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Friday, October 5, 2012

Week 5... Hitting Our Stride...

Altogether a good week. There are a few areas I would like to continue to work on improving, but we're definitely getting into a good groove!

What Worked This Week
The Girl is making good progress in Explode the Code and Reading Pathways. She's going back over some of the Reading Pathways stories she already read so that we can work on fluency before moving on.

We read The Canterville Ghost this week (from this book), then watched the Patrick Stewart movie version, which was overall decent. We also started The Graveyard Book, which is deliciously spooky thus far. We're reading a chapter, or two, each night from both Pippi Longstocking and Ozma of Oz. I think we might make it through the entire original Oz series this year!

The Boy did complete another couple of lessons in Teaching Textbooks, and then we decided to go for it with Life of Fred Fractions instead. We had so much fun with Fred! It is nice too to spend that time focusing on something with just The Boy.

History went very well this week! We read from Builders of the Old World on Sunday, and started our Books of Centuries. We added another page on Wednesday, when we read from The Rainbow Book of American History. A very nice, simple way to approach history, and the kids are enjoying both books!

In geography, we're continuing to enjoy Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels. This week, he "took" us to Washington DC, for a quick tour of our nation's capitol!

We focused on energy in science this week, with a little reading from The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia, and Bill Nye the Science Guy's Energy video. We've decided to use Bill Nye's videos to supplement every BFSU lesson possible, as they are fun, interesting and informative!

We also took a really pleasant nature walk on Thursday. We found blackberries and wild grapes....

 Admired gorgeous oak trees...

Saw plenty of wildflowers and some rosehips...



And even some bird tracks...

I love my kids...


What Needs Work
The Boy continued to work in Soaring With Spelling. I realized this week that I need to give him more oral drills in spelling, when he didn't do fantastically well on the end-of-week test--oops. He did work on some free writing, mostly alliteration, which has turned into a favorite focus for him, but again, the spelling is fairly atrocious!

We really need more hands-on for science. That's my big goal for next week! That, and consistency. I'd like to be more consistent with the time of day we work, and what we get done.

4 comments:

  1. The Oz series is a favorite at our home as well. Looks like a pretty good week.

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  2. Anonymous1:33 AM

    Oooh, "The Canterville Ghost" is a great way to start October! There are so many movie versions out there. The one I remember was black and white, and actually creeped me out. LOL

    I love "Teaching Textbooks"! My son really likes the software-based/interactive lessons, and if he chooses to keep homeschooling when he's with me, I'll definitely use them again for math.

    Nature walks this time of year are so much fun. Actually, my hubby's Bio 103 assignment last week was to do just that, so we really enjoyed a visit to one of the local forests. :)

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  3. Anonymous7:41 AM

    Nature walks and photos are great! Sounds like a good week!

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  4. Looking on Netflix right now for the Patrick Stewart version - my kids would love it, I bet.

    Beautiful photos this week! I love the one of Cassia with the wild grapes especially.

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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Emerson

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