Week 17 2010

I putting up our week in review a little early. Tomorrow we are leaving for a weekend soccer tournament at the beach. Yes, we have a hard life.

Trying to wrap up everything this week before being out of town for a WHOLE weekend made it a pretty busy week. We haven't seen much of dh this week since he has had to try and do his weekend jobs during the weeknights. I have had the full-time cab driver role.

Last week a number of readers asked for a review of Time4Learning. I don't do reviews until after I have had a chance to use a program for awhile. But, I figured I would give a run down this week of what Katie and Mary did on T4L.

Mary:

~ Completed a review of prefixes and suffixes in her vocabulary work for the week. Each lesson has a tutorial section and a quiz/practice section.

~ She completed the Spelling Unit 1 section and practiced the words using SpellingCity and printable worksheets.

~ She continued her lessons on reading strategies and focused on how to read texts, newspapers, and other nonfiction. She also had a lesson on recognizing Fact or Opinion and completed an offline worksheet.

Each day she had scored activities and is carrying a 95% average across her language arts. Yes, she still really likes being graded.

I started her at the beginning of 4th grade and figured the review would be helpful for her. It is pretty easy at this point, but I love the instruction on reading strategies. It is nice that something else is telling her the same things I have been...but she gets it now.

Once she gets past the reviews she will have daily grammar, vocabulary/spelling, and literature/reading activities.

Katie:

LA

~ activities with ai/ay words and high frequency words both, tell very

~ vocabulary exercise

~ timed reading exercise for building fluency

~ read a story and completed comprehension questions

~ wrote her own story using vocabulary from the week

LA Extension - Week unit on Bees

~ read background information on bees

~ completed Venn Diagrams comparing bees with ants and butterflies

~ worksheet on bees

~ read online story about bees

~ comprehension and sequencing questions about story

~ blending phonics focused on tw/tr words

~ completed quiz on the week's unit

Math - has daily lesson, worksheet & quiz (Math is used as a supplemental review to her Math Mammoth lessons)

~ More or Less

~ Cardinal or Ordinal Numbers

~ Different ways of writing numbers

Social Studies

had her complete lessons on Geographic tools (maps, globes, atlases) as a supplement.

I am still really happy with what the girls are learning so far and how it has freed us up to really concentrate on the more 'fun' content areas of our day. One of my concerns about the program, based on some other reviews was that T4L would hit topics and then move on. But, I'm finding plenty of review when I use the quizzes and printable worksheets. Some of the reviews out there are older and before they re-worked much of the material.

Mary is spending about an hour total on T4L doing her language arts. That will probably become greater when writing activities are added. Katie is spending about 1 1/2 hours online (not all together) since she also does one math lesson per day as a supplement to her book math.

This week we added our other subjects back in for full days. Without all the other 'paper' language art lessons which were replaced by T4L, I found that the girls actually enjoy Writing With Ease. Which, to me, is a great supplement to T4L. We also completed one lesson each in Primary/Intermediate Language Lessons (respectively). Katie read aloud The Army of Two by Polly Curren as a companion to our study of The War of 1812. Mary read aloud "The Dog of Flanders" from her Elson Reader.

In Math, Katie completed lessons on adding and subtracting by 10s. Mary is breezing through her review on multiplication in Teaching Textbooks.

For history we read about Napoleon and The War of 1812. The girls completed the map work and we listened to "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "The 1812 Overture" online. Mary also completed Chapter 6 in "The Story of the USA" Vol 2, on The War of 1812.

In science we finally completed our solar systems.

Still need the girls to complete their notebook pages on Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Then we can mark off science for the year.

Outside of school we've had soccer, softball, and more soccer this week.

Mary's team is going to a tournament this weekend, so we've had mandatory practices to get her team ready. There has been a lot of dropping off one at practices and going to pick up the other one, and vice-versa.

Katie also had her final drama class for the year on Tuesday where they presented their play "The Big Orange Splot."

So, here it is 2:00 Thursday afternoon and I think we are done for the week. Now, I need to finish the laundry and start getting everyone packed up. Hoping for a couple of hours of downtime on the beach this weekend between games. I think we have all earned it.

Peace,

Amy