This Week in Learning {Week19}

January Prayer Table

We are back at it after a long Christmas break! We were off to a good start on Monday with just a half day of school. Tuesday wasn't too bad and Wednesday the boys did only independent work as I had other obligations that day. Thursday was a disaster! I blame it on the puppy. We were constantly getting her out of trouble as she is getting into everything right now! We got a half day of school done before I was too stressed to continue. 

We decided to fix the problem by getting out the larger crate and putting her in it during school time She had outgrown the smaller one but the next size is gigantic, see below, and we were putting it off as long as possible. Friday went much better as I could easily put her into her kennel (she was too big to try and fit into the other one unless she was willing). She was let out during break times and didn't complain. We still only did a half day of school since the boys had other activities planned for the afternoon.

Yikes! Big dog small house!

I did something I had never done before and that was just start our school day on Friday where we left off on Thursday. All of Thursday was completed and a couple items from Friday were completed. I usually would have just started the day over and then we would have missed afternoon work again. 

Since the boys Mardel planners broke (the ends of the plastic comb binding snapped off making the pages not turn as easily) I needed a new system. I decided to take up Sarah's advice on using sprial notebooks. I really had planned to go back  to a printed sheet but my boys informed me they didn't care for that method. I was able to find 1 subject, plastic front, only $1.30 each notebooks at my local Dollar General. (Side note is that the nearest Target only had 3-5 subject expensive ones or fancy, pretty, expensive ones right now; of course I got myself one of those fancy pretty ones though!) They worked nicely this week! I do write out a week at a time and not daily was Sarah suggested. 

Morning Basket did not happen this week. As I was cleaning house this afternoon I thought long and hard about this (and I mean long because the puppy keeps bring sticks inside the house to chew on and I went over the carpet many times to get it all picked up!). It didn't happen because I didn't want to do it. Why? It's because I wasn't enjoying what we are doing during Morning Basket. The goal for this weekend is to rework our books and make Morning Basket my our favorite part of the day, as it use to be.

I added in a time for free reading for the boys and everyone (including myself) has been reading Harry Potter. Not great literature but it's exciting.  

Tyler started some new books this week. Augustus Caesar's World (for history) and Artistic Pursuits (for art, of course). In science he started a unit on animal classification. We are using Bobbie Kalman books-The Science of Living Things series from our library and I also got some DVDs from the library too. The books aren't the greatest but they are better than a text book or most other books I looked at in the library. This should be review for him but I did noticed he was missing some information in this area so a nice review seemed to be in order. This week he read the mammal book.

I started using Winston Grammar (again-as we did some lessons last year too) with Tyler. We got in one lesson this week (started on lesson 4 to review-I think we got to lesson 12 last year though). My plan is to do two lessons a week and I think we will have it completed by the end of the year. I like this program because it is easy and effective (assuming you actually do it!). I put aside the IEW Fix It! program just because . . . . I was having to refer to the teacher's manual more than I should have to for the level of grammar I want my boys to learn at their age. ; )

Otherwise Tyler continued with his normal studies in math, keyboarding, history, spelling, literature, and religion.  

Tyler didn't do too well on another Saxon "test" (I don't believe in grading children but use the test to see that the material has been mastered)and I do plan to slow him down. This just means completing a lesson 100% (the mixed practice, review problems usually don't get completed because it would be silly to spend an hour plus on a math lesson at his age!) about once a week compared to every 2-3 weeks that we are currently doing. I think he just needs a little more review. Half of his mistakes are careless and I'm still figuring out how to address that. I think there is a long thread on the 4Real forums about that.

Lucy insist on laying in the sun. I've had to move the chair out of her way so that she could find some sun! She was trying hard to get Caleb to move but since we don't allow her on the furniture (trying to keep allergies ay bay) she was stuck with Caleb holding her. She wasn't happy about having to share!

Caleb had a really normal and boring week.  ; )

We did add in The Shadow of His Wings which he is enjoying. Caleb also started a new science book, Science 7 from Seton. So far so good on the science pick. It's a textbook but it's not bad as far as textbooks go.

This week we had a few half days but I think it was a good way to ease back into a school routine. Four weeks off is long enough to get use to another schedule The week wasn't perfect but it went smoothly considering. I will need to remind myself next year that three weeks is enough for Christmas break!

How did your school week go?