Letters to my kids: Week 5

This week turned out to be a text in flexibility. We had a few events scheduled during the day on Monday and Friday, so we did school on Sunday night and then an extra lesson or two of various subjects on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It actually worked out really well and reminded me of the benefit of flexibility we have with homeschooling. By Thursday afternoon, everything was finished and we were able to have the freedom to enjoy ourselves for the holiday weekend.

Literature/Language Arts
We read "My Father's Dragon" this week and it was a gigantic hit. Luke and I both loved the story and I have a feeling we'll be reading it again. We actually ended up finishing it in half of the allotted time on our Sonlight schedule, so now we are substantially ahead. (We were already a week ahead in the first place because we had already read the very first book on the schedule.) A friend mentioned that there are two more related books, so I think I'll track them down.

Luke is continuing to work on his story for handwriting practice. Writing time has also been really beneficial for language arts and spelling. Although, I know that inventive spelling is good for beginning writers, Luke prefers to have every word spelled correctly. I have him sound out words and guide him from there. By using the words in his writing, he seems to remember many of them pretty well. He's been learning about spacing his words, using periods at the ends of his sentences, using commas and apostrophes, and when to capitalize words as we edit his work.

Math
We were back to regular math work this week which brought on a few complaints (Luke seemed to think M&M math was more fun for some reason . . .). Luke learned about number lines, so we created a kid-size number line on our front sidewalk. All three kids enjoyed running up and down together.

Science
We continued our seeds/plants lessons this week. Our bean plants are starting to take off and we transplanted them into individual pots. They'll be the subject of a few studies next week, so we have to take good care of them.

Transplanting our bean plants

Bible
We've been working through a story Bible at night, but our "school" portion of Bible is memorizing a verse each week. The verses each begin with a different letter of the alphabet, so this week we learned our "E" verse - Even a child is known by his actions, whether his deeds are pure and right. Proverbs 20:11. I found a YouTube song with the verse and Luke memorized it fairly quickly. We talked often about what it means and used it as a reminder many times throughout the week.

Ben School
Ben is continuing to work on his numbers and alphabet. He really likes the activities we've done and requests to do them often, but I need to develop more in my arsenal for when he tires of poke pages and counting.

Counting out base ten blocks

Math is even more fun with Cheerios!

We added the letter "E" and the word "in" to Ben's preschool wall.

Olivia observing Ben with his poke page

Family Think Tank

His favorite activities are when he gets to be part of Luke's school. I wrote a second copy of Luke's copywork this week for Ben to trace and he was glowing with pride.

Unexpected Learning
By working hard throughout the week, we were able to have all of our work done before we went to the zoo. I'm really making an effort to teach the boys how important it is to finish their work before beginning the fun stuff. At the zoo, Luke worked on his navigational skills. He was really excited to put our weekly map reading practice (every Friday we use Evan-Moor Geography books) to work. I think he enjoyed navigating just as much as seeing the animals!