March So Far

 For the Record.. this is a basic run down of what we have done in school the last few weeks.

 Scripture - New Testament Stories. Should finish it next week and the kids want to start Church History Stories next.

Memorization - The kids love to... or perhaps I should say are getting used to going over all our memorization pieces each day after scripture time. We have our two Psalms, 23 and 100, which we have added to our Articles of Faith. We are now up to the 10th A of F. We also added back in some poetry too. We know the Christina Rossetti Poem, Who has Seen the Wind and this week added Emily Dickenson's  I Haven't Seen a Moor.  Both of these are very short so were rather easy to memorize. We also try to review The Living Christ a few times a week since it isn't staying in our memory as it should especially those last few paragraphs. We just didn't have the weeks and weeks of review on those like we did on the earlier paragraphs. So it has returned to our Memorization reviews too. 

 Latin  - This isn't or hasn't been a regular feature of our days yet but we get it in at least twice a week or so. This means we have a few new Latin words added each week. This seems alright for now.

Art - We look the picture of the day from the Metropolitan Museum's Calendar each day. That is about it as far as art study. Some days it just isn't something we are that excited about and some days we talk about the picture for awhile.

Math - Boys are plugging away at Singapore Math. Sophie is enjoying Life of Fred Fractions. Everyone seems to be doing fine and doesn't fight it too much.





Language Arts - Sophie is doing really well with Writing with Ease. She loves that the quotes used in the program are almost always from books she has already read. It makes me feel good to know we have read so many great books. We usually do two weeks worth of lessons each week. She is doing level 2 quickly to sort of "catch up".  I can tell she is getting much better about writing narrations. She doesn't like letting me write them for her. She likes to do it herself.  She also isn't having to much trouble or help from me writing a report on the American Girl Kanani book.

The boys are still working through Explode the Code. Ian is ready to move into more advanced things so will be doing Writing with Ease soon. Henry is improving in his reading and has the neatest penmanship of all the kids.

History - Very slowly going through our Time Travelers unit. We are up to WWI finally but just don't seem that excited about it.  There just aren't nearly as many great picture books to make this time period come to life a little more. We have stuck to a lot of biographies. But we are moving along and are revisiting American Girl Kit already. We found her audio book at the library and have already started to listen to her stories again.

Science - One day we will get back to doing something science related. I know they read a lot of science books. That is what they seem to always check out of the library each week. They have books about simple machines, animals, space and energy coming in and out of the library bag each week and I see them read those books so I guess they get science, just nothing formal right now.


Reading - We seem to make it through lots of books. 
Ian is reading The Lighthouse Family. I suggested them as a way to increase his confidence in reading. He reads well but just didn't feel ready to tackle a chapter book yet. Magic Tree House books are next!

Sophie reads anything and everything she can get her hands on. I wouldn't even come close to try to  list all the books she flips through each day.

Read Aloud -
The Tree in the Trail was a very quick enjoyable read. They boys sat cuddled in the chair with me and looked at the pictures and kept wanting to turn back to the map as we read through this one.
Stone Fox was the book picked for their co-op book club.
The 21 Balloons was a great audio book.
Halloween books - Henry knows how to find all the Halloween books at the library and that is what he chooses to fills his bag. So I have read quite a few Halloween books lately. He loved Good night Goon and Furious George.

Music - The boys are learning to play Indiana Jones on the piano. I can tell Ian is starting to learn to read the music. This is good since I haven't tried any formal music lessons with him at all yet. Henry just memorizes where his fingers need to go rather than try to read the music.

That is about it. I can't say it is a complete list but it is what I can remember at the moment.

We are of course still working on chores and other domestic things which are just as important as academics in my book.

Henry is getting very good at being the floor man. He vacuums and sweeps regularly. 

The older two have no problem emptying in the dishwasher but hate having to load the dirty dishes. They say it is gross. We are working on that one.  Beds, room and laundry get cleaned up when I remind them to do it.  Lots of room to improve here!

Until my next "weekly" report......