Weeks In Review--18 and 19

Week 18 fell during Thanksgiving week. We only schooled Monday through Wednesday, so I will combine it with last week. This past week was a full week, but we've all been sick. We didn't take any days off, so we got most of the work accomplished. Sawyer is particularly under the weather, so we might have to miss a day this week so I can take him in to the pediatrician. I hate when the kiddos are sick. My poor little snotty boy is miserable. He's also managed to infect the whole household, but we seem to be handling it a little better than he is.

Math--Riley continued working on addition with renaming. She completed that chapter this past Wednesday, so we did flash card addition reviews Thursday and Friday.

Language--Over the past eight school days we only did grammar on five. I am going to be reevaluating grammar for next year. I have loved Growing With Grammar, but one thing I am not sure I like is that it spends so much time on the parts that you forget what was covered before. I have Shurley English sitting on the shelf, and I'm thinking of adding some of it in after the Christmas break. Shurley starts sentence parsing early, which means the child will be continually working with all parts of the sentence at once. I'm beginning to think this way of learning will be more effective for Riley.

Bible/Reading--Riley completed chapters 11-15 of Rod and Staff's Bible Nurture and Reader Series. The lessons have been about Jacob. She memorized Galatians 6:7. In her Second Reader, she also read a play about the story of Hansel and Gretel and began reading a story about Peter Pan.

Spelling--This was our first week adding Spelling Workout. We are using book B. Riley was excited by the addition, worked well through the lesson and aced her test. The words are definitely not difficult, but I think it is a good start for her.

Latin--This week was the second week of commands. Again, it was challenging, but easier as we continued to review them.

History--We continued reading Thanksgiving related books in week 18. This past week we returned to Our Young Folks' Josephus. Saul has died and David is about to be crowned King.

Science--Week 18, our science lesson (Patterns of Nature) was on trees. We took advantage of a beautiful nature trail near my mom's and took a walk to see the trees after eating a delicious Thanksgiving feast. You can see pictures here. This week our lesson was about the parts of plants that we eat.

Art--Again, I didn't get Atelier together in time. Bummer. The only postitive is that this one level of Atelier will last us well into next year. We read a book about Van Gogh and looked at pictures of some of his work. Riley and I made an adorable door hanger together from a project in an Usborne book. It turned out to be way too complicated for her to do alone, especially with a little brother too interested in the process. She also made an angel for our treetop, using instructions from Things to Make and Do for Christmas, also from Usborne. This project she was able to do almost completely on her own, thankfully. It turned out just beautifully as well. Unfortunately, the camera batteries died after I took pictures of the door hanger, so I'll have to post pictures of the angel later.

I'm sure I'm leaving some things out...my brain has been rather fuzzy with this cold. Hopefully we will all be feeling a lot better tomorrow.