Weekly update for the week of 11/29/2010

After taking a week off for Thanksgiving we were back at it this week. Overall we had a really good week. We did find out that N. had had a broken arm for a week that the doctors somehow missed on the x-ray. He is still able to do school with it though since it is in a sling and he is able to take it off for school.
The kids didn't complain at all about getting back to work. N. finished week 14 of CTC. In Poetry he read my favorite poem by Robert Frost "A Road Not Taken". He and S. painted their watercolors to go with it. He also performed the poem for his dad.







In Geography he finished studying about Israel, so today we ate Bagels and Cream Cheese and prayed for the Israeli people.



In Science he finished Land Animals of the Sixth Day. He really enjoyed this book, well all but this last chapter. It was on parasites and different types of worms like hookworm and trichinosis etc. He was very grossed out by it all. For our Science experiment we didn't have any live worms so we watched a lab online that showed what a mealworm does when cold water hits it.

In Drawn Into the Heart of Reading he is doing the Humorous Genre and finished Tales of Dust River Gulch today. Next week he will read More Tales from Dust River Gulch.

In History he is studying the Assyrians. It was great how our Storytime reading ties in so well with his history reading and his bible reading. From reading "The God King" he understands how cruel the Assyrians were. So now when he found out that Ninevah was the capitol of Assyria he realized why Jonah didn't want to go to Ninevah. We also talked about how amazing it was that God wanted to show mercy to the Assyrians after all they had done and what that means for how God wants to show mercy to us, even if we mess up.

One big discovery this week was something that is dramatically helping his writing. Normally he uses an adapted pencil that he calls his rocket pencil. This week he decided to use one of his sisters mechanical pencils. He came to me all excited to show me the difference in his writing. I must say it is amazing. The place it is helping the most is in math. He has a terrible time lining his numbers up and reading his writing so he makes calculation mistakes. Well now he doesn't do that.
The first picture is his best writing with his rocket pencil and the second picture is with the mechanical.





His cursive also looks so much better, even though he is writing with a broken arm.



His history project this week was a mosaic. Coloring and drawing will never be his strength, but he enjoyed this project anyway.