Ramblings...

Well this was our first “normal” week, and it was pretty much a success! We stuck to our schedule fairly well for the most part. There were a couple of late days due to Child #2 sleeping in or both boys enjoying an extended quiet time *I think Child #2 may have a growth spurt coming*. Other than that for our first “normal” week I can’t complain.

Here is the breakdown of what we did by subject:

Language Arts: Language Warm-Up in Harcourt Language Grade One, this included making a book about our school.

Handwriting: Week One lessons in Writing with Ease

Phonics: We had originally planned to use Saxon Phonics levels 1 and 2 for teaching phonics, then I came across the Hooked on Phonics deal I wrote about here. So that is what we have been using instead. Child #1 enjoys it more than he did his phonics lessons last year, and Child #2 enjoys listening to the CD player with his brother or having his brother read to him. They are half way through HOP First Grade, after that is finished *possibly next week*, we will move on to HOP Second Grade, and then maybe another HOP product I have been thinking about purchasing.

Math: We started Saxon 2, the first lessons are more of a review/refresher and honestly Child #1 breezes right through them, which I kind of figured he would. So starting next week I’m going to just give him the assessments and once we reach a skill he hasn’t mastered we will start our lessons from there. This will more than likely put us finishing Saxon 2 sooner than originally planned, so I will have to formulate a game plan on how to handle that. The current ideas are either starting Saxon 3 once we finish Saxon 2 or just giving him practice work, so he is starting fresh on the Grade 3 work at the start of our 3rd year instead of a half now and half after our summer break deal that may make retaining the information more difficult.

Science: We did Unit 12 in R.E.A.L Science Earth and Space. It dealt with outer space and some of the things that can be found in outer space. We did a constellation activity where we plotted a few constellations, we also talked about what makes up some of the items we can find out in space.

History: First on the docket in our history learning was to learn about the people who make our understanding of history possible: archeologists. We have an activity still planned for this weekend that will allow the boys to be archeologists for a day, which should be tons of fun. I’ll have more on that once we complete it.

Social Studies: We skipped our social studies and virtue learning this week, since the student book for our social studies text is a CD-Rom I wanted to teach Child #1 how to navigate the CD-Rom before I started actively teaching our social studies work.

Art: We covered Lesson One in Artistic Pursuits, I still need to head to our local arts and crafts store so I can purchase a sketch pad for both boys to use as well as some other items I either don't have on hand or I do and don't want them to get destoryed *because they are for my own personal artwork and yes mommy needs some things to herself*.

Japanese Studies: For Japanese studies we headed off base to grocery shop and run errands. While out and about both boys had an opportunity to use Japanese and we acquired some new foods to try as well.

Child #2: Enjoyed playing with his toys, coloring, and even did some letter tracing *because he wanted to “do school” too*. Next week we will start using his learning poster again, and I’ll probably purchase him some preschool workbooks this weekend so he has more to do since he is eager to do work like his brother.

Overall it was a really great week and we are all looking forward to the rest of this school year.