2010 2011 Week 3

I noticed this week that Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers has a meme called Weekly Wrap-up. It didn't take too long to realize that these posts would make fine contributions. So here we go with this week's installment.

English/Reading

Bunny Girl continues to excel in her Emma Serl book. This week she memorized and recited an excellent poem called "The Robin." I am grading each assignment this year, now that she's in the 6th grade. She's doing fine, but it's taking me some getting used to.

Princess Puppy is proceeding quite nicely with her Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons book. We had completed a little more than 50 lesons when we stopped last spring. I decided to start at Lesson 50 this fall. It became quickly evident that we needed to go back a little farther, so we started at lesson 40. I took an SRA training on how to teach this system and I believe Puppy benefitted greatly from the integrity of my instruction. In any case we zipped past lesson 50 this week and she is reading up a storm.

For the past few weeks Spider Droid has been the boy without a curriculum when it came to reading. The SRA based program similar to what Puppy is doing didn't seem like it was going to be possible on our budget. We checked out a Hooked on Phonics program from the library called Master Reading. While it was interesting and fun it was just out of the Spider's grasp. We have been reading all kinds of things, but SD is not the kid and I am not the teacher who can thrive in the long term without a program. On Friday I ordered Saxon Phonics Intervention and I am hopeful that will be what we both need. Anyone reading this who has used it before let me know what you think of it. We will be in make-due mode until we receive it.

History

In Mystery of History this week, among other things, we learned what a Ziggurat is. One of the things I really like about this class are the age appropriate suggestions for activities that follow each lesson. Spider Droid made lego models of the Ziggurat.

Penmanship

Handwriting w/o Tears is getting a little more difficult for each of my students. They are still enjoying it and seem up to the challenges.

Math

Bunny Girl had her first test in Saxon and got 100%. She is using Saxon for first time in a few years because the program we were using ended at 6th grade as does Excel the program we put Puppy and Spider in this year. Spider Droid is learning some probability as well as getting a refresher on coins and dollars (He is actually excellent on that already.) He seems to have less math-induced tantrums than he did with Horizons. I think this is partially due to the new curriculum, and also since many of those tantrums were because he didn't want to write numbers being alleviated with his success w/HWT. When I bought Princess Puppy her kindergarten math curriculum, I thought, "It's kindergarten, I don't need a teacher's guide." So far, not my wisest of choices. I've had to skip several lessons because I had no idea what they wanted her to do. Looking ahead, it seems to get clearer as the course goes on.

Typing

Late last spring, we started using the Mavis Beacon series. The kids loved it and even I started using it. This fall we set time aside on the schedule for it, but I didn't find the disc until yesterday, so I'll keep you posted.

Science

Each unit in the anatomy book takes 4 lessons or 2 weeks to go through. This week we finished lesson 1 and moved on to lesson 2. I love the actvities that it has the kids do. This week we made a cell model from jello and also illustrated how amazing the skull is made by jogging around the room with an egg in a tupperware container. The egg broke into basic Humpty-Dumpty mode. Then after cleaning out the tupperware, we filled it up with water, put a new egg in, resealed it, and jogged around again. The egg lived to tell the tale, until yesterday's breakfast.

That's all I have for this week. I'll be back on Friday to tell you a little bit about our co-op, and something Puppy and I call "Stations."