Weekly Review: Week #6 Year4
Our busy week soon became a quiet week of us hanging around the house. My youngest two came down with some pretty bad colds over the weekend and needed the time to rest. The rain we've been waiting all summer for finally came in one fell swoop and we spent a couple days inside watching the rain accumulate.
Normally I would have been upset at our forced change of plans but it was actually nice to hang around the house in our pajamas, watching TV and doing just a bit of schoolwork. Though as I sit here writing I realize "just a bit of schoolwork" was actually a whole lot of schoolwork!
Writing-- The boys each wrote a thank you letter this week. Alec also wrote a three page story about Terraria and a character called the Ice Queen; he was so excited to be writing! It was so nice to see him excited about writing again. He used to love making up stories about Ben 10 characters and Pokemon characters when he was in Kindergarten and then all of sudden hated to write anything. It's nice to see him enjoying the process again! Ian wrote a story about a park and zoo; something I never saw coming from Ian. He typically writes about construction equipment and job sites so it was nice to see him branching out. The older boys also practiced their cursive and Evan practiced writing his alphabet in all uppercase letters one day and all lowercase letters another day.
Math/Technology-- Alec, Ian, and Evan spent a bit of time on Khan Academy again. It's been a long time since we used it and Evan was thrilled to earn over 14,000 points after completing a few mastery challenges. Alec is finding it frustrating and annoying so we talked about the importance of not just taking mastery challenges but asking the program for hints and watching the teaching videos. He's not used to running up against math concepts he doesn't yet know. I also reminded him that he can click on lower grades for some "fun" math reviews too. The boys also all worked in their workbooks and completed a few timed review math fact sheets. Evan had some real life math when he went to spend some money and gift cards at Target; he added up everything he had to spend and figured out what he could buy. He went over by 6 cents but I told him that I would cover it for him. We stumbled up on the website roomrecess.com over the course of the week and Alec spent one afternoon playing Math Quest.
Science-- Alec spent the weekend reading a bunch of non-fiction books. He read three books on Fennec foxes and one on Serval cats. He also read Cats of the Wild. We woke all the boys up to watch the lunar eclipse and talked about it the next morning; why it was so special, what caused it, etc. The younger boys were especially thrilled to hear it was called a blood moon just like in Terraria! All three boys have started reading books about their science fair topics so they can start on their boards soon. We went on a nature hike one afternoon and we went to a new place and trail. We enjoyed seeing all the leaves changing colors and found lots of neat things to look at including an old rotting stump that was covered in moss and an egg sac or cocoon. We had all forgotten how brisk and invigorating fall walks in the woods can feel!
History- Ian and I watched Unbroken and learned about the true life story of a World War II prisoner of war. We all read/ listened to a few more chapters in Cracker! The Best Dog In Vietnam. I read the book Felix Travels Back In Time and we learned a bit more about the stone age, ancient Greece, the Vikings, the Middle ages, the Far East and the Native Americans. I also found a cute little paper in our Felix activity book where they had to match the picture of the person to the right time period. We resumed our study of Mount Rushmore and the men on it by reading George Washington and the General's Dog and George Washington's Birthday.
Reading/ Language arts- Evan and Alec played a sight word memory game practicing Evan's 2nd grade sight words. Alec read Seekers as well as all the non- fiction science books. Ian read a few more chapters in Divergent. Evan read Marley and the Runaway Pumpkin (which amazed me since the book is quite long compared to the ones he's been reading and he did so well!!). He also read Meet Martha, Have You seen Jellybean?, and Put Me In A Zoo. Evan had an activity where he had to sort long and short vowel sounds. The older two boys worked on their spelling lists/ workbooks. Alec played hang mouse on Spelling City. Evan had fun playing on the site Teach Your Monster to Read and played for 30 minutes straight one day. Within two days he was already half way through level two; spelling and sounding out words. It's mostly review work but he told me it's really helping him with his vowel sounds and remembering consonant blends when sounding words out.
Normally I would have been upset at our forced change of plans but it was actually nice to hang around the house in our pajamas, watching TV and doing just a bit of schoolwork. Though as I sit here writing I realize "just a bit of schoolwork" was actually a whole lot of schoolwork!
Writing-- The boys each wrote a thank you letter this week. Alec also wrote a three page story about Terraria and a character called the Ice Queen; he was so excited to be writing! It was so nice to see him excited about writing again. He used to love making up stories about Ben 10 characters and Pokemon characters when he was in Kindergarten and then all of sudden hated to write anything. It's nice to see him enjoying the process again! Ian wrote a story about a park and zoo; something I never saw coming from Ian. He typically writes about construction equipment and job sites so it was nice to see him branching out. The older boys also practiced their cursive and Evan practiced writing his alphabet in all uppercase letters one day and all lowercase letters another day.
Math/Technology-- Alec, Ian, and Evan spent a bit of time on Khan Academy again. It's been a long time since we used it and Evan was thrilled to earn over 14,000 points after completing a few mastery challenges. Alec is finding it frustrating and annoying so we talked about the importance of not just taking mastery challenges but asking the program for hints and watching the teaching videos. He's not used to running up against math concepts he doesn't yet know. I also reminded him that he can click on lower grades for some "fun" math reviews too. The boys also all worked in their workbooks and completed a few timed review math fact sheets. Evan had some real life math when he went to spend some money and gift cards at Target; he added up everything he had to spend and figured out what he could buy. He went over by 6 cents but I told him that I would cover it for him. We stumbled up on the website roomrecess.com over the course of the week and Alec spent one afternoon playing Math Quest.
Science-- Alec spent the weekend reading a bunch of non-fiction books. He read three books on Fennec foxes and one on Serval cats. He also read Cats of the Wild. We woke all the boys up to watch the lunar eclipse and talked about it the next morning; why it was so special, what caused it, etc. The younger boys were especially thrilled to hear it was called a blood moon just like in Terraria! All three boys have started reading books about their science fair topics so they can start on their boards soon. We went on a nature hike one afternoon and we went to a new place and trail. We enjoyed seeing all the leaves changing colors and found lots of neat things to look at including an old rotting stump that was covered in moss and an egg sac or cocoon. We had all forgotten how brisk and invigorating fall walks in the woods can feel!
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| I just love the fall colors! |
History- Ian and I watched Unbroken and learned about the true life story of a World War II prisoner of war. We all read/ listened to a few more chapters in Cracker! The Best Dog In Vietnam. I read the book Felix Travels Back In Time and we learned a bit more about the stone age, ancient Greece, the Vikings, the Middle ages, the Far East and the Native Americans. I also found a cute little paper in our Felix activity book where they had to match the picture of the person to the right time period. We resumed our study of Mount Rushmore and the men on it by reading George Washington and the General's Dog and George Washington's Birthday.
Reading/ Language arts- Evan and Alec played a sight word memory game practicing Evan's 2nd grade sight words. Alec read Seekers as well as all the non- fiction science books. Ian read a few more chapters in Divergent. Evan read Marley and the Runaway Pumpkin (which amazed me since the book is quite long compared to the ones he's been reading and he did so well!!). He also read Meet Martha, Have You seen Jellybean?, and Put Me In A Zoo. Evan had an activity where he had to sort long and short vowel sounds. The older two boys worked on their spelling lists/ workbooks. Alec played hang mouse on Spelling City. Evan had fun playing on the site Teach Your Monster to Read and played for 30 minutes straight one day. Within two days he was already half way through level two; spelling and sounding out words. It's mostly review work but he told me it's really helping him with his vowel sounds and remembering consonant blends when sounding words out.
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We watched Unbroken, and that is a powerful movie to watch! Looks like y'all had a fun week. And Put Me in the Zoo is one of my favorite books to read!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Unbroken was pretty powerful. I did preview the movie before I let him watch it and knew he'd really like it.
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