Weekly Report 3/20/09

Mom, please don’t talk to me for awhile. I am going to be deep in thought.

That sums up this week! We had a lot of thinking going on. This was a week of never-ending rain. It finally cleared up enough for us to meet some friends at the park on Friday. DS took his Nerf gun and had a blast! I think the entire line of mothers spit out their lemonade when he ran across the park picking up Nerf bullets and screaming, “A bullet, a bullet, my kingdom for a bullet!”

Literature: We finished our lunchtime audio book of Frindle this week. What a great book for discussing protagonists and antagonists! We continued listening to The Wind and the Willows in the car. That story is such a delight. We did our weekly chapter of Pilgrim’s Progress Book Two. We also read several chapters in Robin Hood, Queen of Sorcery, and Grimm Sisters. The latter is supposed to be the book that I read to his sister while he bathes but he’s been listening in.

** My afterschooler listened in on Wind and the Willows and Grimm Sisters.

Reading: He’s still reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. He’s been playing a LOTR game on the computer which led to pick up his copy of Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare.

**DD is reading several non-fiction books on horses, Warriors series, and just finished Penderwicks and Inkheart. We went to the movies to see Inkheart this week. She discussed how it compared to the book and DS discussed how it had elements from LOTR.

Writing: He wrote a letter to his pen pal (and I promise I will mail it this weekend) and he created an ad for a video game contest, complete with rules and prizes.

**My afterschooler wrote a letter to one of her friends at school. Unfortunately, another child rifled through her bookbag, stole the letter and turned it into the teacher. DD ended up with silent lunch even though the letter was written at home, not out during school time, and contained nothing mean or malicious.

Language Arts: DS went through his list of trouble words and used them in his commonplace journal this week. We also had a blast playing around with alliteration this week. H played a few games of Text Twist/Word Challenge and learned about word patterns. We played a game of Scrabble too. He also played Word Roots, Rosetta Stone Spanish, and typing games on the computer.

Math: DS continues working with decimals in his Singapore workbook and did a page in his CWP book. We played a few rounds of Monopoly and he played a little bit of Lure of the Labyrinth. We did some mental math in the car.

** Both kids did one chapter of Life of Fred Fractions this week.

Logic/Critical Thinking: The game of the week on the computer has been one of the Lord of the Rings games. We also played some Lord of the Rings Risk. I forgot to pack his logic book in our Tuesday bag and he got mad at me LOL! He did manage to squeeze in an inference exercise from it later in the week

**DH kept them both entertained with numerous riddles throughout the week.

Nature Studies: He and I continued reading The Tale of Reddy Woodpecker this week. We have been studying the birds that we can see through the window and trying to identify bird calls that we can hear. We did learn the difference between a bluebird and blue jay.

**DD continued working on her horse lapbook and writing her own non-fiction horse book. She went on two small nature hikes and found a 4-leaf clover on each!

Other Science: Due to his irrational fear of vampires and zombies that have caused problems in our daily life (he is afraid to go upstairs alone –no problem walking all over the neighborhood or going downstairs alone to play video games LOL), DS and DH have been studying the science behind vampire legends: diseases that have “vampire like” symptoms and the effects of dehydration and decomposition on corpses leading to “vampire traits”.

Health: We watched a parody of Star Wars called Grocery Store Wars on Youtube. It was about eating organics. We enjoyed that and discussed food engineering and pesticides, etc.

History/Geography: Our Marco Polo book has been temporarily (I hope) misplaced. We did do some mapwork on Africa and India as we studied Prince Henry the Navigator, Bartholomew Diaz, and Vasco de Gama. We also studied Gutenberg and King Henry VII, the first of the Tudor line of Kings.

**We watched the Court Jester as a family.

Religion: DS and I had some good talks from our Pilgrim’s Progress reading. He also had a lot of thoughts about evolution and creation.

Both kids worked on memory work and went to church and Awanas.

Art History: (Both) We continue studying and reading about Michelangelo.

Art: Use of lines to draw different perspectives.

Music Appreciation: (Both) Continuing to listen to Bach.

Music: DS is practicing a duet to play with his instructor.

PE: He worked on the rings and the climbing rope in Gymnastics. At home, he continues working in on his flips on the trampoline. Both football and baseball were rained out this week but he managed to get some skills practice in with DH.

**DD also had her tumbling class and practiced on the trampoline. She is working on her back tuck right now. She and I went to the track and did a few laps.