Snapshot Summary, October 3-9, 2011 week 5

Snapshot Summary, October 3-7

Science and Nature Study

Sam took a Physical Science test. Alex is working on his Physical Science lapbook.


James' notebook page
notebook pages free from Apologia

We are still working on our fish unit and sketched the different shapes of fish.

For our nature study, we gathered and looked at fall leaves and compared them to the colors we saw last year.

History and Geography

 I made up this worksheet to review the American History we had done last year. They needed to glue the correct arrows so that they pointed from the year on the timeline of when the settlement was established to the area on the map where the settlement was located.

 We reviewed the American History we had done last year.

We looked at the similarities and differences in the colonies, and why the different settlers came.

We looked at Colonial Daily Life.

We added Massachusetts to our Postcard-Geography album.

Sam is mapping the Great Lakes area.

Alex's journal

English

Quentin  worked on picking out nouns and verbs from sentences he had created.
I read him a story and he draws pictures and narrates sentences about the story. We then use these sentences for his grammar work.

James worked on dictionary skills in some of the words in A Grain of Rice and he also worked on picking out prepositions.
In spelling they both worked on the sounds of "u".

Math

Quentin is working on his addition and subtraction facts through 18.

To practice his addition facts, I made a 4 x 4 grid and randomly put numbers up to 18 in the blocks. He picked up dominoes one at and added the amounts on each side together and then crossing out the answer on the grid. Once he got four in a row he won a little treat. He cheerfully played this game several times. Much easier and more fun than a worksheet.

James is working on 3 and 4 digit addition and subtraction with regrouping. We are finding the partial product method so much better a way for him to learn than the usual carrying method. I began using it with multiplication, but I find it also useful for addition, particularly with regrouping. It is so much better a method for those with dyscalculia, those still working on place value or those struggling with math. Using graph paper or turning your notebook paper on its side is also a good method for keeping the columns in line.

Sam has begun Logic, in addition to his Algebra.

Foreign Languages

Sam is reviewing his Greek and is working on Indicative and Imperative moods in Latin.
(For a great review of Visual Latin, hop on over to Hodgepodge.)

Our Favorite Resource This Week
I know this series is already a favorite for many homeschools, but each time I go through them I am impressed by how much detail they go in and how prepared students are for high school biology if they have already been through this series.

What We Are Reading
Although this only has black and white drawings, they are beautifully detailed. This is a great book to get a sense of what it was like at this time and area of America.

Other Fun

James made this plane for the 2x2 Lego Challenge.

Although not for the challenge, Quentin made this walkie-talkie out of Legos, to use in his pretend play.

Household Ways

Katie treated us to this breakfast with Fried Apple Pancake Rings. They were really good with cups of apple cider. 

We made Crockpot Baked Beans to go along with our Massachusetts geography study. They were tasty, but never softened like I like them.

We also tried and liked this week...



Portobello-Pesto Pizza

Weekend Snapshots