Weekly Report- Week 8

Now that we're getting back into the swing of things, I'm going to try getting a weekly report out each week.

Math:. I've decided to change up routine a bit. D-Man's to the point where not knowing his multiplication facts are holding him back. So, instead of forging on with Singapore 2B, we're going to concentrate on learning those facts while go through Horizons 2 and Miquon Orange/Red. Memorization is not his strong suit so we'll really have to work on those tables. Once he gets 2s and 3s down, we'll move on in Singapore. 2s aren't a problem, but he struggles with 3s past 3x5. I expect we'll have to do something similar when we get to 4s and 6s.   So this week, we did about 7 lessons in Horizons 2 and 20 pages in Miquon Orange.  He calls Miquon "fun math." One thing I really liked seeing was how fast he's gotten at addition and subtraction.  He does know his facts there and it seems has gained quite a bit of speed recently.  It is funny to hear him do his timed subtraction tests in Horizons.  He looks at each problem and says, "that's easy...it's just __."  It can get a little repetitive after the 30th problem. 

Spelling: We did List F this week. After our long vacation, D-Man needed a little remediation with cursive. Not a big deal, though. We finished off List E at the end of last week and I told him that I wouldn't help him with how to spell the words on his test, but he could ask me a anything about letter formation. He was back in the groove by the time his test came around this Friday.  He got a 100% on his test...YEAH!  It's nice to be doing these easy lists at the beginning of the year.  D-Man is thriving on his success and I think that'll take him a long way once we get to new words. 

We also reviewed the A-E-I-O-U page this week.  It is a reference page that covers all of the ways a vowel says 2nd (long) sound.  Since he'd already done it once last year and knows those rules well, we played a game where I'd give him the word with the 1st sound (ex. can) and he'd come up with the word that uses the 2nd sound (ex. cane), tell me the rule and do the markings.  We had fun and it was a good review.  Looking at the picture, I realize we forgot to finish the last reason.  We were saving it so that he could show his dad.  Guess we should finish that off tonight when Shawn gets home.

Reading: D-Man's still working his way through The Beginner's Bible.  He's now reading about Jesus' ministry.  I can't believe he's read 350 pages all by himself!  He does read a lot on his own each week, but it's great to track his progress through this one book.  Even though this set of readers is well below his reading level, I am still amazed at his reading ability.  Maybe that's the way it is with the first reader.  It's just so fun to see them go from painfully sounding out words to reading Bible stories with ease (well, until they get to "Nebuchadnezzar").  We didn't take any of his school reading on vacation, but he got so much practice reading stories to his brothers and his nature reader for fun.  This is a really great season for both of us in this subject.

Read-Aloud: We read the sequel to Dolphin Adventure, Dolphin Treasure this week.

This was a great, on-the-edge-of-their-seats book.  D-Man asked about every two minutes in chapters 3, 4, and 5 if they were all going to die.  I did tell him that if the author wrote the book, he must have lived.  That put him at ease a bit.  Of course, they were both pretty excited about the prospect of finding treasure.  We also had a good discussion on hypothermia.  While it was definitely on the lighter-side of our Sonlight read-alouds, it was so enjoyable. 

Science: This week, we're reading through the book How To Think Like a Scientist.  We didn't actually get to science until Saturday.  Between me having strep, D-Man's golf lessons, and playing with friends; we didn't get to everything this week.  However, since science is one of our favorite subjects, we made time for it on Saturday.

In this book, we're learning how to use the scientific method to answer questions.  At the beginning, we read about why our interpretation of the facts can lead to wrong answers.  Now, we've moved on to the 5 steps of the scientific method.  It's a great book that's written at a young elementary level.