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Morning Routine: Calendar, Virtue, & Chores
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
Morning Routine: Calendar, Virtue, & Chores
Our virtue this week was self-control. This was a great one for our whole family to work on. I am really trying to get the boys to stop punching each other when someone makes them mad. It drives me crazy. I do not understand why they always have to be touching each other and punching each other. So, we talked a lot about self control and keeping our hands to ourselves. I am also working on not getting angry as quickly as I do. One of the negative things to staying home with your kids is that you are ALWAYS with them. Now, don't get me wrong, I love being home with the boys. But, when you are around anyone for too much time it is easier to get upset faster than you normally would. I am working on having self control when it comes to getting upset and yelling.
The boys have also started their "100 days of virtues" poster. When all of those little caterpillars turn into butterflies then they have mastered the virtue and we will be doing something very special. I did a terrible job paying attention to what they were doing well this past week and they only got one butterfly. I hate how we can focus on the negative so easily, but need to remind ourselves to look for the good behavior. Hoping to do better next week.
Grey is still being a champ at doing all his chores everyday without being told!
Theme of the Week: Five in a Row
The big boys finished up Another Celebrated Dancing Bear. Check out my post on all we did over the past two weeks reading this story. We had a lot of fun reading this book. I am so glad we decided to read it again. We loved learning about The Nutcracker and that is what we focused on the most. We read The Nutcracker and had to start watching a few different versions of the movie before we found one that wasn't too scary. I didn't realize how scary The Nutcracker actually was! We also enjoyed learning about Russia and baking a Russian treat.
Britton finished up Ask Mr. Bear this week and we had a great time learning about life on a farm. He also LOVED making and playing with his animal puppets all week. We were treated to puppet shows every day. He also learned about the life cycle of a plant.
Science
Greyson and Lincoln worked more on birds this week. We talked about what birds eat and where they would build their nests. The boys both had to choose a bird to do a little report on. They drew pictures and then had to present to us. They did a great job. We had a lot of fun learning about birds.
100 Book Challenge
We finished up the BFG by Roald Dahl. Such a fun book with so many great lessons. This is by far one the boy's favorite books that we have read. I highly recommend reading this with your kids.
Math, Reading, Writing & Art
Britton has been working on learning to tell time and beginning addition. I am very happy how well he has been doing. Lincoln has been working multiplication, Roman numerals, and money. Greyson has been working on coordinates, adding 5 digits, equations, and greater than/ less than in the millions. They are all doing great!
We have found Lincoln a new book series that he really likes. He is loving the Beast Quest books. I was worries after the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series that we may never find anything that he would like again, but he is loving these. He read three of them last week! (We will be needing to find another series soon!) Greyson is enjoying Encyclopedia Brown.
We did a really fun art project this week. The boys wrote their names out in glue and then covered it in salt. After that, they used water color paints and painted the glue. It was so fun to see the reaction to the paint and the salt. I love how they turned out!
Greyson have been moving right along in the Writing with Ease books and learning how to summarize a story. Britton pulled out an oldie but goodie this week. He was using his Leap Frog Scribble & Write to practice his writing. He has also been moving along in ABC Mouse.
Story of the World
This week we read about Hannibal and how he moved his army of elephants from Africa to Rome without being noticed. That is a pretty amazing feat. We read a book on Hannibal's life and learned why he was such a good leader.
Extracurricular Activities
This was just another crazy week in the lives of the boys. They made it to every event this week and have really been enjoying soccer & swimming. We did make it back to Clayworks this week and the boys made cards with clay figures on them. Britton made a cute elephant. They love this class.
Special Moments
I feel like I blinked and then the week was over. This week just flew by. I noticed I didn't take many pictures this week. We did have some great moments though. Lincoln got a new bike! He is so happy. I will have to get a picture for next week. The boys stopped to say by to the iguana at RIS. Even though we go to the school everyday, the boys still need to stop and see what the iguana is doing. (It is in the same spot every day!) We had an unbirthday party at the end of the week to wrap of Britton's book. We made a cake and the boys each got to open a small gift. The boys were really surprised! I also made my first (of many I am sure) loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Even though it never gets cold here, our weather does change a little. There is a cooler feeling to the air and it makes me feel like there is a little "fall" in the air. (in reality it is still in the 80's-90's!) So, that was week 6 of school. Time to start planning for the next week!
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Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler's weekly wrap-up:
