Week In Review: Weeks 3 and 4

Well here I am again sharing a Week In Review post, but really it's  Two Weeks In Review!  HA!  Oh well, life has been hectic lately!  I was doing so well the last few weeks of summer with getting my cleaning schedule under control, and a life schedule under control, and then BAM school started! I feel like school is taking up my whole day, having a 5th grader is really different than having a preschooler or even early elementary.

Language Arts:

What I have found out from the past few weeks is that 5th grade is going to be a tough year for us.  I have realized that we are really lacking in the English Grammar department.  For the past few years we really just focused more on literature and reading, and only a slight portion was grammar related.  He is really struggling with the added expectations I have put on him this year.  I am so happy with the curriculum I chose to use and think he will get up to where he needs to be.  As a reminder we are using Learning Language Arts though Literature the purple book and Wordly Wise 3000 grade 5 book.  I realize I said that we were lacking in grammar and then we are using a literature based program, seems contradictory in a way.  In actuality though, I think with using this program, he is reading passages from books he likes and then applying grammar rules.  I have never used this program before and I am so happy that we chose it.  It, so far, is a good fit for our needs at this time.

Bible:

We have begun our Bible curriculum, which is Apologia's Who Is God?, and I love it!  The boys are doing well, and learning to dig deeper into what they think and feel about certain topics.  We have been talking a lot about how we can know if something is true or not.  This has been wonderful for them, especially the 5th grader who is at that age where he is trying to figure some things out for himself.  I am happy that they both seem to know that the Bible is true, and what God says in the Bible is truth.

History:

These past two weeks we have also done some digging deeper into History.  We have learned about Stonehenge, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Early Egypt, the Sumerians, and the Minoans.  We had fun wrapping Noah up like a Mummy!

Read Aloud:

For our read aloud time, we just finished up reading the Christian Heroes then and Now book on Jim Elliot, and we have begun reading The Golden Goblet.  The Golden Goblet I think might be a bit over their heads, so I'm not sure we will continue with it or not, we are currently on chapter 3.  On Friday instead of reading The Golden Goblet, we read The Magic Treehouse book Mummies in the Morning.  They both really liked that one and thought it was funny that we read the whole book in one sitting.  They make me laugh, because its only like a 60 page book.  Silly kids!

Preschool:

In preschool we began our Letter of the Week curriculum and have done letters A and E.  We will be working through the vowels first and then move into the consonants.  I really am impressed with how well my little 4 year old is handling school this year.  Not to say that we don't still struggle, but for the most part he knows what is going to happen and is happy to do his "numbers" (that's what he calls his workboxes).

Field Trips:

Last Friday, we took a field trip to the local Apple Orchard, that was a great time!  We were hoping to get to pick some apples but found out that they were not open for picking until Labor Day.  We might go back after Labor Day just to pick some apples.  On the upside though the playground was open and the kids were able to play.  There is usually a cost but since it was early in the season it was free.  My kids were super excited for that part!   We also picked up some yummy apple cider doughnuts, apple cider raisin bread, apple cider, and of course a few apples!

I really do plan on taking more photos of our school days, but like I said at the beginning it's been crazy!  I really do love this homeschooling journey that we are on, and am so excited to have the opportunity to be with my children everyday and see them learn!

Our Pre-K 4 Curriculum

This year I will be doing a light version of pre-k with Zach.  He has shown a little interest in school work, and does know most of his letters.  So I think doing a formal curriculum with him will be trial and error at first.  I am hoping that as the year progresses he will pick up on the routine and really enjoy his school time.  This year in Pre-K we will be focusing on letter recognition, letter sounds, number recognition, and scissor skills, along with doing some literature units.

When Noah was in Pre-K a few years ago, I purchased the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  That is the curriculum that I will be using this year with Zach.  I didn't get to use it to the fullest with Noah so I am really excited to get to use it with Zach.

I have planned it out and we will do one letter a week, and we will throw in 5 literature units from Homeschool Creations.  We will also be doing a unit on Thanksgiving and an advent unit around Christmas time.

I chose our literature units around books that we already owned.  We will be doing,  Caps for Sale, The Mitten, The Snowy Day, Blueberries for Sal and Corduroy.  To ease into our school year we will begin with a tot school unit on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and then we will do a unit on dogs.

Zach will also be joining us for Bible and Science.  In case you missed it, be sure to check out our all together subjects, 5th grade and 2nd grade curriculum choices.

Its been a long time!

WOW!  I've been gone a long time!  We had a great Christmas, but very busy, followed by 2 weeks of sickness!  Yup, 2 WEEKS!!  Our whole Christmas break, where I had planned to have fun, was spent laying around the house watching TV because every body was sick!  It started the day after Christmas and ran all the way until January 3 or so!  UGGHHH!!  I was very upset about that, but oh well we move on!

Last week we started back on our regular schooling schedule, that was a tough week!  After being sick and literally doing nothing it was hard for all of my guys to get back into the routine, hard for me too!

I am making a few changes to our curriculum for the "spring" semester.  For Elijah, the reading program that came with his curriculum I felt was weak and below his level, so we switched to Rod and Staff Reading, God Leads His People, which is 3rd grade level.  So far that is working well, he enjoys it and the stories, I like that its followed with comprehension questions in a workbook.  Towards the end of last semester we were just using chapter books that he wanted to read, but I wasn't really asking questions to make sure he was understanding the story.  We will work through this series until he finishes and then move onto the 4th grade reader, I plan on this taking us into next school year, which is ok.  Another change for Elijah will be his Spelling, he has really been struggling with his words every week and was missing quite a few.  I never knew whether to give the words another week or just move on.  So just this past week I decided to switch to All About Spelling starting with Level 1, I have heard awesome things about it!   So I am very hopeful that this will help him to understand the reasons behind why words are spelled the way they are.

For Noah I am going to begin a more strict preschool/kindergarten curriculum with him.  He turned 5 in January, so I am thinking its time to move into more structured schooling.  So we will be doing a Letter of the Week program and Raising Rock Stars Preschool, modified to fit our needs.  We are going to cover 2 letters a week, because he already knows some of the sounds but not all.  Once that is completed, in about March, we will move onto learning some sight words.  We will also be working on writing letters and numbers, along with some early math concepts.  Along with his book work, he has found a new love for Starfall, so that will be added into his week as well.

As far as Zach goes, I had planned to begin some Tot Schooling with him, but I am a little overwhelmed with the other two right now.  So we will not be doing any thing too formal, just lots of learning play and letting him explore with rice, beans, pipe cleaners and such.

My new plan is to write a post every week about what we have been doing.  So far I am not off to a great start!  Hopefully I will get myself back on track and be able to do that!  Here are a few pictures from our break and last week.  Enjoy!

Using this cool pocket chart for his 3 Part Cards

The birthday boy, who is now 5!

A little indoor running, because we are in the midwest and its January!

Counting with beans

Yup they got Nerf guns for Christmas!  Oh boy, look out!