Homeschool Week 12: Leaving A Good Impression

I think the thing that helps me most in homeschool is having a good routine.  We don't really follow the clock, we just start working and stay with it until we finish.  Some days we go faster than others.  I try to begin around 8:00.  We do Bible, Math, and Health and then take about a 30 minute break.  I bring Ben back first and start his language lesson.  Once he is done I call Cruz in and do his language lesson. Ben is a great independent worker so I can go over his work and then give it to him to complete while I work with Cruz.  When both are finished we end with History on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and Science on Thursday and Friday.  We are usually done just in time for me to go and prepare lunch.  We do our art activities in the afternoons and read our literature books at bedtime.  For now this system is working well for us.

Here is a recap of week 12:
In Bible we are continuing to study the life of Joseph.  Our stories for the week were titled "Joseph the Slave", "Joseph in Pharaoh's Palace",  and "Joseph's Brothers Visit".  These lessons have been a great conversation starter to talk about topics like how we treat our family members, jealousy, being a hard worker, being honest, trusting God's plan for our lives, and most of all forgiveness.  Our doctrinal drill was on Satan.  We learned a new song "Thank You, Lord".   Cruz continues to memorize Psalm 34: 14-19.

In Math Ben is reviewing numbers 1-9 and counting to 20.  We play a lot of fun counting and sorting games.  We also reviewed before and after numbers. 

Ben filling in the missing numbers 

Cruz's math lessons were on circles and triangles.  He also reviewed counting by 2's.

number writing practice

In language Ben learned letter C.  He got a new list of sight words to begin memorizing.  We did activities that focused on long and short, high and low, top and bottom, happy and sad, and wide and narrow. 

 sorting alphabet cards

Ben's memory verse for the week for letter C was Ephesians 6:1.  Here he is saying it-

 a few fall themed worksheets Ben has done recently from our Abeka art book

Cruz's language lessons focused on short vowel i.  He has weekly vocabulary words to read, spell, and write.  He read his 3rd storybook and passed his weekly assessment test that he has each Friday.  He also began daily spelling tests.  For now he has five words a day on his test but will go up to ten words a day by week 16.  He learned about punctuation marks and we reviewed plurals, sentence structure, and capitalization.  We begin our lesson with a few phonics songs and end with a fun phonics game.  These are included in our curriculum. 

reading from storybook 3- The Inchworm Book 

taking his daily spelling test

Our History lessons were on George Washington. 

they enjoyed the cherry tree story

Our weekly activity was painting a cherry tree.

cherry trees

This week we learned about the State of Ohio. 

Our Science lessons were on fossils.  We watched several YouTube videos about fossils including one from The Magic School Bus.  Our activity was called "Stir-In Fossils".  I sent the boys out to gather a few items to use in our experiment. 

They pulled their wagon around the neighborhood and picked up a few things.

items for our fossil experiment 

Our instructions said to mix the items in mud, let it dry overnight, and then break it open to see the impressions that the items left.  We tried it but it didn't work like I expected.  I think we needed a different type of dirt.  Oh well, the experience was fun for the boys anyway and what kid doesn't like playing with mud.

David mixing the mud for our experiment

each boy got a pile of mud to mix their items in

To give them a better idea of fossils we ended the week with a Friday afternoon field trip to a local museum.  In the town of Estanzuela there is a museum of Paleontology and Archaeology.  It is a small museum but was sufficient for the boys and a fun outing for our family.

learning how fossils are excavated 

fish fossils

leaf fossils

me and my boys at the museum

In Health we talked about the importance of taking care of our hair.

We began a new month which means we got a new look for our schoolroom door.  Each November I do a thankful tree with the boys.  We add a new leaf every day with something they are thankful for written on it.  It gives us a daily opportunity to stop and think about our blessings.

I'll end with this fun video of the boys on a recent afternoon.  They love constructing things and brainstorming ideas.  

who knew marbles could be so much fun?