A summary of this week (This may not be interesting to anyone but me, but it is a way for me to see how much we really are learning even when it seems like we are not, also a way for me to journal our homeschool journey):
Family Learning:
Scriptures - We do this first thing after breakfast. We are reading the Book of Mormon this year. We start with a primary song, read a few verses of scripture, read an article from the Friend magazine and then starting next week we will work on memory work. I tried to do this during the school day this week and it didn't work.
Reading Time - This seems to be the kids' favorite time. This is done after scriptures. I read from a variety of books while the kids do a quiet activity like coloring, playing with toys, legos, etc. It varies from day to day what they choose to do. Some days are also quieter than others:) This week we read from The Hobbit, Autobiography and Personal History of Ivan Alma Anderson (my great-grandfather), a variety of storybooks, Beowolf a Hero's Tale Retold, and a few poems written by E. E. Cummings (although that will be the end of this poet for us...poetry is much to confusing for young children). We also read a little about Chopin, Michelangelo, layers of the earth, mountains, and medieval monks.
Science - We learned about the layers of the earth and made models from homemade play dough. We learned about the different kinds of mountains and looked at pictures of the various kinds. Derek on his own time has collected lizards, tadpoles, caterpillars, and a horny toad. We also had a visit from a rattlesnake this week!! (not kidding, but no harm came to anyone)
Derek's Play dough model of the
earth layers. He said he thought it
looked like an ear inside.
Emily at first didn't get what we were
doing, but then after the others
had finished, she did one all by herself.
This one I believe was made by
James helping Sarah
When we were discussing monks, Derek
was interested in the fact that they made
books by copying. He wanted to make
"monk books" for a project instead of
making cheese like I had planned:) So
he got some material from Grandma
and had me staple papers inside.
 A page from Derek's monk book |
 |
A page from Emily's monk book
A page from Sarah's monk book
Individual Learning:
Derek: Math - Read a chapter from Life of Fred each day. Review math problems each day. Practiced subtraction with borrowing. Learned about the different types of measurement for length, weight, and volume. Worked on subtraction and addition math facts. Reading - Derek read aloud to me from different books of his choice. Spelling - he had 13 words he worked on this week and we had a test on Thursday (need to work more on how to study words). He also alphabetized his words. Other work - copy work
This was a beetle we found outside.
Derek kept it in his animal
house for awhile and then let it go.
Darrell found this horney toad
at work and brought it home
for Derek. It was so tiny.
Derek has been collecting lots
of tadpoles down in the water near
Grandma and Grandpa's house.
They even started to grow legs
before he put them back.
Field Trip:
Friday we went to the Petrified Forest with all the kids plus Grandma and Grandpa Brimhall, James, and Becky. It was a toasty day but it was an interesting trip. We also stopped by Jim Gray's rock shop. It is a very neat store with a large variety of rocks and fossils. It's hard to keep the kids from touching everything:)
*Notebooking - need to be more specific about what we will notebook, the kids don't do well with "make a notebook page of something we learned this week." Too broad for them at this age.
*All "family reading" needs to be done first thing. I tried to do mix individual work with family work, alternating between them and this didn't work because Emily would say "we already did reading time," when I tried to gather everyone together to do science. It works better just to do all family work first thing and then when their individual work is done they are done which is sooner for Emily.
