This week the boys worked on being gentle. That is a hard one for three boys to work on. There is always rough housing and loud voices going on in my house, so we worked on having a quieter voice and keeping our hands to ourselves. This one will probably be in a work in progress until they all move out! They have also been slowly adding stickers to their "100 Days of Virtues" poster. Hoping we can get to at least 20 next week! Britton has mastered the days of the week and the big kids have mastered the months of the year and the 50 States. We worked on all three of those tasks during our morning calendar time.
Theme of the Week: Five in a Row
Over the past two weeks, Greyson and Lincoln have been working on Owl Moon by Jane Yolen . This is a sweet story about a little girl who gets to go out with her dad (without her brothers) to go look for owls. We learned about Owls over the past two weeks and had the excitement of dissecting owl pellets, studying nocturnal animals, and thanking their Dad for working so hard and taking care of all of us. We had a great two weeks reading this book.
Britton worked on Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown over the past two weeks. This is a classic book that most American kids have read to them when they are little ones. To be honest, I have never really liked this book, but I enjoyed it so much more this time reading it through with Britton. We learned about the moon, went over right and left, learned the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle, Diddle", and played with some fun erupting moon sand.
Science
Greyson and Lincoln studied owls all week long. We learned where they lived, what they eat, why they are protected animals, and finished the week with dissecting owl pellets and the end of unit test. The boys loved the dissecting the owl pellets. I was grossed out. Mostly, because I have a very irrational fear of mice and both of our pellets had mice in them. Both of the boys started off strong, but once it really sank in what exactly it was they were dissecting, they started to lose their interest. They also both finished out the week with perfect scores on their science test!
Britton joined in a lot of our science lessons this week. We watched a Magic School Bus on nocturnal animals and I think he can teach a lesson about nocturnal animals now! We watched MSB "Going Batty" and "In the City" episodes. We also worked a little more on mixing colors by using two jars of colored water and have them mix on a paper towel. This didn't exactly work for us, so we just switched the paper towel around and then the colors started mixing. Britton liked it even though it didn't work out perfectly.
100 Book Challenge
This week we are reading The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katheine Patterson. The same author who wrote The Bridge to Terabithia. This book does not seem to be grabbing the boy's attention like her other book, but we are pushing through. I think it is a great story with a really great lesson to be learned. I have had to edit the book a bit. We are hoping to finish it up next week.
Math, Reading & Art
All the boys are doing great with their math. Greyson just moved up to his 4th grade book and was very excited about that!
The boys have also been adding quite a few stickers to their reading charts. Lincoln just finished up his 2oth chapter book for the year! We are trying to find another series that Greyson will be interested in. We have previewed quite a few, but I just can't seem to find one that he likes. So, if you have any suggestions, I would LOVE to hear them. Britton is now reading two-three sentences per page in his readers. I am so proud of how well he is doing!
We worked on clay owls in art this week and Britton made a cute moon scene to go along with Goodnight Moon.
Story of the World
For the past two weeks we have been learning about India. We studied the Ganges River and learned why it is so important to the Hindu religion. Our friend, Mala, taught us about henna and bindis.
We also learned about Buddha and Buddhism. The boys know quite a bit about this religion since we live in a Buddhist country, but it was interesting to learn more about who Buddha was. We read a few Jataka tales, that are lessons from Buddha. We will continue to learn about Buddha next week.
Special Moments
On Thursday this week, I needed a day to get caught up. I was getting behind in all of my planning and decided to switch the day around for the boys. Greyson and Lincoln played a long game of Monopoly, we baked some pumpkin bread, and Greyson worked on an estimation project to figure out how many people live in our little section of our neighborhood. I was quite surprised to find that over 1000 people live in our little part and up to 10,000 people live in our whole neighborhood!
The boys also decided all on their own to make fitness calendars, so they can work being healthier. This was something they came up with without any suggestions from me. It has been cute to see them come with their own fitness plan and makes me happy to see them want to take control of their health. We also made delicious Nutella pastries (this was before the fitness calendar started!) We also found pumpkins at our local market. This is the first year I have seen small orange pumpkins here. We also saw a cute little frog in our front yard.
Next week, we are moving on to all things apples!
Inspirations:
Erupting Moon Dust
Moon Craft
Moon/window craft
Clay Owl
Color Mixing
Nutella Pastry
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