Weekly Homeschool Wrap-up // Week of September 10

This week wrapped up our first month of school – it’s been another good week for the most part for which I am thankful.

Classical Conversations: We met this week to work on our week 2 memory work. I am still thankful to add this to our routine this year – the girls are enjoying it and starting our days with our memory work has been a good thing to get us all focused and off to a good start. Some days I have them up and moving – doing our hand motions or singing memory songs. This day (below) I let them sit and draw or color as we listened to our memory work CD.

The girls have to prepare a 3 minute presentation each week for their class. N1’s tutor gives a suggestion for her class (which I so appreciate as we are new to this!), but B’s class is more show-and-tell. This week she brought in her American Girl doll and told the class a little about it.

CBS/Bible Study: We had our first Bible study class last Friday, so this was our first week of adding in Bible study homework. N1 is pretty self-sufficient on her work this year and able to do most of her’s on her own. N2 needs a bit more help so I’ve gotten extra one-on-one time with her this week working on it. When N2 finished Kindergarten last year, T bought her a Bible and she has been dying to break it in with her own Bible study workbook. He also bought N1 a copy of the same Bible which is helpful when we work together. While I want them to learn how to look up verses on their own, it’s handy to be able to call out page numbers once in a while. : ) B has a Bible waiting for her when she learns to read that is just like the other girls, too.

Awana also started this week, so memory verses are back in the rotation as well.

Math: Each girl completed three math lessons in their respective books. B’s focus this week has been on patterns and sorting; N2 is rotating through several concepts – even & odd numbers, adding 2 facts, and the very beginnings of telling time; and N1 is working on reviewing calculating perimeter and still increasing her timed-test scores.

Language Arts: N1 and N2 each completed three lessons in their respective 1st Language Lesson books. N2 is learning about nouns, both proper and common. N1 is reviewing adverbs, adjectives and prepositions. I’m learning right along with N1 here, having somehow missed learning some of these definitions of basic grammar terms in my school years. We have just a few more weeks of lessons before we start her next 1st Language Lessons book and get to start diagramming and I’m a little excited about that. : ) The N’s each completed a week worth of Writing with Ease, handwriting lessons, and Explode the Code pages.

Ah, B and her language arts. Continuing to take it very slow. I’m seeing some big jumps in improvement in how she’s shaping her letters in her handwriting practice and that encourages me. She is still struggling with her reading lessons so we’re setting aside Teach Your Child to Read for right now. I’ve bought some spiral bound 3x5 cards and am going to put some sounds on those and see if moving away from the big overwhelming book helps.

Social Studies: We listened to chapter 3 in Story of the World and learned the geography of the early Egyptians.

Science: Thanks to a recommendation from this blog, I downloaded a nifty Creation Science for Kids pdf that correlates with our memory work for Classical Conversations. Well worth the $4.99. This week we were learning the five kingdoms of living things so we read the sample lesson. The author has Bible verses scattered through the lesson for the girls to look up – I loved that. We also learned that you can find several of the kingdoms of living things on your pizza. My girls thought this was fun. : )

Still working on boy management during our school days. He enjoys staying in the school room when we work on our CC memory songs, trying to do hand motions on with the girls. It’s pretty cute. We had one scare with him this week. The boy managed to pull his dresser over on top of himself on Wednesday afternoon when I thought he was quietly playing in his room. We are so so thankful that he wasn’t injured. When N1 and I found him (after the big thump and crying) he was completely under the dresser with just the top of his head peeking out. I lifted the dresser and N1 pulled him out. I knew we were headed to the doctor for a broken bone somewhere, but he was completely fine other than very scared. We are so thankful for God protection of the boy. And, after he was calmed down, N1 and I took a mini-school break and moved and reshuffled anything and everything in his room that we thought might possibly come tumbling down on him!

As you can see, he was up to his normal goofy-ness in short order, somehow managing to get himself stuck in the doll bunkbed from the little girls’ dollhouse.

Happy Saturday. : ) This is our one weekend off from soccer for the foreseeable future so I’m hoping for an uneventful day full of school room straightening, laundry, grabbing a few groceries, and hopefully some time with a book! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

A mid-week shot at my desk. Disaster!

Linking up with Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.