Weekly Report - Week 14

We had yet another great week!

 

Tornado Boy

Math: We went through more of chapter 4 in MM 2A this week, learning subtraction with regrouping. We started out learning how to break a 10 into ones, so 50 would become 4 tens and 10 ones, or 53 would be 4 tens and 13 ones. We then use these broken down numbers to subtract something else. Eventually, we were doing your typical subtraction of 2-digit numbers with regrouping (borrowing). He's done well with this. It's clear that he'll need more practice before he fully understands it. He's getting the problems correct, but I can tell that it hasn't clicked with him as well as addition with regrouping did. We still have more practice to go, and we'll be getting some Singapore Intensive Practice books soon, which will add a little more practice and challenge.

Reading: Almost done with Trumpet of the Swan. We should finish next week.


Grammar: We did 3 lessons in FLL2... We talked about action verbs and state of being verbs this week. We did some copywork with 2 of the lessons.


Writing: We did week 16, which included a story "Master of All Master's" and an Aesop's fable. Tornado Boy enjoyed both of those passages quite a bit. The first one was hilarious. A man hires a servant and has her call various objects/people/animals in the home by weird names. That night, a fire starts, and the servant tells the master what's going on, using the weird names.


Spelling: We did steps 15-17 this week, learning the r-controlled syllables "er", "ar", and "or". Again, these were the basic phonics versions, so pretty easy. We only did 3 days of spelling this week.


Read-Aloud: Still reading Misty of Chincoteague. Paul and Maureen got to buy Phantom and Misty afterall, and they are training both. Phantom now lets them ride her, but she still longs to be on the island. There is a race coming up for Pony Penning Day, and she's supposed to be in it.


Bible: David is now king, and we've learned about how he was kind to Mephibosheth (Jonathan's son) and also the sin he had with Bathsheba (sending her husband Uriah into battle so he would be killed, and thus David could marry Bathsheba). David's first son with Bathsheba dies, but they have another, Solomon, who will be king.


History: This week, we talked about Babylon and how Nebuchadnezzar went mad and acted like a wild animal until he admitted that he was not a god. We also learned about how he married a Persian princess so that Babylon would be protected from Persia (and likewise, Persia had been worried about Babylon, so the king easily agreed to marry off his daughter). The princess was homesick, so Nebuchadnezzar built The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which was basically a terraced mountain type structure with plants growing on it.


Science: We read through some of Apologia Zoology 3 this week, learning about carnivores and their carnassial teeth (using one of our dogs as a demonstration), and also learning about how DNA works in a simplified manner (dominant vs recessive genes). We learned that short hair is a dominant gene in chihuahuas and long hair is a recessive gene. We discussed eye color in humans (very basics of it - brown and blue eyes) via our family, as DH has blue eyes, I have brown eyes, 2 of the boys have brown eyes and 1 boy has blue eyes. So we discussed the fact that I must carry a recessive blue eye gene, and where I got that gene from (my blue eyed mother). It was a fun lesson. We discussed several other things, and wrote about some of it in a "Weekly Wag" (the free notebooking pages from Apologia's site - there are two pages for the Weekly Wag). It is newspaper format. Basically, this is where we narrated what we read, but being a newspaper, he didn't realize he was narrating. ;)

We also watched Mythbusters. That's science. :)


Art: Slacker mom. Enough said.

The Brute

Reading: This week we introduced "AR", as in "CAR" (and read that word), plus we did some more CVC sentences and various syllables. He is doing so well - steady progress. I have to laugh during each lesson though. He wrote an "R" like I did, but I had gone straight down and then had a bit of a lift as I took my pen off - just a teeny tiny one. The Brute saw this and exaggerated it in his "R", making a hook. He then said his "R" was dancing. Later, he wrote "AM", and he didn't have room for the "M", so he wrote it on the next line, at an angle. He said it was falling in a hole. He then took the time to draw the hole. Of course, during all of this "art", I am waiting for him to read what I wrote. :) Patience is a good thing when teaching a 4 year old!


Math: Still no math this week.