School-wise we made some progress towards acclimating Melissa into our routine. Things went smoothly this week for most part, even with me working and two field trips!
Literature: We read The Tempest by Shakespeare from Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Harrison and I co-read his weekly Pilgrim's Progress chapter. We listened to another chapter of The Wind and the Willows. We have not picked up our evening read-alouds in weeks though. I have to get that routine started again.
Reading: Melissa read all The Seeing Stone and most of Lucinda's Secret (Spiderwick Chronicles Book #2 and 3) and continues Spy for the Night Rider. Apparently, one chapter is so interesting that she keeps rereading it. She also started reading a book called Dolphin Song but I am not sure if that one will make it to conclusion. Harrison continues Two Towers and read all of Twenty and Ten. The bulk of his attention has been reading the background information to our Legends of Druidawn game.
Writing: The bulk of our writing this week has centered around the Legends of Druidawn game. Harrison, who normally hates anything that involves picking up a pencil, is obsessed with writing for this game. I would recommend it for reluctant writers who like to read fantasy novels. He wrote his character sketch and has written his account of the game as a story. He's also worked on copywork and has been chatting with his pen pal about the game.
Melissa worked on her Megalodon report, wrote another email to a stable, emailed with a friend about horses, did her copywork, as well as her Druidawn character sketch and story work.
Language Arts: We did Rosetta Stone Spanish, typing, and Word Roots. One of our favorite things right now is playing Babble. One of the kids will start the game and find as many words as they can and then the other takes over and finds some more and then I try to finish the game.
We also did the spelling bee last Saturday. Harrison got first place for third grade and Melissa got third place for fourth grade. Now before you think she is a great speller, I have to admit there was a huge disparity between the level she got out at and where the final two ended. On the otherhand, Melissa has made great improvements with her spelling in the short time we've been homeschooling her. I have introduced a few spelling rules and continue working with her using SWR.
Math: Melissa did the chapters on graphs and time from Singapore 3B. Harrison continued working on subtracting decimals in 4B and played Lure of the Labyrinth. They both did chapter 19 (dividing by zero) and a bridge from Life of Fred.
Nature Studies: We finished Tale of Reddy Woodpecker and started Tale of Jasper Jay, both by Arthur Scott Bailey. We compared the blue jay and the bluebird (again) and did some bird behavior observations here at home and on our nature walks while collecting data for E-bird. We also took a trip to the NC Museum of Natural Science to study their marine life and bird exhibits.
Melissa had a pen pal email her a report about a horse breed (I believe it was Friesians?) and critiqued it.
Science: Our main science project this week was our shark dissection. It fit in well with Melissa's research project on Megalodons. To follow up we visited the historic ocean life and current marine life exhibits at the Nature Museum. They also had fun this week playing Plant Tycoon and Spore.
Geography: We continued our Marco Polo book. This week we studied the three main religion/philosophies of China: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We even tried out the practice of qigong. We also read about Mongolia, Kublai Khan and his niece Khutulun, and Musk Deer and musk perfume. We did our normal mapwork too.
History: This week was all about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. We read about her, Mary (Queen of Scotland), the Spanish Armada and Admiral Drake, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Sir Sidney Phillip, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth. Harrison watched an episode of The Deadliest Warrior on Apache vs Ninja.
Civics: We had an interesting discussion on taxes and what they pay for as we admired the new signs that have gone up in our downtown area.
Art History: We continued reading Michelangelo's biography and our picture study this week was of his painting in the Sistine Chapel called The Last Judgment.
Music: Harrison continued guitar lessons and practices. He is now on the fourth string. We all played "Find the Beat."
PE: Harrison had football and baseball games/practice this week. Melissa had tumbling and a cheer clinic. They both had gymnastics class. They also tried out for the Junior Olympics but only the winner got to move on. Melissa was 3rd and Harrison 5th. We had a lot of trampoline jumping and few after dinner walks that turned into hikes.
Another highlight was our company had a bowling outing for the employees and families. Harrison decided to play with the adults instead of the bumper lane that was set for the kids. He did surprisingly well.
Religion: Awanas, Church, memory work, devotions, etc.
Other: They both played Virtual Villagers this week. Harrison played Empire Earth with his father and Melissa's godfather but ended up killing everyone when he closed the game to go play (as the game was hosted from his computer).
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