Our Week in Review - June 4 - 11, 2011

It got very hot here in Ohio this past week.  Not a good week for schooling, fortunately we had a few air conditioned areas to escape to.  We started the week out painting the desk boxes we made at Home Depot last Saturday.  It was already getting warm that day.

We started our Story of the World Curriculum this week.  We are starting at Volume 1.  History and Science will be a combined class.  If you are familiar with the first chapter, it is about what the definition of history is.  Here they are completing the family tree project.

Our completed tree.

Our other combined class is Science.  We started the Mountain Habitat series of Hands of a Child.  It's fun.  In the next couple weeks we will be building a volcano.



 Lydia is working hard at using her first sewing machine. We are still working on sewing paper guides to learn control of the material.

The boys have been doing assignments from these books.  I have a small comb binding machine, and so it makes it easier for them to use.  These are actually great review books for them.  After we finish this one, we will be getting 3-4.  Since both boys are a little behind in almost all subject, it works well for them and their short attention spans.

 We finished the Barnes and Noble Summer Reading program already.....yeah it was quick.  But only 10 books needed ready.  We went to get their free books and I found this great I-Spy workbook with tear out pages.  Brayden really likes these books, so a great workbox addition for him.

 They are still chugging away at Teaching Textbooks, and yes we are still HUGE fans of this curriculum.  We really like MathUSee for Lydia and she likes it too.

The girls were chugging along on Letter A this week.  Review for Lydia, but a little new for Caty.

We did the Alligator and Monkey swinging in the Tree song...

5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree

Teasing Mr. Alligator You can't catch me....You can't catch me.

Along Swims Mr. Aligator as quiet as can be and

SNAP.......

Now there's 4 Little Monkeys swinging in a Tree....and so on.

Got the printable from the Caps for Sale Lapbook unit at Homeschool Share.  We changed Crocodile to Aligator to work with our letter A this week.

This is part of Erica's K-4 Letter of the Week curriculum.  I printed pictures to match our Letter A book we read and then we put the items in our own Letter A box (their workbox drawers) as Little A put them in his box in the book.

I cut out and laminated Upper and Lower Case As for the girls to lace.  This was more for Caty.  She enjoyed helping to make them.

We also used this from Erica's Letter of the week Curriculum, but in a different way.  We did cut and paste sheets, but I printed extra and then we sang the Apple Song.

Way up high in the apple tree

Six red apples smiled at me.

I shook that tree as hard as I could,  (pretend to shake the tree)

Down came an apple

Mmmm, Mmmmm Good. (and then start over)

We talked about Jesus life as a teenager and about his baptism. 

We also did a lot of reading.  The kids signed up for Library Summer Reading program.  They have all read or been read to for 2.5 hours this week.  Its a little low for them, but things got a little nuts toward the end of the week.  Joey and Brayden had day camp on Friday and Saturday.  They also had cycling and learned how to play Bocce ball.

This is them with their cycling, soccer and now bocce coach.  Randy is an all around, lots of sports guy!!  He is the backbone of our county's Special Olympics program.

Joey almost won that game!!  He really enjoyed the Bocce ball.
We will keep chucking along next week on the same things.  We are also practicing a small 3 Little Pigs play that we will be doing for Grandpa and Grandma.  The kids have requested to do little plays and this was the easiest to tackle with them first.  Can't wait.  We will be painting props next week.  I also purchased a couple cookbooks to incorporate items into their workboxes for cooking.  The new Paula Deen Kids cookbook and The Everything Guide to Cooking for Children with Autism (It's a gluten/casen-free book that I will be able to eat the food made.)