Saturday, February 9, 2008

Weekly Report - Weeks 21&22



Bible
- For our Bible curriculum we do a mix of several things. Thatcher is involved in AWANA at a local church near us. It's his third year to participate and he loves it! If you are unfamiliar with AWANA, it's a fabulous program. The kids wear vests like in scouts and they earn jewels in a crown for memorizing verses and reciting them to a leader each week. They also earn AWANA bucks for different things that they can spend in the AWANA store a few times a year as well. There's so much more but that's the jist!

As a family we've slowly been working through Leading Little Ones to God for our morning family worship time. It's hard to do something as a family with kids of all different ages. LLOTG is way above Haddon's head but right on for Thatcher. Still Haddon is learning the value of sitting and listening as Daddy teaches. Then we sing a song and pray before we conclude. That's Haddon and Beckett's favorite part! Lol.

We also are always reading our way through one story Bible or another. Earlier this year it was The Jesus Storybook Bible and now it's....

Breakfast Reading - The Big Picture Story Bible. This Bible is similar to the Jesus Storybook Bible but is geared for preschoolers. All the boys are enjoying it though. We try to read at breakfast and lunch because they are a captive audience! :)

Lunch Reading - This week our Aesop's fable was "A Bundle of Sticks" and the moral was "In unity is strength". It was a perfect story for my boys who sometimes (okay, often) fight more than they should!

I also am still reading different Mother Goose stories to the boys at lunch. Beckett loves the cadence of these readings. As soon as I open a book he starts bobbing his head in anticipation of the rhythmic reading to come. It is so stinkin' cute!

Still More Reading :) - As soon as the little men go to sleep, Thatcher and I curl up on the couch for some reading time with just the two of us! This past week he read Hour of the Olympics to me and I read The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus to him.

Math - Horizons and math copywork are still going well! I still haven't managed to get in any of the great supplemental things we have but for now, that's okay.

History - Here are two of Thatcher's History Scribe Narration pages from SOTW. I just love his illustrations. He's come so far! At the start of this year he was only drawing a face with eyes, a nose and a mouth to represent a person. His coloring too! I should show you coloring he did this August for comparison. My little boy is growing up. Sigh.

Science - This week concluded our study of animals. We celebrated by going to the Houston Zoo to see each animal we studied, plus lots of others. The celebration only lasted 2 hours before we were scrambling to find a restroom where Thatcher could lose his lunch. Poor baby!

Spanish - In this unit Thatcher is learning the days of the week, the months of the year and counting. Also, Thatcher just got his first letter from his Spanish penpal, Grace. Tammy over at Evergreen Eclectic Academy agreed to let her beautiful daughter correspond with my little man. And she didn't even give up on me when we forgot to write our first letter! I'll take a picture of Thatcher's first letter for next week's report.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week next week!

9 comments:

Tina in WA said...

What a wonderful 2 week report. Your boys are so cute! I agree, his drawing is adorable & created some great notebooking pages.

Blessings~Tina

Alane @RaH said...

Reading at lunch and breakfast is a great use of time! We've gotten out of the habit of using that time, but it is something that I want to get back into next week. Great drawings!

Tonia said...

Looks like a busy week. My dh also takes care of our devotional time - it's great having the dads involved, isn't it?

Hen Jen said...

what a great report! I enjoyed the slideshow. I've been trying to remind myself to get out the mother goose for my two little ones, I remember reading those over and over when I was young- thanks for the reminder.

so, where do you get your narration paper? do you print it? I buy journal books from Lakeshore learning and rip them out to use, but it is kind of costly.

Andrea said...

We loved The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus and M. Pope Osbourne is always fun! Looks like you got a lot done this week. It's nice to see them grow up and learn on one hand. BUt on the other, it does makes us *sigh*.....
Andrea

Jennefer said...

Jenny,

Hi! The narration pages I use are from History Scribe. For SOTW 1 I have used the Ancient Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and Ancient China pack.

Here is a link to their site:

http://www.historyscribe.com/

Hope that helps you. They have tons of great products for other disciplines, too!

Jennefer

Andrea said...

I'm planning on starting J( to be in 2nd grade) and R (K) in Spanish next year. Why did you choose United Streaming? Do you have a link? Thanks!
Andrea

Jennefer said...

Andrea,

I chose Discovery Streaming (They've changed the name.) for a few reasons. First, I was about to spend $200 for a one year video based Spanish program. We got Streaming for $129 through the Homeschool Buyer Co-op. We get all our Spanish plus *so* much more for $70 less than I was going to spend just for Spanish.

The reason I wanted a video based curriculum is b/c, like you, I have little ones and I needed to "outsource" something. I just can't teach it all right now. Streaming was a perfect answer and Thatcher is really enjoying it. He likes his teacher, Sra. Cano, and talks about her as if she was sitting right in front of him teaching!

Here is the link to Discovery Streaming. They used to offer a 30 day free trial. They most likely still do, although I didn't see it on their home page.

http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm

Good luck and I hope that helps!
Jennefer

my5wolfcubs said...

I love reading about your weeks! I know when you're actually *in* them it can seem overwhelming...but as an outside reader and having homeschooled awhile, I think you're doing great. All that reading is wonderful.

Lee