Homeschool Week 10: Pulling Our Weight

Our second nine weeks got off to a great start.  Here is a look at what we did.

Our Bible lessons were on Jacob marrying Rachel (and Leah), his return home, and his reunion with his brother Esau.  Cruz began learning a new passage Psalm 34: 14-19.  He had previously memorized verses 8-13.  By Christmas break he should be able to recite them all together.  We had three new songs this week- "America the Beautiful", "Come Ye Thankful People Come", and "Fairest Lord Jesus".  There is not much more precious than hearing Cruz walk around singing that last one!  Our Doctrinal Drill was on Heaven.

Our language lessons kicked into high gear this week.  It seems that the first nine weeks were more of a review but now we are moving right along rather quickly.  This week we covered short vowel a.  He had 62 vocabulary words to read, spell, and write.  He completed his first storybook reader for the year.  It contained three short stories.  He learned singular and plural.  He learned that people's names always begin with a capital letter.  He began learning sentence structure.  This week we focused on starting our sentences with a capital letter and putting a finger space between words.  At the end of the week he took his first assessment test.  He will begin having those regularly.  He only missed one out of 80 questions.  I was very pleased!

Cruz reading one of his stories.  What a blessing to know that I am helping him learn that skill!

practicing singular and plural

practicing finger spacing and writing capital letters at the beginning of sentences

Hooray for making progress in language!!!

Ben began learning the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.  This week we covered letter A.  He also did some visual discrimination activities focusing on big/ little, up/ down, and over/ under.  For filler he does a lot of coloring, cutting, gluing, puzzles, sorting, and tracing.  He is very easy to entertain. He can keep himself quiet and busy for long periods of time. It is a big help while I work with Cruz. 

Ben writing letter A

I gave him a magazine and he had to cut pictures of things that are big and little.  Here he is gluing his pictures onto a poster board.

This week he also began learning a memory verse a week that goes along with our letter of the week.  We are using the Alphabet Bible Memory Cards from the Abeka Bible curriculum.  Here he is saying Romans 3:23 for letter A.

In Math Cruz focused on Addition +8.  Ben was counting to 20 and writing numbers 1-8. 

Ben working a math puzzle.

Our History lessons were on Benjamin Franklin.  The boys enjoyed learning about some of the things he invented.

Benjamin Franklin

His activity for the week was to make his own invention.  First he had to draw it out and then, if possible, try to build it.  He drew a tower. 

building his tower

He wanted to make it taller than his brother.  When I asked him what type of tower it was he responded "this is Trump Tower".  I had to laugh a little.  It was not an original invention but a funny one nonetheless. 

We learned about two States- Rhode Island and Vermont.

Our Science topic was pulleys.  You can imagine the boys surprise when in the middle of school one day I ask them to go get their pulley and a rope.  They knew it was time for Science and they squealed with excitement.  They play with their pulley all the time so this lesson was not new to them but they still enjoyed it.

First we used a jug of water, a rope, and a rolling pin to make our own pulley experiment.

Fun!

We then took their real pulley outside and did a few lifting experiments. 

In addition to these activities we watched several YouTube videos on how pulleys work.  It was a fun lesson for the boys.

In Health we talked about the importance of having good posture.  We practiced sitting, standing, and walking.  They especially enjoyed trying to balance a book on their head while walking.  It was fun until they realized that the super loud noise of the book hitting the tile floor was more fun and they starting making their books fall on purpose.  Boys!!! 

practice makes perfect, right?

This picture is a little blurry.  I took it over the weekend as we were traveling.  It is a lady with a basket on her head.  When Ben noticed her he yelled out from his seat "look!  that lady has great posture!".  We all got a good laugh from that.  I was glad that he had taken something that he learned in school and noticed it in real life. 

In Art we drew a baby mouse.

Here is part of our instructions.  I like the art book that we have- Pencil, Paper, Draw!  It can be a little challenging for them (especially Ben) but they like it too.  I don't expect them to draw it perfect. I draw it out on our white board and then they copy what I do.  To me it's more about them learning to follow each individual instruction and practice eye hand coordination.   We do not have a set day/ time that we do art each week.  I save it for an afternoon to give them something to do when they get restless.  It seems more of a fun activity for them than thinking of it as school work. 

Cruz also did a crayon rubbing craft from his Abeka Art book.   We went for a walk and picked several different sizes of leaves to use. 

He had to cut out the frame pieces and glue them on his picture.  It turned out pretty.

He was proud of his craft.

He enjoyed it so much that the next day he and Ben went out leaf collecting and made another one.  They really liked this activity!

It was another great week filled with learning and fun.  Cruz randomly asked me over the weekend, "mama, do you remember that time we made those scrolls and we burned the edges?  That was fun!".  It was a memory from a kindergarten Bible lesson.  It made me beam with joy to know that he remembered it.  I hope that when he thinks back to these years one day that memories like that will stick out in his head and he'll remember the time we spent together and the little things we did to make his education fun.  That little statement made all my hard work seem worth it.