Week 11-12 Report

I am late, late, late in posting our weeks 11 and 12. I have had a hard time keeping up with reports now that I am running early in the morning again. My bedtime has moved waaaay up and cut into my blogging time. Lol! As I have thought through my schedule and considered ways to streamline (read - cut things out!) I considered not doing weekly reports. You know what though...I like these reports and here's why: It gives both Thatcher and myself a sense of accomplishment to see our week all neat and tied up with a bow (or a slide show!). It also provides me a time and a place to process what is happening at Smooth Stones Academy. Some weeks we get so busy we are just going through the motions without stopping to reflect. Here I get to reflect and process.

History is going so well and Thatcher loves it! I wish we had more time for projects but it is just not happening this year. I keep reminding myself that he is getting so much more in this area than I ever was able to do as a public school first grade teacher. We did stop and have a little fun one day because Thatcher had been begging me to make him into a "toilet paper mummy". The photo shows our third attempt because the first two times Thatcher lost his balance and fell over ripping all the tp apart!

Science is also going really well. We started off very slowly but are rapidly picking up steam! Do you like Thatcher's frog he drew on his animal profile page? It's from Ed Emberly's Big Green Drawing Book. We got such a kick out of this and Thatcher was very proud of the final product.

We love United Streaming! Just in the past two weeks, in addition to our regular Spanish lessons, we have watched a Magic School Bus video on frogs and two excellent history videos on ancient Egypt. Part of my lesson planning each Sunday night now includes checking US to see what videos might match our lessons that week. We couldn't find much on snails and worms for science this week but reptiles will be more promising I am sure! Also, I have been very pleased with the Spanish program they offer, especially considering I was about to spend $200 on a different program. Instead, we got US and all it has to offer for only $129.

Lastly, because I hardly ever mention my little Haddon I thought I would type out what I am working on with him this year. He turns three next week so have not started anything formal, yet I have many things I want to teach him through play this year. By his age Thatcher already knew all these things and more but Thatch was an only child and his memory is one of his absolute greatest strengths. Haddon is much more interested in bats, balls and climbing than anything academic, although that is changing. Here we go:

• Colors
• Count to 10
• Recognize #'s to 10
  
• Say his ABC's
  
• Recognize all 26 letters
• Know basic shapes: circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle, heart, star

In addition, each day we try to make sure we: read at least 10 books together, work puzzles/shape sorters/stacking toys, read from one of our Mother Goose books, sing songs, and do finger plays. Some days we don't get it all done but we certainly try.

Next week we are going to take off since we have a Halloween Party with our other home school friends on Tuesday, Halloween is on Wednesday (won't get anything done that day if I tried!) and I will spend all day Thursday baking and decorating Haddon's cakes for his party on Friday. For Halloween Thatcher is going to be Peter Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia. Haddon is going to be his younger brother, Edmund Pevensie, and Beckett is going to be Aslan the Lion! All the costumes just arrived today and they are cute! Can't wait to post those pictures and see all the cute ones of your peanuts too! :)