Weekly review

I haven't posted a school update for awhile so I'll just summarize what we've been doing the last few weeks. We still haven't gotten into a good school schedule yet since we've taken a day off here and there to do some canning, some deep cleaning, some purging of toys and getting out the winter clothes. The weather has been just about perfect so it's made it hard to buckle down and do school. We're still getting the basics done just not a lot of the extras.

Math: Ellie and Kara are moving right along. Ellie has been skipping lessons here and there since it seems she is still having some review (even at lesson 40!!!). Kara usually does a couple at a time because there don't seem to be many new concepts introduced and when they are, she picks them up right away. Both girls are working on increasing their speed on their math facts. I need to make sure this gets done more often, especially since Ellie doesn't particularly like to do them.

English: Ellie is finally almost done with the English book we started last year. She's finishing up a chapter on diagramming prepositional phrases. Kara is almost done with her first grade section and has been working on sentence types, i.e. statement, command, etc. She's also still memorizing Mr. Nobody. She's just got the last stanza to finish up.

History: This week we've been studying the Vikings (not the football team) and last week we studied King Arthur and Charlemagne. We also built a salt map to cement some of the geography terms we've been learning. The kids still need to paint it so maybe they'll do that today. They would have had it done by now but it was taking forever to dry cuz I kept putting it out on the porch and I'd forget about it. Then the dew would settle on it making it wet again!!!
Ellie and I have been discussing the level that she is working on in Tapestry and for the next unit I plan to move her up to the dialectic level (she's currently working in the upper grammar level). The reading selections have definitely been too easy for her so I'll have to figure out if I'm going to move her up in all the areas or just literature.

Bible: For our devotion time in the morning, we've added singing hymns and the kids have loved it. It's really added a dimension to our devotions. We've also begun reviewing the catechism questions in Westminster Shorter Catechism that we learned awhile back.

Art/Music: Haven't done any.

Latin: Ellie is on her last lesson in LCI. Then she'll move on to LC II.

Science: We did make it out to Quarry Hill once to observe the pond and take some pond water samples. We have a Brock Magiscope at home and have been having a blast looking at things under it. In our pond water we've seen several protists and looked more closely at the different types of algae. There have also been a few snails that we've looked at too.

Here is a story that Ellie wrote for one of her writing assignments this week. She used a graphic organizer that used all of the senses to describe something.

A Viking Family
It's a fall afternoon and I'm hiding behind a rock watching my father fight. I see the slaves as they scurry about, the spears as they whiz through the air. The smell of blood pierces my nose. The scream of a child echoes in my ears. I taste the delectable beans I picked from our garden and the satisfying milk I milked from Hazel, our cow. I feel the rock now stinging my hands for I was clutching it tightly in fear my father would die.