Weekly Report

We had a so-so week. We had a great field trip, but then I got the stomach flu. Dad stepped in to teach a few days for me and he did a good job, I just felt very disconnected to her schooling this week. So with that background, here's our week in review....

Language Arts: Princess read Amelia Bedelia and completed a lesson of Explode the Code. Very little grammar or copywork were done this week. We did begin a new read-aloud, the Year of Miss Agnes, one of my favorites when I pre-read books for this year.

Math: We completed our intro to division early in the week and then just spent time working on drill and solidifying addition and subtraction. I really wasn't up for teaching something new.

Science: We started the week with an experiment. We used suction cups to open the fridge and saw that the more we used the easier it was to open. Here's a picture from that...

I then tied this into a lesson about the starfish and how he uses his "suction cup" to open a clam shell. It was alot of fun, but after that not much science got done. We will be doing some science this weekend to make up for it which is ok with princess because she loves science.

History: We are back to the Greeks again. Princess got a real kick out of righting her name in Greek and declared that she wanted to study greek right now. I'm not quite ready for that, but it's on the list for later, maybe.

Other: We worked on our mural project but didn't get to finish it, maybe next week. Here's a picture of princess hard at work on it...

Other than that, we didn't do any of our typical extras this week due to the teacher being out of commission. Hope you all had a better week, thanks for reading about ours!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Report-2/16-2/20

We had an ok week, there were a few bumps along the way due to princess missing her friends in the states. Despite that we were able to complete a weeks work.

Language Arts: Princess read Zack's Alligator. She did a good job and actually enjoyed it. We finished another ETC lesson. We also completed 5 more lessons in With Pencil and Pen. I'm really enjoying this book. It's so gentle, but I believe that it will lay a good foundation, plus it was free! We are also two chapters away from finishing Indian and the Cupboard, which we all have enjoyed.

Math: We worked on division this week. We also reviewed what all four signs mean and how to perform each operation. It was slow going at the beginning of the week, but once princess caught on, she did fine.

Science: We started discussing invertebrates this week, only two more weeks of animals left and then onto the human body! We also did a nature study about moss, which you can read about below.

History: We started with Nebuchadnezzar and ended with Cyrus the Great. Princess drew her own version on the hanging gardens, complete with stream and candles to light their way. Here it is...

Other: We took a look at another drawing by Ernst Haeckel and listened to some more Tchaikovsky. I'm hoping to begin a multi-week art mural project today, but we will see how that goes.

Hope you all had a great week, thanks for reading about ours!

Wordless Wednesday

Outdoor Hour Challenge #42-Moss and Lichens

We live in a realtively moist climate, so I thought that moss would be relatively easy to find. The truth is that moss doesn't like pollution anymore than humans do! We had a bit of a challenge finding some and completely struck out on the lichens. We walked around for 25 minutes before stopping to find this specimen of moss.

We got out our magnifying glass and examined it. We also collected a nearby rock with some moss growing on it, so we could examine it closer at home. On our way home, we stopped by the potato lady so we could get the energy to climb our sixth flights of stairs (besides, what's nature study without a snack). They were yummy!

Once back at our building I happened to notice that one of the pots by our entrance had some very lovely moss in it (guess I should have checked that)...

We climbed the stairs and went inside to our school table. We talked about the life cycle of moss and pulled out our sample. We were able to identify some grean threads and some moss plants on it. We then wrote in our journals...

Another successful nature study,thanks Barb!

Weekly Report 2/9/09-2/13/09

Ok, so we are back at it again! This week had it's ups and downs, which I expected for our first week back after almost two months off. I had a few fears about what homeschooling would look like in our new home overseas, but I have found that it is possible. I will have to make a few adaptations to our current plan when materials aren't available, but for the most part things will stay the same. So here's a look at our week...

Language Arts: Princess finished another lesson in Explode the Code and she's doing well with it. She also read Daniel's Duck this week. I was surprised that in the break she didn't lose her reading skills, instead they seemed to have gotten better. It's like her brain was able to rest and finally make some of the connections it needed to.

Math: We started with a new unit on multiplication this week and it went well. I'm so thankful for the Home Instructor's Guide and it's suggestions of activities to reinforce what they are learning from textbook. It really helps me to be a better teacher. We also did a few addition/subtraction word problems this week.

Science: We studied fish, seahorses and sharks. Princess really took to the seahorse. We ended up drawing seaweed and seahorses everywhere that day. Here's a look at her notebook page from this week...

We also did an outdoor hour challenge on flowerless plants, which you can read about in the post below.

History: We talked about the Phonecians and tried to make colored glass, but we had to drop that because I couldn't find wax paper anywhere. One of those things I will have to be more mindful of and prepare for in the coming weeks! We also studied the Ashurbanipal. Princess was very proud of him for creating the first library, but didn't like the fact that he was mean.

Others: We did a wax resist with our art program and really enjoyed the project. We also began reading the Lamb's Tale version of the Tempest. We have begun studying Ernst Haeckel for our artist study. I thought it would be neat to coordinated our nature and artist studies for a few weeks. Here's a look princess' notebook page on Haeckel mushroom's drawing...

We enjoyed our week, hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Our new school room

I wasn't sure how we would how our school room would look here. You never know what's available overseas and due to luggage limits, you can't bring everything! I made sure to bring our books and figured that the rest would work out. It did! Our living room is big enough that we could divide it up and give some room just for school stuff. We bought a table just for school and put up our timeline and animal posters from home. I was also able to find a white board for a very decent price, so for the first time I have a huge whiteboard to use for school! Although, I am still in search of a better map. Here's a few pictures of what our new school room/area looks like...

It's been a great set-up for us and school is going ahead at full steam. I'll let you know more about that in my weekly report on Friday.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #41-Mushroom Focus

We are back to doing our weekly nature study! This challenge was for ferns and mushroom, we chose to focus on mushrooms. The challenge was to go out in the forest and see what you find. Since there is no forest nearby in our new home, we decided to seek out mushrooms at our local market. It's a five minute walk from our place and it's outside, that counts as nature study, right? Here's what we found...

We bought alittle of each variety to take home for further study. Once we got home, we talked about the different shapes and identified the parts we could. We talked about how and where mushrooms grow. Then we cut a few up to see what they looked like inside. Here's a look at our variety...

We then took some time to make entries into our journals and try our hand at watercolor painting. Here's a look at the journal entries...

I'm pleased that we were able to complete this challenge in our new urban environment. I know that it will take some effort on my part to rework some of the challenges that Barb has provided, but I know that it's worth it. Nature study has been such a wonderful addition to our week and I plan to continue it, no matter where we live.