homeschooling howsitgoing: week 4

Since people often ask "how's it going" related to our homeschooling adventure, I figured I'd attempt to do a weekly/bi-weekly/at-the-very-least-monthly recap. Plus it will help me remember everything once I need to prepare our portfolio for assessment.


Overall a good week. The kids worked hard Monday through Thursday so we spent the morning outside yesterday on a hike and enjoying the natural environment around us along with the company of friends. Luke started storytime at the library this week and continues to ask for me to do school with him, so hopefully this will lay some good groundwork for when he officially starts Kindergarten in a couple of years.

Curriculum Wrap-up:

• B and R completed little booklets to capture their thoughts and impressions of our trip to D.C. and Gettysburg. On her own initiative, Brie decided to construct a model of the Washington monument out of the wooden blocks we have. I love it when the kids apply what they're learning in new and creative ways!
• B is growing more comfortable with the Easy Grammar workbook which helps boost her confidence level. Thus far, she learned about capitalizing names of people, places, streets, etc., the punctuation marks . ? ! and , , nouns, verbs, subjects of sentences and alphabetizing, and how to combine sentences.
• I think I need to increase the level of difficulty for B in spelling - she does very well sounding out words and can work independently on much of her spelling assignments
• We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar this week as part of Language Arts and it fits nicely with our Insects science theme. I have the kids do a little booklet of the days of the weeks and then a drawing of what the caterpillar ate on each corresponding day. I wrote out the words for Luke and Reese and had Brie write her own. We also read a number of books on insects and caterpillars.
• We read Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt as part of our study of Canada. Was a great book especially as it is based on true events and takes place during the Civil War. In it, a Mennonite family moves from Pennsylvania to Waterloo, ON to avoid persecution during the war. So cool since this ties nicely with our recent trip and since we know a few people in Waterloo. :)
• I made a gameboard for an insect game complete with questions and a few insect facts. We played it this week but I still need to work the bugs out of the rules (pun definitely intended...and so fitting!)
• We're listening to Anne of Green Gables - how can you study Canada without reading this story?! - in the car and the kids seem to be enjoying it. When we were our on trip, I play the AOGG musical tape for them which Mom had dug out. I don't think they quite appreciated the musical genre because they laughed hysterically through the first couple of songs and giggled through the rest, so I guess cultural cultivation is next on our list. ;) However, they have requested encore playings of said tape which I have mixed feelings about because those songs are way too catchy and I end of replaying them repeatedly in my head. Like right now, I have the line, "every Tuesday af-ter-noon" running through my thoughts. Grrrrr.
• Since Friday afternoons will be more relaxed (I go grocery shopping), the kids got to watch a DVD on the outer planets in the solor system and a couple DVDs on insects.