Weekly update for the week of 3/15/10

This has been a crazy week due to a family emergency, but thanks to how easy HOD is to implement school went off without a hitch. We finished up week 27 in Preparing Hearts for His Glory.
In storytime we finished reading "Door in the Wall". The language in this book was tough for him to understand at first, but he really grew in his listening skills and I am sure it helped his vocabulary skills. He loved this book. He could really relate to Robin and loved that even with Robin's crooked legs he was able to save the castle.
In Science he finished "One Small Square: Coral Reef" and started on "Columbus". He did an experiment with his dad where they looked at the density of salt water. It was tough to see the results at first because someone (me) had put the red food coloring away where no one could find it and they tried using green, yellow and blue. Once they found the red it worked great.


He researched stained glass windows and then made his own. I was really proud of him for the time he spent coloring his window. We have been talking about giving everything his best effort and he really did on this project.



He loved his written narration topic this week. He was to write about the invention of the compass. He is enjoying history more and more, but science and inventions are still his first love. He even said "this narration was fun!".

He also learned about Marco Polo and when we mentioned it in the car his big sister who is in Advanced Social Studies in ps said "Marco Polo was a real person?". He then told her all about him.

The one other thing that made our week crazy is our church started our performances of "Living Cross". It is something our entire family participates in. We start rehearsals in January and give 10 performances. N loves being in it. It is all about Jesus's ministry, his death and his resurrection. This year it means so much more to N because he understands so many things he didn't before. He knows why the Pharisees are so "mean" and why the people go from waving palm branches to yelling for his crucifixion. All year as we have done story time or other books and he has to make a connection he almost always connects it to Living Cross.

So once again I am thankful for such a wonderful year and a wonderful curriculum.

Weekly update for the week of 3/8/10

This week N continued to study the Middle Ages. He learned about the Crusades and loved the story of the three kings that went on the third crusade. He sometimes has trouble remembering names, but for some reason he can easily remember what happened to all three of those kings. I think part of it is that our music minister, and very good friend is named Richard. So he thought it was very funny that when King Richard was kidnapped they found him by singing a song all around the countryside and when they passed under the tower he was in, he sang it back to them. He said that is just what would happen with Pastor Richard.

His history project this week was a relic box. He made the box and then was supposed to put a "relic" in it. It was to be something that was important to him. He warmed my heart when he drew a picture of our family and put that in there because he said that was the most important thing in the world to him. He then dictated to me what he wanted his note to say.




His poem this week was "Young Night Thought" by Robert Louis Stevenson. His writing assignment was to write his own version of this poem telling about what he thinks about at night before he falls asleep. He is a huge lover of Australian animals. So his poem was about seeing Australian Animals marching by. It was very cute!

In Science he continued learning about the Coral Reef and for his science experiment he learned how Coral Colonies are formed. He enjoyed making the Coral multiply.




He also learned about Gothic Cathedrals this week and wrote a written narration of what he had learned. He was funny because he didn't want to say the words flying buttresses because he thought he would get in trouble. We looked at pictures of different Gothic Cathedrals and even found an aerial view that showed how they were built in the shape of a cross.

In Math he learned about averages and continued to work with adding and subtracting fractions. In Language Arts he learned more about adjectives and how to identify them and is starting to learn about how to take good notes.

He finished the book "Minstrel in the Tower" and is now reading "Pedro's Journal." For DITHOR he is reading "A Mouse Called Wolf". It is very easy reading for him, but he loves it! He is able to do a better job of analyzing it because it is easy reading for him.

It is hard to believe the school year is 2/3rds of the way done. He and I are going to be very sad when we are done with Preparing Hearts for His Glory. It has blessed us in so many ways.

Weekly update for the week of 3/1/10

I think N would tell you this was one of his favorite school weeks ever. We are in the middle of studying Medieval times so this weeks history project was a medieval feast. He made trenchers which were the stale bread plates that they used to eat off of. He then planned the menu and then helped make the food and prepare things. He was so excited. We decided we wanted the entire family to enjoy it so we made it our evening meal. The menu consisted of cheese cubes, roast, pears sprinkled with cinnamon, beans and lemon tarts for dessert. He washed everyone's hands before we ate by pouring water from a pitcher. He thought that was so funny, especially when his older sister squealed because the water was cold. He also enjoyed telling jokes in between courses and trying to eat off a knife.





We finished "Raiders From the Sea" this week as our read aloud. He was not happy with the cliff hanger ending. We then started reading "The Door in the Wall". He likes hearing about Robin and how he is learning to do things even though he can't walk. He is reading "Minstrel in the Tower" for his independent history reading. He enjoyed hearing about knights and the steps they take to become knights. He wrote a nice detailed written narration about this process.

In Science he continues to study the Coral Reef and enjoyed his Science experiment learning about how sponges get their food from the water.

In Math he is learning how to compute averages and how to add and subtract time. He is doing well with CLE Language Arts and seems to be retaining it well.

He had fun with his DITHOR activity today where he described a setting by saying where certain things should go and then I tried to sketch the picture he was describing. We talked about how words really do paint a picture and how if you leave out a few words the picture can look very different than you intended.

Overall just another great week.