution, Charles Darwin, DNA, and the like. I also had the kids choose a couple of simple hands-on experiments from one of the many project books we have. After completion of the projects, we discussed why they worked the way they did. I think next time I may have Bug use the student lab log book I got free somewhere to record the experience, but for now at least, photos will do! One experiment was exploding sandwich bags (vinegar and baking soda), the other was using salt to lower the melting temperature of ice, while placing string across the ice, then letting it re-freeze in order to lift the ice cube by the string.



History & Geography

As I wrote in yesterday's Read Aloud post, we're happily reading about Richard Halliburton's marvelous adventures. This week, with his help, we traveled first to the Golden Gate Bridge, a bridge we have crossed many a time. Then we were off to Yosemite, to learn about magnificent waterfalls, Half Dome, explorers, and Native Americans. The kids also watched a video related to the bridge...

What they liked most about this documentary were the old film clips, with people in fancy clothing, and all the now-antique cars. Bug was the one that pointed out that our geography studies included quite a lot of history! We plan to make a trip down that way soon, with the intention of visiting Fort Point, or as it was known in Halliburton's day, Fort Winfield Scott. And, while we've walked across part of the bridge before, it might be fun to do it again! We're looking at a Yosemite trip this year as well, our big family vacation, so I am thinking we'll do some more research on that region too.

Art

We took our art outside this week, and the kids constructed a very convoluted hopscotch game, that involved cliffs, lava pits, evil eyes, and more!

Other

We finished off Magic By The Lake and started Knight's Castle. We're anxious to see how the parents in Knight's Castle react to magic in their children's lives, since it was such a part of their own in both Half Magic and Magic by the Lake! We enjoyed our regular park day--the weather on Fridays here lately has been warm and sunny... all the cherry trees around us are blooming, there are daffodils everywhere... a gorgeous spring! Bug did quite well at his piano lesson and his pieces are getting increasingly harder. We're considering shifting the time of lessons though, to allow for some homeschool baseball, neighborhood-friendly-game style, with lots of friends.

Tomorrow, we have plans to go to the library, clean up the front and back yards (which includes some ever-fun pruning and weeding!), and start building our raised beds. I figure helping to build the beds will count as both a lesson in carpentry and geometry! Plus we can then start on their gardening badges!

Hope you all have a good weekend! As always, drop by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see more of the many learning approaches we homeschoolers have!