Wrap up for May 2-6th

Copies of dictation work for BigH and LittleE.

Dictation LittleE

Dictation LittleE

Dictation LittleE

Here are some pages from BigH and LittleE's journal this week. Theses sentences were dictated to them. They did very well needing very little help. Occasionally with LittleE I had to point out reversals. I had to remind both of them about periods at the end of sentences. However they needed very little spelling help. Sometimes they did worry about the spelling of a word. I would encourage them to write it and let them know I would correct them if  it was wrong. I also often sounded out words very carefully for them so they could figure out the spelling themselves. All that phonics is paying off. The first three journal entries are from LittleE and the last three are from BigH's journal. The pictures are just whatever they want to draw. 

This week in First Language Lessons we completed lessons 36-38. We completed a narration of, "The Hen and the Golden Egg." We identified nouns in each paragraph in that story, I wrote them down for the children. We also learned that days of the week are proper pronouns. We wrote down the days of the week in English and Spanish and learned that in Spanish the days of the week are not written in capital letters. 

For phonics we have been rereading "Slam & Dunks Big Game," having silent reading time,  reviewing sight words, and initial consonant sounds.

BigH finished up lesson 13 in Math U See Beta and LittleE is really struggling with her Math U See Alpha. She finds the 8 + table very difficult. Because of the 8 having to take two numbers away from the other number she feels like she is doing an extraction problem. Even though we have gone through the 8 + tables many times with her blocks showing for example how 8+4 is the same as 10+2 this whole concept is not clicking. I've made up some flash cards and I think next week I'm going to try to get her to just memorize the facts. I'm a little disappointed because she started out not having any problems at all and now she is feeling deflated and frustrated.

For Sonlight history and science this week we completed week 12. The children in history read about Babylon. They also compared the flood stories of 'Noah' in the Bible and the story of 'Gilgamesh'. They also learned about Abraham's journey from Ur to Canaan.

In science we learned about the natural habitats and animals of Asia. We read about the Himalayans, the Sichuan forest, the Borneo swamps and the Sumatra. They learned about pandas, tarsiers, orangutans and rafflesia flowers (the smell like rotten meat). The also learned how apple juice is made.