Weekly Wrap Up Week 22

I am no longer blogging each day, but I am going to try to blog weekly at least. So.... this week....

• Skittles and Twizzler have been practicing their multiplication facts. Queen Homeschool has this amazing book, Math Facts for Copywork. Sadly, it was not in my budget this school year. However, I love the idea. So I wrote out the multiplication facts for 3 and 4. On the first day I had them copy the facts and the skip counting. The second day they had to answer all of the problems and then copy them again. When they were done I asked them to skip count for me. I then asked them the problems in random order. If they were not able to give me the answer right away, I marked an X by it and had them copy it again. By the end of the week, they had their 3 and 4 facts memorized. On Friday, they did their Teaching Textbooks lessons and I showed them how to use the multiplication facts they had memorized to solve division problems. 

• Twizzler copied a poem, The Cow by Robert Louis Stevenson this week. I was very picky about letter formation. He has a hard time remembering to start his tall letters high enough. His t's look like plus signs. His l's look like i's without the dot on top. So I had him draw a row of lines from blue line to blue line on notebook paper. When he was done I had him turn the lines into the tall letters of the alphabet. Then I had him copy the whole alphabet utilizing the full space between the lines. It proved one thing to me. He is capable of forming the letters correctly. Maybe I just need to resign myself to the fact that he is going to have messy handwriting and that is okay. Maybe he will be a doctor. 'wink wink'

Skittles learned about synonyms and antonyms this week. I love how simply the lessons are presented. He truly understood the two and was able to explain it to me. 

• We learned more about Sparta and Athens this week in history. We read about when King Xerxes sent messengers into Sparta and told them to give a simple offering of water and dirt. The Spartan's responded by throwing them into a well. We watched that scene from the 300 and I have regretted it ever since. Now they are shouting out, "THIS IS SPARTA!" Every time they hear "This is..."             .......Okay I still laugh.
• Both boys totally ACED their spelling this week. 
• Science was a bit of a mess. Monday Twizzler was recovering from a stomach bug. He was not able to do the reading on his own. I tried to help him with the drawing but he was getting more and more frustrated. Tuesday he could not figure out how to copy a map. By Wednesday, he and I were both in tears and I realized that this is just not working for him. We need to find something that works for him. So I pulled out some science pages that I got from the Dollar Tree last summer. Each page has a story and step by step instructions on how to draw the subject of the story. Then he has to write about what he learned. How very Charlotte Mason... Thursday he read about turtles. Friday he read about flowers. He said he likes this kind of drawing. 

Skittles is trying something new for science that he really likes. He has been learning about the ocean for the last 2 weeks. He has been talking about diatoms, diving bells, and continental slopes. I am so glad that he is really interested in what he is learning. I hope it continues to hold his interest. This kid eats up science.

• Twizzler finished his reading book this week. Today he read me a story about Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad.  

Skittles has been reading Greek Legends. The book has pictures of Greek statues in it. He brought me a picture of a statue of a female goddess this week and said, "This is very inappropriate mom." I told him that I was proud of him for averting his eyes and he could cover it up with a post it note if he wanted to.

• The kids did not have Awana this week but that did not stop them from working in their books. Twizzler especially. He has done one section per day. Both of them have almost finished their books.
• At co-op the preschoolers and I read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and then did a bunch of fun activities to go with it. Skittles and Twizzler talked all the way home about their gross science experiments, Then they serenaded me with a Spanish song all afternoon. I am so grateful to be a part of a co-op so they can learn those types of things... God knows I wouldn't want to teach them Spanish or how to make slime.