Weekly Report: Week 10

We had another insanely busy week. There's always the classes: Computer Clubhouse for two hours each Monday for Mika and taekwondo 5 or 6 days a week for one or two hours for Sam. This week also had MOPS (all of Tuesday morning), a homeschool get together (couple of hours on Wedneday morning), and an appointment on Thursday morning.

We also changed our routine on Thursday which seems to be a good change so far. I'll post more about it after we get through next week.

Here's what we did accomplished:

Mika:

Language Arts: Mika got 50 out of 51 vocabulary words correct. Her words had long i and long o words. Some of her words were frightened, lighting, supposed, and gopher. She attempted to analyze four sentences, three of which gave her a little trouble in certain areas. They are quite difficult; I have to look up the answers usually...so I'm happy with her attempt with discussion after. Mika also began vocabulary for this year finally. I'm having her start with reviewing what we covered last year in Caesar's English I. Mika also began reading through this year's poetry book, Building Poems. Mika's writing assignment this week was a paragraph on Cephalopods. She didn't like the writing but enjoyed looking up images of them. Here's her final paragraph after a bit of editing:

Cephalopods are a group of mollusk that includes cuttlefish, nautilus, octopus, and squid. Octopuses have eight tentacles, squid and cuttlefish have ten, and nautiluses have 80-90. They live in all the world's oceans. What looks like the head is, interestingly, the foot! The name “cephalopod” means “head-foot”. The foot of a squid is somewhat like a funnel. They use the funnel to push water out of their body, which lets them get around quickly. Their bodies are made up of strange digestive devices that actually pass through their brains! Cephalopods are full of surprises.

Math: Mika's math lesson covered dividing fractions. I grade weekly; it is apparent that she did not understand the lesson, at all, though she didn't tell me that she was confused. She also apparently forgot how to multiply fractions (a lesson she did fine on) and how to divide (last year's math). We'll be repeating this week's math in the coming week.

She did fine on the Venn perplexors for the week. We also did three more problem solving problems. Two of them were addition patterns which Mika was able to do after I got them started.

Life Skills: We didn't get to cooking this week.

Health and Fitness: Mika began using the Wii for PE this week. She uses Dance Dance Revolution, Sports, and Fit.

Technology: Mika's computer class worked on creating a video in class. She ended up writing the script for the group.


Sam:

Language Arts: Sam got all 19 of his spelling words correct this week. They were /u/ words, and included anything from the really easy fun to the more difficult word hundred. We put his handwriting workbook aside for the time being and switched to learning individual letters. He learned Aa, Bb, Cc, and Dd this week. He has been reading through Sentence Island pretty quickly and learning about subject, predicate, indirect and direct objects, and subject complements. We also began his vocabulary by reading through most of the introductory section of Building Language and his poetry by reading through the beginning of Music of the Hemispheres. Sam's writing assignment was another paragraph practicing keyword outlines and the who/which clause. He wrote a paragraph on the desert tarantula. Here's his paragraph:

The largest spider in the world is the tarantula. They aren't dangerous to humans. Most of their lives, they live in underground burrows. At night, they wait for insects and other small animals to wander too close, which gives them food. They are seen mostly during mating season when they leave their burrows and go to the burrows of adult females. Males usually live to be 10-11 years old and die after mating. Females live for 25 years old more. Females can mate and lay eggs several times during their lives.

Math: Sam completed lessons 8 through 10 and a unit test this week. The lessons include converting in the metric system, a basic understanding of metric to english conversions, exponents, expanded and exponential notation, and multiplying decimals.

Sam did ok on the venn perplexors but got one of them wrong. We worked on three problem solving problems. Two of them were of the addition pattern variety that we've been doing; he was able to do those once I got them started. The last one was a new kind, area. It was pretty hard, but Sam picked up ok.

Health and Fitness: Sam has begun increasing the number of hours he does taekwondo each week. This week, he added a second class two days and went to sparring class on Saturday, for a total of nine hours.

Life Skills: We totally skipped out on cooking lessons this week.


Both:

Language Arts: We didn't get far in our reading/literature studies this week. I did, however, have the kids read Saint George and the Dragon which we will discuss this coming week.

History: We covered our twelveth chapter of Story of the World Volume 2 this week. It covered the spread of the Islamic Empire during the 8th century. They read about the Visigoths, how they quarreled among themselves and asked Tariq Bin Ziyad for help. Then they learned how they become known as the Moors and some fo the new crops they grew. They completed a map page to go with the lesson as well. This week, I made the work a bit more difficult by having them write their answers to the review questions in complete sentences (Mika wrote, Sam dictated to me).

Science: We finished the second chapter of our science text. They read about bird sounds (calls, songs, drumming) and covered the history of bird banding. They learned how John James Audubon and King Henry IV were involved in banding. Again, I made this week a bit harder by requiring written work. They had to define habitat, syrinx, call, song, and drumming. They also had to answer three questions in complete sentences. I also gave them a worksheet I created where they defined bird banding and matched various people with what they did.

Social Studies: We didn't get to this.

Fine Arts: We didn't do our drawing this week.