Wrapping Up Week 10 (2014-15)

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Deanna

This was a crazy week. We missed a lot last week due to me being sick, so part of me wanted to do a ton of work this week to get caught up. However, I was still recovering, and laryngitis is not conducive to the kind of school we’ve been doing, with lots of reading aloud. Plus we’re getting ready for our first official week off next week, so I didn’t necessarily want to start into anything new. Then throw in a school holiday for Nico’s first birthday, and this week was definitely a lesson in flexibility.

Bible

We had accomplished one week in Matthew (week 3 of Bible Road Trip: Year Three) before I got sick, and rather than start week 2 and then take another week off before getting into week 3, I decided to just forgo our BRT lessons this week. It worked out fine, since our evening devotions in Old Story New were covering the baptism of Jesus and kept us in Matthew.

In the mornings we spent some time reading about Jehoshaphat, since boys’ choir is rehearsing a musical about him. Also, Ian was anxious to get back into Prudence and the Millers, but we only managed to get through one chapter this week.

Math

We’re spending a lot of time counting by 10’s and 5’s in lessons 31-35 in Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2). Grandma taught the boys a song for counting by 10’s years ago, so all of the activities related to that came really easily to Ian. He struggled a little more with the 5’s, but we’re practicing a lot, so he’s getting better.

One of his favorite ways to practice was tossing a beanbag back and forth. Sometimes we just counted by 5’s, alternating between the two of us. Other times I would say a number as I tossed it to him (something ending in 0 or 5), and then he would tell me 5 more (or less). Of course the the other kids wanted in on this game, so we practiced with Elijah counting by 2’s, and the boys practiced with Arianna counting from 1 to 20. Everyone got lots of number practice in this week (and some throwing/catching practice as well)!

Literature/Ambleside Online

This week I realized I was going to need to rely on some audiobooks in order to get caught up on our Ambleside Online, Year 1 reading. Our book of Aesop’s Fables came with a CD, but it doesn’t have every story, so that didn’t work out as I had hoped. However, I went to booksshouldbefree.com, and I downloaded mp3s for Just So Stories, the Red Fairy Book, and the King of the Golden River, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to catch up on some of our AO reading while on the road.

I also borrowed the Arkangel dramatic recording of The Tempest from the library, which I’m going to see if Ian can follow. I remember listening to several Shakespeare recordings this way during a season when I had a long commute, and I really enjoyed them. Ian loves listening to stories and audio dramas, so I’m hoping he’ll like this, even though we didn’t get a chance to read the shorter version of the story in Tales from Shakespeare (though maybe we can catch up on that after our break).

We finished the D’Aulaires’ Benjamin Franklin, which Ian really enjoyed. Usually he chooses to build with blocks or other quiet toys while I read, but when we got to the part of about the Revolution, he decided to draw a picture of a battle. After we finished the book, we watched the Animated Hero Classics DVD on Benjamin Franklin. Ian was really disappointed in the movie. There had been so many wonderful details about Franklin’s life in the D’Aulaires’ book, and he asked me, “What about the rest of it?” I’m glad he liked the book so much, and I think it provided a great introduction to this fascinating historical figure.

Science

We skipped history altogether this week (aside from our AO reading), but I’m a little less flexible when it comes to science. I really want to try to get through the entire God’s Design for Life series this year, so we read through lessons 20-23 in The World of Animals. Ian was having a bit of a hard time classifying animals, so I drew a chart showing how there are bigger groups (vertebrates/invertebrates) and then smaller group (mammals/reptiles/etc.) We’re just getting started on invertebrates, so we talked about what different groups of arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans) have in common, as well as what makes them distinct.

To help Ian understand the idea of an exoskeleton (and other features of an insect’s body), we built our own bug:

We blew up 3 small balloons and taped them together to represent the head, thorax, and abdomen.
Ian used flour and water paste with newspaper to cover the balloons and then set them in the sun to dry.
After the paper mache had dried, he cut up a pipe cleaner to make joined legs and antennae, taping them all to the proper parts of the body.

If we’d had more time this week I would have suggested he paint the body after step 2, but he didn’t seem to mind. He did get tired of the paper mache after a while and I helped him finish that part, but other than that this was a project he was able to work on mostly independently.

Extras

The boys are both continuing to enjoy Ian’s lessons with Middlebury Interactive Languages (Spanish K-2). This week he finished Unit 1: Greetings and then worked all the way through Unit 2: Numbers. Both of the boys are already familiar with number 1-10, but they really enjoyed getting to use what they knew to complete the activities quickly.

And now onto… our first “Sabbath” week

As a child, I remember getting to the end of July and feeling like I could handle going back to school. I always wished I could save the rest of my vacation weeks to use throughout the school year when I really needed them.

Now that we get to set our own schedule, I’ve tried to spread out our weeks of rest rather than taking a long summer break. We had a couple of odd weeks in August with baseball camp and music camp, so I put off our first Sabbath until now, but unlike during those camp, I intend to let Ian (and myself) fully rest from school. When I drew up my calendar for this year and looked at when to schedule in our weeks off, it usually worked out to be about every 7th week or so after from this point on. I’m hoping this rhythm will help us avoid getting burned out or frustrated. See you in a couple weeks!