Weekly update for the week of 4/19/10

I told my dh this week that it was hard to believe that it is almost the end of April and we are still going strong and really not dealing with much burn out at all. I know that is due to how great this curriculum is.

In history this week he continued to read about Peter the Great. He enjoyed this book and making a notebook page that had some of the things that interested Peter the Great.


We also read about the 7 year war and how that war impacted the colonies. On Friday we read about King George III and the American Revolution. N wrote his written narration on this reading. We have watched all of "The Liberty Kids" DVD's in the past year so he enjoyed reading more about this. One of his favorite characters in those DVD's was Lafayette so he was happy that he was mentioned.

In Science he finished reading about Leonardo Da Vinci and started a book about Pasteur. His science experiment was to take 3 sealed bags, one with plain bread, one with bread with 20 drops of water and one with bread with 20 drops of sugar water and put them in a warm dark place and check them in a week. He wanted to know why it says to not open the bags. I told him he would find out why when he looks next week.

His researched etching this week and then did one of his own. I was very proud of both the sketch he drew to model the etching after, and the actual etching itself. It is our Greyhound Bailey.


His Poetry assignment this week was to write 4 paragraphs about his "Treasures". As always the highlight of the week was reading this for his dad.

Weekly update for the week of 4/12/10

After taking last week off we were rested and ready to dive back in. This week we continued our tour of history with the Elizabethan time period. N has been drawing pictures while I read of key points in the readings and it is amazing how that improves his oral narration. He is just such a visual kid. I think it helps him listen better also. His one comment though as we did CHOW and "The Wonderful Winter" was that there sure were a lot of people loosing their heads back then. Our storytime reading has been "The Wonderful Winter" and he has amazed me with how willing he is to sit and listen to this. Once day the reading was 25 pages long. I thought for sure he would loose interest, but he didn't. He was able or tell me all the important details. At the beginning of the year there is no way he could have done that.

My DH was home today and was around as we read Child's History of the World. He was amazed at the improvement in N's ability to answer the questions or find the answers if he couldn't remember. When N went in and did his written narration by himself, he was very impressed. He had helped with written narrations earlier in the year and couldn't believe he was at the point of doing a nice 5 sentence narration with assistance only for final editing.

In Science he has continued to study Leonardo Da Vinci. He was fascinated with the backwards writing that Da Vinci did in his notebooks. His experiment was looking at the difference between voluntary and involuntary muscles. He learned that voluntary muscles get very tired.

He does his Geography all by himself now unless he just can't find something on the globe.


The history project this week was making a Renaissance necklace. I think I had the wrong type of toothpaste for the fast drying clay. I ended up with a gooey mess, so we bought air dry clay.


He continues to do well with his math and language arts. He has decided he loves anything to do with symmetry and congruent shapes. He definitely takes after his dad in that.

Weekly update for the week of 3/29/10

Hard to believe we finished week 29 of Preparing this week. This year has gone so fast. This week in storytime we continued reading some stories from "Hero Tales". I think it has been good for N to read about those that made big sacrifices for Jesus. We haven't read many of this type of story before so after a few of them he has asked me if it was a true story. He loves seeing how God works things for His good, even things that seem bad at the time. At the end of the week started reading "The Wonderful Winter". He is already drawn in by the fact that Robert is running away to save the dog.

For Drawn Into the Heart of Reading he did a project based on "A Mouse called Wolf". He made a character puppet and then retold the book to my dh.


His Poetry assignment was reading "Keepsake Mill" by Robert Louis Stevenson and then he had to come up with something that also wouldn't change through the years. He came up with an outline about the creek by our house and orally told me a story about the things he has done with his dad at that creek at different times in his life and ended it with talking about how someday he will take his son to that same creek.

In History he learned about the Spice Route and made a chart of spices from India and mapped the route. He also learned about Michelangelo and the beginning of the Renaissance time period. He finished reading Pedro's Journal and started reading "William Shakespeare and the Globe". He knows his sister has read Shakespeare in high school, so he likes the fact he is studying something she also studied.

In Science he is reading "Who Was Leonardo Da Vinci?" He made a notebooking page about Da Vinci. Often for his notebook pages if he has written cursive I will let him type the other copy work that is needed for the page.


Next week we will take a spring break and hopefully enjoy some nice weather.