Weekly Report - Year 2 Week 14

We took a break last week to go on family vacation to Pensacola, Florida. It was really fun! We saw the U.S.S. Alabama (Mobile, AL area), which Tornado Boy LOVED. He actually wanted to go back on the ship again later. He had so much fun! We also did the Gulf Coast Zoo, the Naval Aviation Museum (Pensacola) - getting to see the Blue Angels practice (very cool!!!), and the Montgomery Zoo (AL) on the way home. The Brute loves zoos.

When we got back, we had one day off, then Friday we dropped the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's for the night so DH and I could go to a Weird Al concert out of town. I managed to fit 3 car seats in Grandpa's CR-V, though I had to forward face Mischief (I can't find the rear facing base for the Radian):

This week, we were back to school and we had a new semi-official (though not reporting yet) student! We'll get to him in a minute. ;) We also got a new family member, a 2 year old female Maine Coon mix named Padmé (Tornado Boy named her). She should be a great distraction during school, as she insists on being pet constantly. :)

Tornado Boy

Math: We finished chapter 2 and started working on chapter 3 (Multiplication). It starts out easy, so we breezed through some of it - multiplying by 10s, 100s, 1000s is stuff he's done since he was 5 during a van math conversation. So we did a few practice problems and moved on. The hardest thing this week was the balance scales problems. They were really algebra in scale form with shapes instead of letters. He did very well with them until we got to a hard one that had 2 balance scales and as far as I can tell, you have to multiply one scale by 2 to solve it. He didn't think to do that (or know he could do that). There is no solution for the problem (just the answer), so I had to figure it out myself, and that was the only way I could find to do it. It was pretty hard! The others he was able to do though, even with two scales and two unknown shapes involved. He really liked this section, as it was something new. Plus I figure he'll like algebra anyway. :)

Reading: He did library books and the Greek Myths book.

Grammar: We learned about adverbs that tell how often and did some review lessons. Lesson 24 had to be split up over 2 days. That was just too much for one sitting!

Writing: We did day 4 of week 7, and then took the rest of the week off.

Handwriting: Didn't practice this this week.

Spelling: Slacker.

Read-Aloud: Oh! Oh! Thanks to a read-aloud thread on the WTM forum, I got the motivation to start a read-aloud again. Friday night, we sat on the couch close to bedtime and read two chapters of Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I have this on my phone via Google Books, and it has the pictures and everything. The kids enjoyed it. Even Mischief sat on the couch and listened (while sucking his thumb).

Bible: We only did The Brute's Bible this week, but next week I'll add Egermeier's back in. I have to retrieve it from the van, since Tornado Boy took it in there to read through it.

History: We started SOTW2! This time, we're doing a SOTW Lapbook. I wish I'd known about this earlier for SOTW1! It's quite doable, as you only do one mini-booklet per week. We did chapter 1 and started chapter 2 this week, learning about Barbarians and early Britain.

Science: Skipped it this week, though Tornado Boy has been reading some science books this week in the van. :)

Art: Skipped it, but did some "art" via The Brute's K stuff, so that counts, right?

The Brute

First, our official first day of K picture:

Math: We did 1 page of Singapore EM K book B per day. This is a very nice pace for right now. I also have been using the Cuisenaire Rods to help us. It is amazing how much those help! We were mostly doing how many more or how many less - eg, "5 is ___ more than 2". Instead of counting, I have him use the C-rods as pictured below.

Reading: We worked a bit through Webster's Speller. I expected to do 2-3 lines, but he insisted on doing whole lessons. So I think we got through Lesson 9, and also went back to do the r-controlled syllables each day to review, as those will take longer to sink in.

Other: We are using My Father's World Kindergarten this year. It's a very gentle K program, and should be just right for starting a bit early and being easy about it. I found an All About Me booklet in the MFW K yahoogroup, so we started with that. Here is The Brute's self-portrait, complete with mustache... This kid is going to be fun to teach...

He said he was drawing a picture of himself drawing the picture. LOL.

For Bible, we did the Creation Unit at double speed. The Brute has the days of creation well memorized and recently did it in Bible class anyway, so we're anxious to get to the actual lessons next week!

The Brute has wanted to paint for a while, so we got the paints out to do hand prints for the All About Me booklet, plus we just did some random painting on paper plates.

The paint setup...

Fun with hand prints :)

Tornado Boy colored Earth and Neptune (recently read Apologia Astronomy)

Tornado Boy's random Star Wars picture

The Brute's attempt at making planets

I also got some Kumon cutting books for the boys to practice. They're easy at first, but the boys need it!

 

Mischief

Reading Magic Treehouse! ;)

(no, he isn't reading yet:)

Weekly Report - Year 2 Week 13

Yet again, a little late posting this, but here goes...

Tornado Boy

Math: We worked this week on place value in the thousands and adding/subtracting large numbers. Tornado Boy is good at this, so we didn't dwell on it very long.

Reading: I just had him read library books this week. I need to pull out Phantom Tollbooth again.

Grammar: We learned about adverbs that tell how, when, and where.

Writing: We did 3 of the 4 days for Week 7.

Spelling: We did Lesson 11 in Wheeler's.

Read-Aloud: We got to read one day this week at bed time! I read the Lang's Blue Fairy Book version of "Cinderella". It was excellent!

Bible: I can't remember what we did (this was 2 weeks ago at the time of writing), and the Bible story book is in the van. :p I believe we learned about some of Jesus' early miracles, calling apostles, etc.

History: We finished SOTW1!!! And as we learned about Constantine, I played the youtube video "Istanbul Not Constantinople".

Science: Skipped it.

Art: Skipped it.

Spanish: Skipped it, and I'm thinking I'll just drop this for now. We don't get to it often enough, and learning Spanish just isn't a high priority right now when it's so NICE outside!

The Brute

I have no clue what, if anything, we did this week. :)

Our First Lapbook

As most new homeschoolers do, I've been reading about lapbooking and drooling over the cool things you can do with them, though I was scared of the amount of work for Mom. Finally, I decided to give one a try and see how it goes. As I suspected, it's cool, and it's a lot of work for Mom. :P

Our first attempt is the free Multiplication Facts Lapbook at Homeschoolshare.com. I did not use a legal size file folder. I just used what I had, and made an extension per the instructions in the Hands of a Child lapbooks (click on the freebie one for instructions).

A friend had texted me to show off the lapbook she and her DD had just done (with fancy color folders and colored paper), and she asked me how mine was going. This was my reply.

Then I started cutting...

... and cutting...

... and cutting...

... and cutting...

You see, I have a 7 year old boy whose fine motor skills are NOT his strong point. There is no way he's cutting any of this.

Next we started gluing. I let Tornado Boy do most of the gluing. After he washed his hands between 3 things he was gluing, I gave him a paper towel to wipe his hands on. He did most of the gluing, then he lost interest after a while. I did the inside flap myself. Oh well. Results:

I cut the 100s chart in half and stuck it on the front flaps:

The inside:

Lift the flap:

He started filling in the numbers. I think he did a couple sets so far. He likes his lapbook! We'll plan to do the SOTW2 lapbook this year for history, since it's just one little booklet a week. I can handle that much cutting.

Homeschool Tracker Plus Referral

This weekend, someone PM'd me on the Well Trained Mind to ask if I had a referral code for Homeschool Tracker Plus. I had answered a lot of questions on the forum, so they figured maybe I had a code. Well, I didn't. I had never even thought of it. Didn't really realize they had a referral program.

Well, since I do refer a lot of people, I figured why not? I got a code. It's now on the right side of my blog. So if you feel like I helped you with HST+, feel free to use my referral code and earn me $5. :) Of course, I'll answer questions whether you go through my referral or not. I just really love HST+ and enjoy helping other people!

Progress and Adding One

Progress:

Today, we were practicing our cursive italic letters 'j' and 'p'. Tornado Boy held his pencil with a perfect tripod grip!!!!! I am over the moon! He usually has a thumb wrap! That thumb wrap makes me cringe to look at it. I don't know how he can write like that! But he's starting to build up the strength to write properly. Woohoo! He did this on his own. I hadn't told him to do it. I've been working with him using it on the white board with dry erase crayons, but not with pencil and paper yet.

Adding One:

The Brute told me last week that he wants to start Kindergarten when he turns 5 (November). I have been eying My Father's World Kindergarten for a while now, but thought it'd be too easy for him when he's actually "K" next year. It'd be perfect for him right now though. Well, since I was no longer using AAS, I decided to sell that and some diaper making fabric (I'm no longer making cloth diapers), and that was plenty to purchase MFW K. :) So we'll start that probably the first week of October. I'm quite excited about it! It looks fun, and I think The Brute will enjoy it. I got the Basic kit, but with some of the Deluxe items. I already have C-rods, I'm borrowing a butterfly garden, and I don't think we really need to do the ant farm (there are PLENTY of ants outside to watch). So I got the Basic kit plus the orchestra CD and the Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book, and then from Amazon I'll get the lowercase textured letters puzzle and the What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? book. My library has all but 2 of the books from the lit package, so I'll probably buy one and substitute the other. Not a big deal.

Weekly Report - Year 2 Week 12

This was a bit of a lazy week, and we ended up taking off Thursday and Friday. The weather is so nice right now!

Tornado Boy

Math: We did the chapter 1 review and skipped the test. It was clear he knew what he was doing, as it was mostly review. We then started in on the place value chapter, learning about thousands. This is also review, but he's enjoying it because he likes big numbers. :)

Reading: Still reading the Book of Greek Myths.

Grammar: Learned articles and started memorizing a new poem, "The Tragic Story", which was quite funny. I had him act it out, and he liked that! His acting is horrible, but he had fun anyway, since he got to spin around and around. :)

Writing: We did week 6, which included some poetry. He did very well with all parts of this. He also was excited when the copywork/dictation for the week was half of a lesson from Wheeler's slated for this week, so he got to skip that part in Wheeler's. ;)

Handwriting: We did m, n, r, and x.

Spelling: We did lessons 9-10 in Wheeler's.

Read-Aloud: None.

Bible: We learned about Jesus as a boy, Jesus' baptism, and the beginning of his ministry.

History: We learned about the end of the ancient Jewish nation. Tornado Boy then decided to start reading Revelation, since I told him (as the early dater that I am) that Revelation foretells the destruction of Jerusalem. He read one chapter. LOL. Major points for trying! He also studied about Nero and how the Christians hid in the Catacombs.

Science: None.

Art: None.

Spanish: None.

The Brute

Again, I don't remember what we did, if we did anything. I did answer a LOT of "why" and "what happens if" questions though. This stage is difficult!!!!

Mischief

This one started the "why" stage this week also. I think he's mimicking his big brother, as he really doesn't understand the answers to the questions yet. But he does ask "why". I'm not sure if I should be glad they're both going through the stage at once, or scared. :P

Weekly Report - Year 2 Week 11

Updating late. Whoops! Quick run down...

Tornado Boy

Math: We did bar graphs, line graphs, rounding, estimating, and a review of money. This was all pretty easy.

Reading: We've taken a break from Phantom Tollbooth, and he's been reading D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths.

Grammar: We learned about adjectives and how to diagram them.

Writing: We did week 5 of WWE2. The passages were from Misty of Chincoteague. Since we read this aloud several months ago, it was a bit more interesting to him. :) He did very well with the dictation!

Handwriting: We did a, d, h, i, k, and l in cursive italic.

Spelling: We did lessons 4-8 in Wheeler's. It's going well!

Read-Aloud: None.

Bible: John the Baptist was born, and then Jesus was born. :)

History: We did chapter 36, which discussed the birth and crucifixion of Jesus. We also read the account of Jesus' crucifixion in the Bible, since it differs from the way it's told in SOTW1. We discussed the differences.

Science: We started learning about plants this week.

Art: None.

Spanish: We learned our colors! This was mostly review.

The Brute

I don't remember if he did anything... Probably did some math. It's been 2 weeks now. :P