Weekly update for the week of 1/24/2011

 I am a little late getting this done this week.  This week he was studying Greece and therefore everything revolved around Greece. For his Independent History Box he drew and then colored the Parthenon.  This was a huge hit.  This is such a big deal for him.  He should hate sketching and drawing because of how much effort it takes and how his hand cramps, but in the middle of drawing using the instructions from Draw and Write Through History he says "Have I ever told you how much I love this book?". 

For his History project this week he made a Greek Column.  He chose which style to draw and he picked the most complicated one.  His sister had to get into the act so she made one also.

His Science experiment this week was making a Plant Part Meal.  He enjoyed going thru the fridge and picking out the different things that were different parts of plants like carrots for the roots, apples for fruit, etc.

Archimedes and the Door of Science remains a huge hit for our read aloud during story time.  He likes telling his dad things he learned in this book.

One interesting thing I am seeing with him is that last year I remember posting I was worried how he didn't seem to retain some of the history we read.  I was reassured by Carrie and Julie that he was establishing hooks to hang information on in later years.  Well sure enough as we study things this year he will out of the blue bring up something related that he studied last year.  In fact making connections with his reading is something I am seeing him do more and more.

We did make one minor change to the curriculum and that was we stopped doing Genesis Finding our Roots.  N. was struggling some with understanding this book  and he is now going through a class at church which requires homework and that was adding to his day.  Since this was bible study work he had to do, I decided to substitute it in instead of the Genesis book.