Week 14 Back from Break

I have not updated in a couple of weeks. Our second week of Spring Break saw Mary visiting with friends three states away and the public school kids out on their own Spring Break. The weather was wonderful and the children spent most of their time outside enjoying it. I spent the week catching up on housework and paperwork that had fallen behind. I also had time to enjoy pleasure reading and taking a little break of my own.

It was tough getting back into the routine on Monday. Over Easter weekend we noticed that our old dog was beginning to fail, which clouded our days with trying to make the decision when we needed to take action. Wednesday night we decided that it was time, but then she passed away, peacefully on her own that night. We feel very blessed that we got to spend those last few days saying good-bye.

We did get back into a routine and I have a handy new schedule on the wall. One that reflects our actual routine. Robbie and I spend time together in the morning doing some pre-school stuff or just reading before the others get up and are ready to go. Then I just rotate between the four of them in 15 min periods until we are done. The three days we followed it this week seemed to work really well.

Mary -

Worked through dividing whole hundreds and thousands in math. Seemed to understand it instinctively.

Covered subjective pronouns in grammar and paragraphical rules in Language Arts. We worked through Week 9 in Writing with Ease. She read the story of 'Cher Ami', a homing pigeon that saves 180 men during WWI in the Elson Reader and completed an oral narration.

Katie -

Continued working on subtraction facts to 20 in Math Mammoth. Some days she really seems to understand math, and other days it is a foreign language to her. This week was filled with those 'other' days.

Finished working on irregular plural nouns in grammar. Covered correct use of is/are in language arts and completed daily copywork from both Primary Language Lessons and WWE. She also began reading the story of 'Lucky Hans' in her Elson Reader.

Together -

Read about the Haitian Revolution in SOTW and completed mapping exercises and colored in a picture of the Haitian flag. For US History; Read biography of Sacagawea, read a picture book about Lewis & Clark, and watched a National Geographic video on Lewis & Clark.

In science we read about Jupiter and watched the Universe program on Jupiter. The girls still need to finish their page on Jupiter for their science notebooks. I told them they could finish it over the weekend.

In phonics/spelling we reviewed digraphs that make the long a sound and the 'ar' phonogram using Blend Phonics and the Webster Speller. The girls also continued practicing sounding out multi-syllable words.

Emily -

She completed a few pages of handwriting this week and began slowly working through Math Mammoth 1 after wanting 'harder' math than what she was getting from MEP.

I really need to get back to phonics work with Emily, we've kind of taken a break from it while she has been spending her time reading lots of the Bob Books and other 'easy' readers.

On Thursday, the day after we lost our dog, I didn't feel like I could 'teach' as well as I needed too and Mary was not going to be able to focus, so I decided we needed a day away from the house. We made a library run, picked up some lunch and went to a park/playground until it was time for Robbie's nap.

Friday, we decided to just sit down and have reading day. One of those days that we just make a pile of books and start to read through them; independently, aloud, together.... Those are really relaxing days :)

Extracurricular

Katie had a Brownie meeting and two softball practices this week. Plus, her drama class is only a few weeks away from their end of class play. Mary had two soccer practices this week and skills training on Friday. On Sunday we will be traveling out of town for a day-long tournament. Emily had soccer practice this week and her first game today.

Mary's literature passages in WWE this week were from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which meant that the kids wanted to watch the movie again, and again...

Mary has been alternating some of her extra time this week between reading The 39 Clues and working on the puzzles on the cards, and playing on the French site of Club Penguin. She has made a bilingual friend on Club Penguin who is teaching her some French already. She is so excited to start learning French.

Katie has discovered the Cowgirl Kate books and has been busy reading and re-reading those. She, and the younger two have also spent a huge amount of time outside just enjoying the beautiful weather (even with all the pollen).

That has been our week in a nutshell. Busy, busy, busy, which it will be until summer. Then it will just be busy in a different way.

Peace,

Amy