Week of September 25

Language Arts: Gabe reading Hooked on Phonics pg. 8-15, Lily worked on Writing with Skill and Advanced Language Lessons. Lily and Gabe both completed a spelling list and wrote original sentences for their spelling words.  We played games of Phonogram Bingo with all three - amazing how a couple chocolate chips turn this into everyone's favorite school activity.

John working on tangrams in his math book.

 Math: Gabe lessons 12-13, John lessons 4-7, Lily lessons 11-13, Test 1. John is really enjoying math and has been asking to do school at all hours of the day.  He learned about triangles, squares and circles this week.

A sample from Lily's Ancient History Portfolio.

History: Our study of Ancient History continues with work in our portfolios. We read about conquest of Lower Egypt and the formation of a united Eygptian empire.  Lily completed summaries about archeology and the Fertile Crescent and we added maps, drawing of bee hived shaped houses and pottery to the portfolios.

Science:  Our books should arrive next week!  Meanwhile we are reading library books about the earth and continuing to observe our surroundings.  Both boys record the weather as part of their daily math routine.

PE: We played for an hour and half with some friends and a long jump rope!  It was so fun to sing rhymes and jump and to try four kids jumping at once.  Lily and Gabe have been riding their bikes every afternoon for at least an hour.  Judo and Highland Dance continue to go well. 

Fine Art: Piano lessons & practice, singing at home and church, Highland dance and lots of drawing! 

Week of September 18

Math: John learned to write the numerals 1-5, 9 this week and has been practicing them everywhere!  He also completed 2 math lessons and can recognize numbers and build/color correspondingly.  Gabe completed lessons 8-11 and Lily completed lessons 7-9.  Both Lily and Gabe's lessons have been review of last year, which they having no trouble recalling.
Language Arts:  Lily and Gabe each completed a spelling list and wrote original sentences with their spelling words.  Gabe has been spontaneously  writing in a journal.  He is also making good progress in his reading books, completing the red book and onto pages 2-5 in the green book.  John practiced his phonograms along with Lily and Gabe.  Lily worked on Writing with Skill completing the introductory lessons of narration and summary.  She also completed lessons 5-6 in Advanced Language Lessons.  Gabe and Lily played a rousing game of Apples to Apples with friends. 
History: We continued our study of Ancient Egyptians this week playing a board game called Egyptians in which you have to answers questions in order to move.  We read chapters 3-4 in Story of the World: Ancient Times and completed the accompanying map work.  Gabe's Ancient History Portfolio arrived on Saturday and he immediately added some of the work he's already completed.
PE:  Lily loved Highland Dance!  She has been practicing the sword dance all week between lessons.  Gabe is already showing potential with Judo and I was able to sit in on his class and make note of exercises we can do at home.  They continue to ride their bikes daily, run their paper route and played at the park this week.
French: Lily is working at Rosetta Stone 20 minutes a day.  She is keeping a notebook of vocabulary to help with the writing sections.
Fine Art: piano lessons (Gabe & Lily) with daily practice.  All three sing in church, at mealtimes and just for fun!  We draw and colored pictures for our history lessons.


In addition we played a family game of Settlers of Catan: Seafarers and Gabe and Lily's strategic skills are really advancing.  Gabe needs very little help now and Lily won the game with no assistance!

Earth & Moon Update

Lily and Gabe had fun painting their Earth and Moon creations after struggling with perfectionism and embracing the fact that it won't look like the globe!  Looking at an example picture helped.  Although they each made a form for both the Earth and Moon, Lily's got crushed.  It probably worked out for the best as Gabe painted the Moon and Lily the Earth.  John is working on a robot there in the corner.

Week of September 11

Math: Gabe and John started in earnest on their math lessons. Saxon Math 1 lessons  2- 3 (John) Saxon Math 2, lessons 6- 8.(Gabe)  Lily completed math lessons 3-6.  John is excelling at playing Rat-a-Tat-Cat with good number recognition and beginning addition.
Language Arts: Lily and Gabe started on their new spelling notebooks completing the vowel and consonant reference page and their first spelling words and sentences. Lily completed the first week of Writing with Skill practicing narration. Advanced Language Lessons 1-4 (concrete & abstract nouns,descriptive & abstract adjectives, capitalization & punctuation of proper nouns, noun gender). Gabe sat in with Lily on the first lesson and can tell the difference between abstract and concrete nouns.  We played lots of phonogram bingo together and John started on some handwriting.
History: We read lots of books about prehistoric peoples, archeology and Ancient Egypt from the library.  We watched Prehistoric Beasts and Mysteries of Egypt.  Lily continued work on her Ancient History Portfolio.
Science: We read Earth and Sky, Lily read the introductory pages about Earth in the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia.  They each completed a narration and made a paper mache planet earth and moon.
PE:  Gabe continued with Judo and Lily began Highland Dance.  They both went on daily bike rides and ran their paper route.
French: Lily worked for 20 minutes a day on Rosetta Stone French.
Fine Art: Lily and Gabe both continued with piano.

First Week of School

This week did not go as planned.  We all came down with the stomach flu - first the kids, then the parents.  We did listen to lots of audio books including Treasure Island, The Silver Chair and the Last Battle.  Gabe managed to do his reading lessons and Lily got started on her math for the year.  Everyone started on a family history project after we read the Introduction and first chapter of Story of the World Vol. 1.  Lily and Gabe have also immersed themselves in books from the library about prehistoric peoples and ancient Egypt.  They also all completed a Who Am I? worksheet.  John's answers are hilarious!

Lily and Gabe both attended a free Judo class to determine whether this would be a good activity for the school year.  Gabe came home really excited and showed me some awesome somersaults and he even took down Daddy using his weight against him!

Spider Observation

This spider has made a large web is the corner of our garage door.  We have been watching him off and on for a couple weeks and yesterday the kids noticed that he'd trapped a bee and was wrapping him up.  Lily took these photos and all three watched as the spider had been for lunch!

New School Year

I love fall, the return to routine, the crisp air and the school supplies!  Lily, Gabe and John are all looking forward to starting back to school in a more structured routine.  Although we continued with informal studies through the summer everyone is ready to get back to math lessons, history - Ancient Times this year - and the older two have even expressed their excitement at returning to grammar.
Here's some highlights of our summer learning.
 John holding a butterfly he caught:

A Western Painted Turtle we found at Horseshoe Lake:

Which resulted in some checking out some books from the library and a page in Gabe's Nature Portfolio.

Keeping up with learning our letters:

And more to follow in another post!