Weekly Report Week 19

As I logged onto the computer to type out our first Weekly Report of the new semester I realized I never did a report on weeks 17 and 18. Oops! I'm not even going to attempt to remember what we did a month ago and am just going to plow ahead. Here we go...

Math: I usually type this first since it's the first thing we do each day. In an attempt to speed up my little man, I have started a "Math Challenge" with Thatcher. Each day we set a timer and I've told him that every day he completes the lesson in less than 30 minutes he gets to stay up 30 minutes later at bedtime to either read or have me come play a board game with him. Two days this week he accomplished the goal and we played games together. It was so fun! Playing games is something we *rarely* do with an 19 month old around so I am hoping he wins more math challenges this week. One thing I need to do better at is helping Thatcher learn to count by 6's, 7's and 8's. He can count by 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 9's and 10's all the way to 100. I've just stalled out on teaching these last three. Other than that all is the same: Horizons 2 and just plugging along.

Reading: This week Thatcher started reading Storytime with the Millers aloud to me. I read Wisdom and the Millers to him earlier this year and he fell in love with the characters, so it's been great to revisit them. Many a great conversation has been started after reading one of the Miller stories! The covers are most definitely outdated but don't let that scare you away from these wonderful stories if you've not ever heard of them. I haven't made it back to the library so we were a little slim on our other readings this week. Next year I hope to make the library a twice a month trip of all of us but right now I go alone to choose books. It's too difficult with Beckett still being so young and into everything!

Phonics: We finished Book 7 in Explode the Code and will start Book 8 next week! Thatcher is so excited to be almost done with phonics and can't wait to start Spelling Workout in just a few weeks! I am sold on ETC and definitely plan on using this series again with Haddon although I am not yet sure of his learning style. Therefore, I reserve the right to change my mind. Lol! There are tons of great programs out there so I won't be at a loss if I need to shop around.

History and Science: SOTW...what can I say. I love it! I rarely do any projects or extra activities but it's working. Next year I hope to do so much more in this area. Right now on Monday we read the selection, do a narration and look up any additional information in one of our reference books. (For what it's worth...my favorite reference has been the Usborne Book of World History. I thought I would like Kingfisher History Encyclopedia or Usborne's Encyclopedia of World History. We own all three but find ourselves looking at the former 10x more than the latter.) On Tuesday we review that lesson, do the coloring page and the mapwork.

Life Science is going beautifully. Thatcher loves the Animal Profile pages that Jessica at Trivium Academy created and he's looking forward to starting our study of the human body in a few weeks. One of the nice things about living in the fourth largest city in the country is that we have amazing resources available to us. The Houston Health Museum is 40 minutes from my home and a treasure to be sure. My in-laws bought the boys passes for Christmas and we had a ball on our first trip two weeks ago. It will be a perfect supplement to our new study about to start. The picture shows the room in the museum that focuses on the Central Nervous system, the brain and the spinal cord. Pretty neat, huh?

That's about all for this Weekly Report. I'll take more photos of Thatcher's actual work this coming week and maybe a photo or two of my cutie pies!