Weekly Recap-- Year 4 Week # 15

All our plans changed in the blink of eye this week when we were stopped in our tracks by a stomach bug mid- week.  We had planned to take Thursday and Friday off anyway because my husband and I had plans to go away; we decided to cancel them and not take any chances of someone getting sick while we were away.  I think we were all a bit disappointed.  The kids always look forward to spending a night or two with their grandparents and, of course, no one likes to be sick.  Plus they were all bummed that we would not be making it to their second science class on Bioluminescence either.  I reminded them of all the fun stuff we had been doing and we took the opportunity to rest, watch movies, and read books trying to make the best of our time at home together.


Even with being a bit sick we still managed to get a lot of schoolwork done (before illness set in!).  Some days I think we are barely playing lip service to schooling and learning when we just work on a few worksheets and read some stories but when I take the time to write it all down I get to see how much just a bit here and there really adds up over time!  I never seem to remember that we're always learning even on the weekends and at night.  We don't just "do school" and call it a day.

Reading-- Evan read I Will Take a Nap!, I Really Like Slop!, and a few more Star Wars phonics books.  Alec finished The Landry News and The World According to Humphrey.  Ian read a few more chapters in Divergent.  We read another few chapters in The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle.

Language arts-- All three boys had some Christmas story worksheets where they had to chose the correct punctuation to finish the sentences.  They worked on another sheet coloring in synonyms and antonyms (learning what they were first).  The older boys had a few worksheets using holiday words for spelling, compound words, and putting them in alphabetical order.  Evan had a worksheet asking him to pick out the beginning sounds in each word pictured and then cutting and pasting the words in alphabetical order.  He also had a fun dilly dot marker page using sight words to make a reindeer.  We found all of our holiday worksheets at Teacherspayteachers.com.  They were all free holiday downloads and we found many to choose from.

Evan's sight word dot marker reindeer; yes he's blue and not brown. 

Science-- The boys all attended a really amazing class on bioluminescence and deep sea animals. They used flashlights to make light patterns like the fish do and then tried to find the other fish in the room that had the same light pattern as them.  They learned that other animals and plants also use bioluminescence and why they use it.  The classroom had touch tanks and the kids were allowed time to explore them all.  They also had some microscopes set up and the kids looked at plankton under the microscope.  It was amazing and just one of the classes in a three part series.

Math/Technology-- Evan had a Christmas paper counting backwards and the older two boys had a worksheet comparing three digit numbers.  All three boys made a snowman glyph craft one day following the glyph rules.  Ian spent a night working on design cad learning even more about lines, measurement, the program, and drawing plans.  The boys all played a few fun math games too; the older boys working with multiplication facts and Evan working on subtraction facts.  Alec enjoyed a fun game of Mario Chess with his dad and won! He was quite proud.

The younger boys' glyph snowmen 

History-- We read the books: Lighthouse Christmas (about the Flying Santa organization that started in 1929), The Baker's Dozen; A saint Nicholas Tale (about how one baker started to make his dozen 13), and The Nutcracker Comes to America (about how the Nutcracker came to be a holiday tradition).  All of them were wonderful story books of Christmas that also taught us a bit about the history of Christmas traditions.

Holiday Extras/ Arts and Crafts:  We read Merry Moosey Christmas (about a moose who takes over for Rudolph for one Christmas Eve), Koala Christmas (about a brother and sister koala whose fighting almost ruins Christmas), Welcome Comfort (about how Santa's job is passed from one man to another), The Christmas Wish (about one little girl's determination to become Santa's elf).  We also read quite a few chapters in The Naughty List.  It's a hilarious chapter book about one 12 year old girl who decides to boycott Christmas only to find that Christmas shows up at her house to take her back to the North Pole so she can get her brother off the naughty list.  We've laughed out loud so much together over these silly antics.  It's written a bit like the Diary of the Wimpy kids books with lots of little comic type drawings throughout.

The boys decorated a gingerbread house and made candy cane stars for their bedroom doors.  You can read all about how to make a candy cane star here.

All decorated

Working together they all chose two sides to complete 
Alec's star

Evan's star
Ian's star
Physical Education:  They played at the skate park one afternoon with their cousins.   It was a very last minute plan with my sister and we had to skip/ drop a lot of our schoolwork and plans for the day in order to make it work.  But with sunny 60 degree days in New England in December we just had to! They spent over two hours using their scooters, skateboards, and bodies to play.  They tried to run up the ramps and pretended they were on American Ninja Warrior.  They slid down ramps.  They made up obstacle courses and had lots of fun trying out all sorts of new moves.  They had such a great time and can't wait to go back.


Socialization-- The boys had many opportunities to be social this week.  We ran into family members while running errands at the store this week.  They played with their cousins at the park.  They talked with their friends at karate.  We spent a day visiting my grandmother and talking to her about everything we've been doing.  We tried out a new restaurant and chatted with our waitress.

Life Skills-- Ian has been hard at work turning his design cad plans into a real wooden garage for his toy trucks.  He also worked all weekend with his grandfather clearing out some leaves and weeds from around the cove, stacking and moving wood, and helping out in any way that he could.  All three boys helped clean the house and did some laundry.  Evan made french fries from scratch along with some homemade chicken nuggets.  They were delicious!  The older boys had plans to make homemade meatballs and sauce with some spaghetti and fresh bread but we put that on hold for another time and another week.  Instead we all made chicken soup.



Comments

  1. Looks like lots of fun! Love all the Christmas activities!

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  2. thanks for dropping by my blog. you're right, there's so much that the kids learn when you write it all down. apologies for typos, too lazy to correct them! :)

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    1. No problem. I don't mind typos. Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Sorry for the sickness! Thanks for linking with Collage Fridat!

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  4. What a great week outside of the stomach bug. We had that Thanksgiving week. It was no fun. I love the candy cane stars.
    Blessings, Dawn

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    1. So far it's only hit one of us... but I find the waiting around for it to spread almost as bad.

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  5. Those candy cane stars! :mindblown: Wowza.

    We've been fighting a cold since last week, so our week included lots of kleenex and very little of me reading aloud. Hope you guys feel better soon.

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    1. Thanks! We found the idea on Pinterest and just made it our own.

      Sorry to hear you aren't healthy & well; hope you feel better soon too and thanks for the well wishes.

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  6. What a great week! Hope you all are feeling better. We had that stomach bug hit our house a few weeks ago, and we couldn't get any work done. Thanks for sharing your week :)

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    1. Thanks for sharing your week with #SocialButterflySunday! Hope to see you link up again this week :)

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