A New Path to Follow: Week In Review: Week 2, August 10-14, 2015

Morning Work

This was our first full week of school and it was also our first full week of morning work. The kids received a huge packet of work that needed to be completed by Friday. I will go through it more in detail later, but it covers phonics, writing, and mostly language arts. Just lots of extra practice in thee areas because this is where we seem to struggle.

I was a little afraid that I put too much work in this packet for them. It was a lot of pages, but they completely surprised me. The deal is, if you finish your morning work early in the week, you will get to have "technology time" during the 30 minutes allotted for morning work time. This was just the incentive the boys needed because they completed all of their work by Wednesday night! They were spending 30 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes after school to get it done and they all did! One morning they were even working on the packet at 7 am when I got up to get around for school. I was really impressed and so proud of them.

It is Britton's job this year to do the calendar

Jumping right in and starting in on their work

Virtue

I had a humbling moment this week and it all goes back to our virtue of the week, self-control. Lincoln was upset one morning this week because of a task I asked him to complete. And he was really upset. Like, lost control kind of upset. Usually when he is like this, I can calm him down if I stay calm myself. Well, this particular day I had had enough and I also kind of lost it and was yelling at him, which made him cry. I went in to start reading with Britton, when I noticed he had tears in his eyes. I asked him why he was crying and he said, "Mom, remember self-control." He was so upset that I was mad at Lincoln and in the end he really put me in my place. It made me take a step back and go apologize to Lincoln. Thank you, We Choose Virtues, for helping my boys recognize these skills and also reminding me what I need to work on.

Math

This week the boys took a break from their IXL program to work on pages from their Horizons math books. We have been using this program for the past 5 years and have been really happy with it.

Computers

All three of the boys have really been enjoying Typing Club. They have also been working on additional lessons during the week without me asking! Always love when they take the initiative to do work on their own. They have also been enjoying their Minecraft class. They love that they actually get to play Minecraft for school!

Five in a Row- The Tale of Peter Rabbit

This week we read one of our favorite FIAR books, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. This book has so many important lessons to be taught and can be a great jumping off point for some really wonderful conversations.

We started off by talking about the bad choices that Peter made and what the cause/effect of those choices were. We also talked about how he disobeyed his mother and the outcome from that.

We read a few more of Beatrix Potter's stories and then Britton painted a water color of Peter Rabbit because that was the medium that Beatrix Potter used in her illustrations.

We learned about the parts of a plant and how plants grow,

He is picking out what a plant needs to live.

Sorting food and plant seed packets.

Britton was shocked to see how much his seeds ad grown in a week.

Watching The tale of Peter Rabbit on YouTube.

We read this lovely book on Beatrix Potter's life. I really enjoyed learning about her.

We also made scones as a treat.

Peter Rabbit Links:

Pinterest Page

Cause & Effect/ Bad Decision Pages

Printable Garden pack

100 Book Challenge -Book #48

This may be my favorite book we have read so far on our 100 book challenge list. We are reading Loser by Jerry Spinelli. I cannot say enough about this book. I really want to read the whole book behind the kids backs, but I promised them I wouldn't do that again. But it is just so good. I think as a parent it may be tugging at my heart strings a little more than the kids, but they are enjoying it too and it has brought up a lot of great discussions. I can't wait to keep on reading to see what is going to happen.

History & Geography

The Story of the World topic this week was the Anglo-Saxons and we learned about Beowulf. I was impressed the boys already knew this story from a graphic novel they had read!

The two states we learned about this week were Connecticut and Delaware. I never knew that if you were from Connecticut you were called Nutmeggers! We learned some great facts and also made hamburgers, Connecticut is home to the first burger, and snicker doodles with nutmeg in them.

Snickerdoodle Bars

We also learned about Delaware and Amish country. We read a story about what it would be like to be Amish and also made an Amish dinner. Mashed potatoes with homemade noodles & chicken, Amish pasta salad, Friendship bread, and tapioca. The secret to really great tapioca is adding real whipping cream to it! YUM!

Friendship Bread

Greyson making noodles

Tapioca and Pasta Salad

Mashed potatoes, noodles, & chicken

Art

We have been studying Picasso, so the boys tried to make a rooster like his using chalk and oil pastels. Idea from Deep Space Sparkle.

Sensory Activities

Mocha playdoh

Washing stones

Science

Britton is learning about the difference between living and nonliving things this week. We went on a hunt around the yard to see what we could find.

Looking at our fish.

We found a toad.

He was also learning about cells this week and studied an egg to see the parts of a cell.

Greyson and Lincoln finished up their Space unit and we read a fun book about meteors. Love Patricia Polacco. Follow her on facebook. She is hysterical!

Tea on Tuesday
This week's poem was by Shel Silverstein. I found a great freebie for a mini-unit on him. We discussed what could hurt us and then wrote our own "Ouch" poems. This is one of our favorite activities for the week. We even had a letter saved up from this summer from our friends in the States.