Weekly Report

It's Coffee Man's 37th birthday today! The girls all made cards with glitter glue & pretty papers, and Sweet Pea even made a paper burrito, using her quilling skills.

This week in the school room...

Math: Sweet Pea is having a breakthrough of sorts and really picking up the pace with her BJU math worksheets which we are using as drill alongside her RS Geometry lessons. We are doing a 2 week swap of these curricula and covering both over a two year time span, which is different for us but I think it will work out. Sweet Pea had a rocky start to math but I think she's finding her groove now that I am hovering a little closer. :) Cupcake still adores math and is moving along through RS level C. This week, her speed drill times began dropping and she is completing graphs to document this. She is also tracking daily temps on a bar graph. A lesson on Roman numerals caught her attention this week and proved to be a lot of fun.

Grammar: R&S grammar is a hefty program for Sweet Pea but so far so good. We never finished last year's book which means we never got to the punctuation chapter, so this year, I had her start with that chapter in the next level up, Grade 5. The content is not above her ability, but her first test resulted in a C, which was a shocker for her but good as well, since she despises proofreading her work and all errors would have been caught with a simple proofread. A good reality check in early fall. SO, Sweet Pea did some re-writes this week and is about to start her next chapter.

Cupcake is using FLL 1/2 and we are up through lesson 113. She has memorized and can recite all poems so far, with her favorite being "Mr. Nobody" of course! This week, Cupcake began a book about the poem "The Year" and is writing and illustrating each couplet which she loves to do. She like workbook activities so she is also doing a Daily Gram page most days, which reinforces basic grammar & editing skills.

Writing: Sweet Pea is working on a book report for The Penderwicks on Gardam Street per R&S lesson suggestion. She also completed a 3 paragraph paper about Teddy Roosevelt from our co-op class (that I happen to teach). Finally, she completed a one-paragraph creative writing piece about the painting "Allies Day," also a co-op assignment.

Cupcake has been doing copywork, both from FLL and now "The Harp & Laurel Wreath" book which I am loving for her! She also wrote a paragraph this week for co-op to practice adding quality adjectives into some simple sentences.

TOG: We have completed week 6 and have been focusing on the end of WWI. We have colored maps showing pre- and post-WW1 borders, studied Woodrow Wilson in-depth, and as an extension of earlier weeks, we have continued reading Robert Frost poems. In co-op Sweet Pea made a salt dough map of Europe and Cupcake made a propaganda poster inviting citizens to join the navy at Uncle Sam's request! On Fridays during Munchkin's dance class, we work on our Unit 1 lapbook, so today we will complete

Science: On Tuesday mornings, Coffee Man is free to do reading with the girls, and this week they read the first half of the chapter on whales. They listened to whale sounds online and listed some vocabulary words in their notebook.

Latin: This week we completed Lesson 4 of Prima Latina using the audio CD companion. I have to say, this is going VERY well. We all practice the vocabulary as often as possible and find ourselves interjecting it into occasional conversation, especially dinner prayers, which now begin with "Oremus..."

My next plan for this blog is to add book pics (must learn how) and I also need to start photographing the girls' work so I can include some of it with this report.