Wrap Up Feb 28 - Mar 4

This week we worked on science and science projects everyday. We finished up N. America by learning about the Florida Everglades. The children also did a science experiment with their Dad; they learned about electric circuits, different strengths of batteries, and how if you keep adding more batteries the stronger the circuit is.  Next week they are making an electric circuit with a can of cola, a penny and two pieces of tinfoil. I can't wait to watch it sounds so exciting!

We are now learning about Africa which is exciting for the kids to learn about about all the great animals there; elephants, giraffes, and lions. The Namibia desert is in South Western Africa animals that live there are very specialized to be able to survive the heat. We learned about this fascinating insect called the Fog Basking Beetle. Here is a video about this little bug.




LittleE finished her letter to Auntie Yvonne she finished it in two sittings. She dictated to me the contents then copied it out in her own printing. It's darling and we are e-mailing a copy of it to our Distributed Learning mentor. LittleE has much neater printing then I had at her age. She also loves to write notes and little letters so maybe she will become an author like her great great aunt Olive or like her grandpa Jim. Olive wrote some charming children's books.

LittleE's drawing she sent a long with her letter to Auntie Yvonne.

 BigH has a new pen pal a 8 year old boy from N. Carolina.  He's very excited about it and has included a hockey card picture of himself in the letter. He also sent away for some ants for his ant farm which he got for Christmas.

In language lessons we've been going over our memory verses and learning more about common nouns and proper nouns for family. And working on common nouns of household items such as chair, curtain, china cabinet, table, etc.


We started to work on HOP 1 this week. we are working on Ch words: Chad, chap, chat, chin, chill, chip, chick, chop, chug, chum, Chuck, chess, and check. We also worked on Th words: thin, thick, and thud. We are still reviewing the sight words from HOP K and the initial consonant sounds from HOP 1Both BigH and LittleE worked on these this week.


BigH has moved on to Math U See lesson 11 he is learning about rounding numbers to the nearest 100 and is adding/caring over three digit numbers. Slowly he got the hang of rounding numbers to the nearest hundred I think in a few days he will master it. LittleE is still working on lesson 9 but next week should be able to move on to 10.


 This week we did an artist study using Garden Of Praise art appreciation section. We learned about the American folk painter Grandma Moses she did not start painting until she was 70 years old and her paintings where selling between $8000-$10,000 by the time she was 80 yrs old; she lived to be 101 yrs. We studied several of her paintings. The children had fun pointing out all the different animals and details in the pictures. We talked about what season was depicted, what was the picture of, landscape, architecture or indoor pictures and what the people were doing in the pictures. At the end of each lesson there is an activity to choose from. Both kids decided to do the online puzzle of "A Beautiful World" they loved this activities and asked for Garden Of Praises to be saved to their favorites.

Beautiful World by Grandma Moses



“That work which is of most importance to society is the
bringing-up and instruction of the children”  ~ Charlotte Mason
 



Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up

Wrap Up Feb 14-18th

What a week Valentines Day was not all we were hoping it would be, BigH was sick and had a fever thankfully it broke Thursday. I'm also very thankful nobody else seemed to catch whatever it was he had. Poor guy! We did do some school work this week despite it all.

BigH worked continued on doing Lesson 9 in his MUS beta program and he helped LittleE with her math flash cards this week. LittleE also tried doing some the drills on the MUS website

LittleE has completed the HOP K program. Shout out to Miss LittleE! BigH has been showing some frustration with ETC online, it does sometimes seem a bit glitchy. I'm not sure if it's their computer or ours. So for awhile he's going to join LittleE and doing HOP 1. LittleE is helping BigH to learn the sight words from HOP K it's very cute when they can take turns teaching each other. Here is a list of sight words they are working on.

Sight words HOP level K
"no, now, see, he, game, where, with, you, this, need,want, play, me, what, is, be, are, and, has, says, do, look, to, too, we, the, of, like, on, for, my"

For HOP Level 1
They are learning initial consonant blends such as: ch, th, sh, wh, sm, sn, sp, sl, sc, sk, sw, st. They won't be moving along in level 1 until they have mastered level k sight words and the initial consonant blends. So we are working diligently on them. We go over twice a day 3 x in a row. I lead in reading them so they are not guessing by the end of next week I'll start to see what they've retained. Especially BigH because he's not been working on these particular sight words although he seemed to know a few of them. LittleE is having problems remember the words: want, what, play, game. We are also having some read aloud time with the level k HOP books. I'm trying to boost BigH confidence in his reading.

Language Lessons are going well we have finished lesson 24 to date. Lesson 24 was a picture narration of an oil painting called the, "The Family" by Mary Cassatt.

We talked about what the picture was, an oil painting and who was in the picture. Was the baby a boy or a girl. LittleE said it was a girl. Then we looked up the picture online so we could see it in colour. The picture in the book was black and white. Both children seem to appreciate doing picture narration work. It is a fun way to bring out their langauge development.

 The children have also been working on writing their full names, and have been doing some copy work from the Bible Psalms 91:1 and completed their Valentines cards this week. We decided to hold out giving them out because BigH was sick. We have started reading Usborne Greek Myths we've read two stories so far, "The Gift Of Fire" and "Pandora's Box." This is not satisfying their story time needs however and BigH made me read to chapters of "George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol's Orpahns."

BigH has shown an interest in stamps and would like to start collecting them. I told him about pen pals and he's decided he'd like to write to one. The children still have to respond to a letters they received from their Great Aunt Yvonne a few weeks back.

The kids have a hockey game in Clearwater BC this Saturday it's very exciting. After this they have one more game and that will be the last game of the year. 

Friday we are going into town to do somthing fun. I'm not sure what we are doing yet but I'll think of a few things and let the kids decide.

The greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.     ~Christopher Morley, To a Child

Picture Study

More and more I'm being influenced by Charlotte Mason's method of home schooling. I've decided to incorporate several of her ideas into our day. Today we did a picture study of the, "Arena Chapel" by Giotto di Bondone. We read about the painting in "Master Pieces Up Close" by Claire d'Harcourt; then the kidlets drew what they remembered from the picture. It's a set of four pictures from the south wall of the chapel. I suggested they could study a portion of it to draw. After drawing they compared their picture to the original and I praised them for the detail they remembered.
BigH drew his picture from this image it’s interesting to see what they find eye catching. Here is his rendition of the picture. I find it interesting how he remembered the tiny bit of blue underneath the thatch of the roof.

LittleE drew from this image on the south wall. She remembered that Mary's robe had bits of blue showing through. We had chatted about that and if that was what the artist had painted originally or if had been from paint peeling off the picture because of age.

LittleE's drawing

“We cannot measure the influence that one artist or another has on the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sight of life..."~ Charlotte Mason