Week 5

To Do:

Combined School odd week reading (I am really liking this alternating of weeks -- we have so many good books going, and the read-alouds always seem fresh and interesting)

Math:  MEP Lessons 36-42-ish. We have been managing two lessons a day as a norm;  the work is still simple enough, though some of the concepts are becoming more demanding, that we can move fairly fast at this level. My hope is to finish Y1 this semester and Y2 next semester, but we shall see. Whenever the Greg Tang books come, we'll slot them in for some math read-aloud lessons.

Reading:  R is reading alternately from CHC's Bigger Stories for Little Folks, Paddy the Beaver, and whatever else strikes her fancy. I have scheduled B's readings from The Baldwin Project into his Head of the Class schedule, so that they come up while he's on the computer. Readings are flexible, but my aim is to cover literature, science/nature,  and history/geography in each child's own readings as well as our combined read-alouds. On their own time, they are both also perusing the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History and reading Greek myths.

Writing:  copywork, prose passages pulled from this week's readings. Not sure what yet, but will fill in this blank once I've decided. (see Spanish notes below).

Spanish:  continue to work on days of the week, plus previous weeks' vocabulary. Practice simple conversations. Use Spanish phrases for copywork -- perhaps begin learning the Hail Mary in Spanish, since they hear it so much during the rosary at Holy Hour every week? (ended up listening to vocabulary and phrases on PlazaLingua Spanish app).

Wednesday:  Sick day. Mine. Did Lesson 40 in MEP Y1 & copywork;  listened to The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright and colored and cut American Revolutionary and Ancient Greek paperdolls for a frieze on the wall. 

Thursday:  Still sick. Prayed the Rosary, read Greg Tang books for math,  listened to a chapter of Grammar-land and a big chunk of Black Ships Before Troy as audiobooks. Found a PBS Ancient Greece:  Crucible of Civilization  special on YouTube and watched that together. 

Friday:  not as sick. Printer out of ink. Planning to pray the Rosary (it is the feast, after all!), read our daily Combined School reading, do copywork (a sentence using commas in a list, pulled from our chapter of Home Geography), do lessons 41 and 42 in MEP orally and using small whiteboards. Maybe we'll also do some Spanish, which we've neglected the last two days -- I might just let them play around on PlazaLingua.  

What we actually did:  made a rosary out of bread dough for the feast of the Holy Rosary. Read our Combined School reading. Did copywork. Played math games at the new subscription-access More Starfall   -- at $35 a year (less than $3/month) for more of what we love already, this seemed like a bargain. The math games are really good:  simple, but they actually teach  concepts like place value, rather than just testing them. What the kids really love, though (besides all the reading stuff), are the songs. Starfall has always had uncannily good music resources for a kiddie website, and now they have a whole library of classic children's songs, nicely performed, which B & R listened to and sang along with and then came and sang to me. 

So, not bad for a Friday. R also cleaned her room unbidden.  

More Starfall