Weekly Report 8/25-8/29

What a wonderful first week we had! Here are some of the things we accomplished:

Galloping the Globe:

Reading material for the week

We looked at our maps and globes and discussed the different countries and continents. Miriam practiced drawing maps- her favorites were drawing a map that shows how to get to the park, and drawing a map of our den showing where Memphis hides her toys under and behind couches.

We also had a field trip to Trader Joe's were the children did a scavenger hunt. They receive a map of the store with picture of 4 items to find and a crayon. During the shopping trip when they find an item they mark it on their map. At the end of the trip they show the cashier and get a prize (lollipop and balloon).

Reading

Miriam is on lesson 37 in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading she has learned to sound out 3 letter words with the vowels a, e, i, and o. She's also doing written practice in Explode the Code 1; she just completed lesson 4 working on words with the letter i. I think Explode the Code is her least favorite part of the day, while she is very good at it she isn't enjoying doing the same activities over and over again. She's moving faster in her ability to read than we can move in Explode the Code due to all the writing required. We may start doing every other page if it continues to feel so tedious. Miriam is really enjoying playing the games Starfall Speedway and Sound Hounds as extra reading practice.

Rebekah is learning right along with Miriam! She points out the letter "a" everywhere and says, "A says /a/." She's also working on the letter sounds for e and i. She loves playing Starfall Speedway as well, and is identifying most of the letter names independently! She spends time on starfall.com to practice learning letter sounds a few days a week.

Math

Miriam just fininshed lesson 4 in Singapore Earlybird 2A- she's beginning to learn about greater than and less than. In fact, at this moment she's lining up our cuisienare rods in "greater than" and "less than" orders. Math seems to be her favorite subject; she would go straight through the whole workbook if I let her! The only way to stop her from moving on is to allow her to play with our manipulatives practicing the concepts she's learning. I was planning on doing 1 to 2 lessons per week, but she's done almost a lesson a day because she loves it so much. I am sure she will slow down as the material gets more difficult latter in the year. I am sorry that I didn't buy the more expensive math program with lots of manipulatives and games now that I know it's her favorite subject. I have a feeling we may be upgrading in a few weeks and using Singapore as extra practice instead of as our primary program.

ScienceThis week we read and talked about the seasons. Miriam really enjoyed drawing a picture of how a tree looks in each season.

Spanish

The girls love learning Spanish thanks to Dora and Deigo so I thought we would have some fun this year learning some basic conversation words. This week we learned greetings and read a fun book.

Bible

Both girls memorized Genesis 1:1 this week. We read bible stories covering Genesis chapters 1-4.

Art

We are looking at art in Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children. We look at and discuss one painting a week, though Miriam wants to do one painting a day!

Music

I had nothing planned for Music this year; it is not an area I am either knowledgeable or talented in! This week a class opened up at church for homeschoolers ages 4-7 called Music and Movement! Miriam starts on Tuesday and is so excited about it!

Handwriting

I noticed this week that Miriam is forming many of her letters incorrectly though they look correct once written. She also has trouble deciding where to place the letters on lined paper. She started A Reason For Handwriting K today; the material is really easy, but I hope it will help her to learn the correct formation of the letters.