Weekly Report 3/27

Oh this was one of those weeks! I feel we got nothing done. We had an all day field trip on Tuesday and we had the Iowa testing for three days. Harrison was so drained from just the act of sitting still that long so we dropped a lot of our normal stuff!

On the good side, Friday marked Melissa's last day in government school. I will have to change my profile to homeschooling two kids next week!!

Literature: Harrison and I read our Chapter of Pilgrim's Progress Book Two this week. We got a little reading done in Queen of Sorcery. Boy that title really sounds evil doesn't it. It's the second book in the Belgariad series by David Eddings. For those that know me as AuntPol on the WTM boards, my user name is from a character in that series.

Both kids listened to Wind and the Willows and listened to Sisters Grimm.

Reading: Harrison read quite a bit of Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare. I think he only got a little Two Towers in.

Melissa read some more about horses and just started The Lightening Thief.

Writing: Harrison didn't have any writing assignments this week. Since writing is his least favorite subject and most likely to cause anxiety, I decided to skip due to testing. However, He did make a list of military ranks for the Army and Marine Corps.

Langauage Arts: We played some Boggle to work on word patterns. He did one round of Word Roots and he played some vocabulary games at Word Central. He had grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, etc on the test.

Math: We did manage to get all our scheduled Singaporemath lessons. We are still doing decimals and Harrison is flying through them. We didn't get to the challenge math or Life of Fred this week.

Nature Studies: We went to Museum of Natural Science and looked at arthopod exhibit, butterfly room and a tropics exhibit. We did some bird watching from our window. We weren't able to add any new birds to our list but we enjoyed the ones we saw. Both kids found a four leaf clover this week. Both kids continue to observe the chickens. It looks like Melissa's prediction that one of the chicks was a male (based on his beak) is true. We see the beginnings of a comb.

Melissa and I went to tour the place where she is going to horse camp this summer. We took my mom and sister and had a picnic by the stables. We hiked and she planted some flowers there.

Science: We discussed the properties of water. For those with a sense of humor, you should check out this video, We Will Rock You. It's quite hilarious.

History: We continued reading about Portuguese explorers. Vasco de Gama, Affonso d"Albequerque, and Columbus. He also played related sections of Age of Empires. We had a big discussion on trade monopolies. We also read about Henry VIII and watched a documentary on William the Conqueror.

Melissa went to Old Salem this week as a school field trip. She really enjoyed it and told me many things that she learned.

Civics: We had a field trip to the State Legislature. We met with several representatives and one of the state senators. We looked in on some committee meetings and looked at some of the lobbyists displays.

H is learning about military ranks and how the military is structured. He's also recreated several famous battles with his army men.

Music: H practiced guitar and had his lesson. He's working on timing and was introduced to the metronome this week.

Music Appreciation: We didn't get to Bach this week but we did enjoy hearing Ode to Joy and The Nutcracker in the movie Angels in the Infield.

PE: H had one baseball practice and one football practice. Everything else was rained out. He went to gymnastics and jumped on trampoline at home. He also went shooting (bb and pellet guns) with Dad and Grandpa.

M had tumbling and jumped on trampoline at home. We all managed to get one good walk in before the rain came.

Other: We had a clothing, toy and book swap in our homeschool group and then organized, boxed and bagged up the non-swapped things for charity. H was a good gentlemen and helped a younger friend take her heavy box to the car. My favorite moment was watching Harrison and three girls carrying this HUGE box of stuff.