Letters to my kids: Week 4

As far as school goes, this week seems like it was pretty calm. We didn't have any big exciting events or projects, but really just did our thing. Schoolwork has become part of our daily routine and I'm noticing more acceptance and less grumbling (for the most part).

Literature - Along with our poetry readings from the Llama, Llama book, we've been reading "Apple and the Arrow". We have an older version of Sonlight and this book isn't included in the updated Core A, but it was a huge success with Luke. It is the story of William Tell as told through the eyes of his son, Walter. I had only heard the story of Tell shooting the apple off of his son's head, but the majority of this book explains the whole legend of how he led the people of Switzerland to revolt against the tyranny of the king of Austria. Some of the ideas were over Luke's head, but he still enjoyed the story. We actually finished it in half the allotted time because he just had to finish the chapter. When we finished the book, we listened to the William Tell Overture on YouTube. (Did you know the song played in cartoons when a character is waking up in the morning is actually part of that song?) Next week, we will be reading "My Father's Dragon" which I have heard from many people is one of their kids' favorite books.

Math - This week, we took a break from using the math books and devoted time to memorizing number bonds (addition facts) up to 10. The highlight of our math week was playing M&M math. Aaron set out ten M&M's and then took some away while Luke closed his eyes (or rather, while I covered his eyes because someone has a tendency to peek). If Luke could figure out how many M&M's were gone, he got to eat the ones in Aaron's hand. If he got the answer wrong, Aaron ate them. By the time they were done, Luke was on a sugar high, but felt more confident in remembering how to make ten.

Language Arts/Handwriting - These two areas were someone combined this week. Luke is working on writing a story, so his handwriting practice has consisted of writing neatly. He enjoys coming up with his story line and I enjoy the lack of complaining about writing practice.

One of our language arts activities this week was to practice categorizing. On this particular morning, I asked the boys to clean their room before we started school. I went into the room and they had dumped out every single toy they owned onto the floor so that they could organize them. I started to open my mouth to tell them to hurry up so that we could start the language arts activity when I realized they were already practicing the skill in real life! They separated each group of toys into separate containers by type of toy. (I had to hold my tongue when I saw that two of the containers were paper bags. If they were going to organize, I was going to let them.) There were containers for sports toys, stuffed animals, superheroes, army guys, and a few more. They were really proud of themselves, and I was proud that they stuck with their project and showed a great deal of initiative.

They even vacuumed out their toy box - totally their idea!

Life Skills - I don't plan on counting typical household activities as school unless the kids are actually learning how to do something new. This week, I taught Luke how to make grilled cheese sandwiches. We used every safety precaution I could think of and watched him like a hawk! He buttered all of the slices and assembled them with cheese before turning on the grill and wore oven mitts on his little hands when he flipped them and when he removed them from the griddle. Ironically, he ended up making a peanut butter and jelly for himself because he wasn't in the mood for grilled cheese, but everyone else enjoyed them.

Science - This week we started to discuss seeds. For our weekly project, we started growing plants from dried kidney beans. I couldn't believe how quickly they grew. Within 24 hours, we had our first sprouts. Hopefully, the other beans do as well as this one. We are scheduled to do several projects in the next 2 weeks with our new plants.

Ben School - Benjamin worked on the letter "D" this week. He did his usual activities, plus I found a cool website that showed how to make letters out of pattern blocks. They were designed to be printed out, but in order to conserve our colored ink, I just displayed it on the computer screen. He needed a little bit of help, but once he got the hang of it, he loved assembling his letters.

Ben has also been using base ten blocks (and M&M's today!) to practice his numbers. I write a sheet in pencil that is divided into squares with numbers in each square. Ben traces each line and each number and then counts out the number of objects into the square. It isn't anything fancy, but he loves to trace and count, plus it keeps little hands occupied for a little while!

Unexpected Learning
This seems to be our year for discovering bugs. This week, the boys came running into the house screaming about a big yellow fuzzy bug. It turned out to be an American Dagger Moth. It was the weirdest looking caterpillar I'd ever seen. We researched and learned that they like maple leaves, so I showed them a picture and we found some in my grandparents' backyard. We also were at a baseball game and found the maple leaf on the Canadian flag. The moth ended up forming a cocoon within days of finding it, so now we wait!

This cocoon was much, much different from the Swallowtail chrysalis
we observed at the beginning of the summer.

We also worked at our church/co-op clean-up. It is amazing how much stuff can accumulate in one building. The boys both worked up a sweat helping out at the clean-up. I was really impressed by some of the older boys who took them under their wing and encouraged the little guys to work hard and stay focused. I think it'll be a great year!