Weekly Review–Week 3

 

 

We have had a slow week of school this week.  Kiddo had doctors appointments, Husband was travelling this week which always means something will break, or somebody will get sick etc.  It was one of those weeks. The first day DH was gone, I got woke up to Kiddo yelling for me from the bathroom saying he needed help. Let’s just say it went downhill from there. 

We did a lot of reading this week from the library. He is still reading his Thomas Edison biography, he likes it but it is not interesting enough for him to read without me saying it is time to read on Thomas Edison for a bit.

He is enjoying the Standard Deviant Anatomy dvds he has watched them almost every day. They go really well with Apologia Human Anatomy.

 

 

This week I made some multiplication flashcards for us to work on.  We are using Teaching Textbooks for math and they started giving him complex multiplication questions and he does not have his facts memorized yet. Working on the tables will be our goal in math for the next week.

 

He made a mustard see tree in Bible this week. I also learned that I have watched too much Mythbusters with Kiddo when I started using an Mythbuster experiment as one example to help explain faith to him.

 

Other than school time taking more time than I was expecting the year seems to be off to a good start.  We are getting in a groove and moving along in all our subjects. 

Wordless Wednesday

Kiddo picked this book at the library this week, he thinks it is so interesting. It has real pictures in it, can I just say, GROSS!  It has been a Dad and son book, I don't want to see it or hear about it, which Kiddo thinks is too funny.

Weekly Review–Week 2

 

 

 

This was a week of catch up, between doctor’s appointments, sleeping issues and reaction to medicine trouble, we have been a bit behind all week.  Other than science and finishing up a book on Pocahontas we are all caught up.  Science works out this way instead of me having to do a chicken wing experiment on Friday, Dad can help us on Saturday. And that works perfect for me, I was not looking forward to it. 

Kiddo is truly enjoying spelling and Latin.  He is a little frustrated with math right now because it is getting harder and he does not like things that do come instantly to him.  He is used to understanding everything after one try and multiplication is slowing him up. 

He is enjoying ice skating classes and bowling league.  I hope to start piano next week, we have run out of time the past two weeks and have not been able to start yet.

My two weeks of lesson plans I made worked out well so this weekend I will be making out the next two weeks.  I think two weeks at a time is a good schedule for me, it allows flexibility for changes in the schedule and extras. I make the lesson plans and print off any printables I will need for the two weeks plus make sure I have all the supplies for any experiments of projects we are going to do.

Have a good weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

We are studying bones in science this week, he made a body out of play doh.

Edible Cell – Science Project

We attempted to make an edible cell  that is a project listed in Apologia’s Human Anatomy book.  It took a lot of candy for this project. Any reason for buying candy is a good one, right?

First you use lemon Jell-O to make your mold, that part went fine. It did take more than a day for it to set up with the extra gelatin in it.


Next using the candy you recreate all the the parts of a cell. This is were things started going down hill.  The candy was melting and turning the Jell-O colors and some of the pieces as they melted popped back up.  We were having fun and he did remember ever part of a cell. 

Finally it was time to turn out the mold.  Guess what didn’t happen.  It was all good fun though, Kiddo said it was a dead cell it had been destroyed.

Then Kiddo started playing with the Jell-O and it became ballistic gel like they use on Mythbusters(his favorite show).  Then there was talk of making a body using Jell-O etc.  We had fun and Kiddo knows all the parts of a cell and certainly won’t forget now.  It was a fun but a bit costly experiment with all the candy.

Weekly Review–Week 1

Day 1 – I did not have a lot of hope for today.  I had told Kiddo, let’s get up work hard and finish our work and we will have the rest of the day to play.  He told me his goal was to avoid school work at all cost.  It did not go too badly, the work took longer than it should have.  He can dawdle over handwriting and math worksheets better than anyone. He was very excited to do science, I scheduled that last to get everything else done.  He wasn’t sure at all about spelling but once he did his first “test” in Sequential Spelling it was no big deal.  He liked Wordly Wise and wanted to keep reading in history and science, so overall a good day.
He did create a very colorful conquistador.

Day 2  - Ahhh! Thank goodness for Excedrin and Lindt Chocolate, it is that kind of day.  He is not interested in even trying today, 2 hours on one TT math lesson.  I know he knows the information, he is just not trying. Getting back into a routine is rough. We did mange to get through the day and he enjoyed drawing the anatomy of a cell and making Spanish doubloons.  We also had our first Latin lesson, I may look for the dvds. 

Day 3 – Today was better, he did not complain as much but still took forever to get anything done. As we get back into the swing of things, it will pick up. The first couple of weeks are always hard getting back used to the work schedule. He is enjoying Sequential Spelling asked to do it first today and he wanted to listen to the Latin cd again.  As usual he loves the Apologia science book, we finished reading chapter 1 today and will do the notebook journal tomorrow. He drew the Nina today from his Draw through History.  Not exactly what we were reading about but it works for a Spanish ship going to South America.

Day 4 – We did not get much done today.  I felt bad, he had sinus issues and I had a doctor’s appointment.  We did spelling, reviewed Latin, and did some math worksheets.  Tomorrow will be a busy day with catch up and our science project.
Day 5 – Today was a good day, he worked hard to get caught up from yesterday and we finished everything.  Fridays are set up to be a light day to allow for catch up from the week and experiment day.  Today we worked in the Apologia Human Anatomy Jr. Notebook.  I really like the new jr. notebooks, they are perfect for younger kids with more drawing and lap booking type activities. We also are working on a edible DNA project.  I should have pictures of it when finished tomorrow.  

Here are a few pictures from the Jr. Notebook for Chapter 1. There is also a copy work page and the cell anatomy page which can be seen above.


I am pleased with how our first week went overall.  I can tell the curriculum seems to be a good fit for now and the amount of work is good.  I do hope he speeds up a bit he can drag his feet on things he is not interested in doing.  We will work on that this year.  He seems to really like Latin and Sequential Spelling which are both new this year.
I have next weeks lesson plans made and ready to go.  I did two weeks at a time and I hope I can keep it up. 

Have a good weekend!

Wordless Wednesday–Library Haul

 

 

Some for homeschool and most just books he picked out to read.  I was disappointed our library had only one of the extra reading books I wanted.

Terrific Tuesday

Boys Garage Style Room
Kiddo got a big boy room makeover.  He wanted a car garage style room iin red, white and blue. If you click the link above you can see more pictures and details on we did.  He loves it. 
Kiddo loved the month of hockey lessons so much we signed him up for ice skating classes. This is perfect for a summer activity.  It is indoors and once a week.

P.S. I know his helmet is too small here, I ordered a new one and it showed up after he got back from class, naturally.  He has a new proper fitting helmet now.

Time for School

It is time to start back to school on Monday.  We are basically year round but we have taken a few weeks off for a break.  We had finished most of our curriculum so we will be starting new books and changing a few things.

I would like to say I am excited to be starting school again but a few more weeks would be nice.  I have been busy making lesson plans, printing worksheets, copying, laminating, organizing, labeling, etc.  You know all those things you do to get ready for school.


Kiddo is excited about studying Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy this year. I am not so thrilled but we doing it anyways.  I have read the first chapter and gather all our supplies for the experiment at the end of the chapter.  This is going to be a difficult book with lots of vocabulary and difficult concepts.  I plan on taking the whole year to go through the book slowly. Maybe 1 chapter a week but I think it will take a bit longer for some chapters.  I am planning on doing as many of the experiments as we can, along with the extra reading and dvd suggestions.
Kiddo was also  thrilled to hear he only has Handwriting twice a week now. Nobody tell him he will be writing everyday in Easy Grammar and Sequential Spelling.  His handwriting has improved greatly since we started drawing class. For this year I got two drawing books, Star Wars the Clone Wars and Draw Through History.  He has asked for a book on how to draw vehicles. 
Here is our curriculum for this year:
Math – Teaching Textbooks with Singapore workbooks for extra practice
History – Story of the World
Grammar- Easy Grammar 2 and 3 (almost finished with 2)
Spelling/Vocabulary. – Sequential Spelling and Wordly Wise
Science – Apologia Human Anatomy
Bible – Telling God’s Story
Handwriting – A Reason for Handwriting Transitional workbook
Drawing- SW Clone Wars and Draw Through History
Piano – John W Schaum ( until fall and them piano lessons)
Latin – Prima Latin (2x week)
Extras we will be doing:
Map Skills Grade 3 workbook – He loves these and does them on his own time
Logic Countdown – Did Mind Benders last year and he sailed right through.
Reading – He is an advanced reader and I usually let him read what he wants to. I do pick one set of books specifically for him to read and do narrations on.  We have done Magic School Bus, Magic Tree House and Horrible Science series before. This year we are doing biographies on people he would like to learn more about. He chose Thomas Edison for his first book.


We are ready.

New pencil and Crayola Twistables for the year.  Since we found out Kiddo is colored blind I labeled all of his colored pencils, I think that will help with the frustration factor.
Mom also got new pencils this year. I found some colored mechanical pencils and a set of multi colored uni-ball pens.  I have mentioned I love all things writing instrument wise.  Back to school supplies is almost as good as Christmas shopping.

Pencil Boxes .25 at Staples.



I will be back to blogging more regular now that I will have something to blog about.

Wordless Wednesday - Getting ready to start back to school

Lesson Planner printed from Donna Young. 

We start our year on Monday.  I am busy organizing my planner and making lesson plans. We have several fun experiments this year. I am hoping to do all the activities in the Apologia Human Anatomy book.  I will back to posting regularly soon.  I am ready to start a new year and I am really not ready.  I have enjoyed our break.