Weekly Wrap-up

I love this idea that I just found from Rose Cottage. It's called the Weekly Wrap-up. I think I'd like to try to do this each week as a way to look back and see what we've been up to. We never get entirely through my lesson plans each week (but hey, what teacher does?). I really do that on purpose. We have wonderful, blessed days where one subject may take us through the entire day...or it may just take a few minutes. Isn't that what learning is all about? I take the lead from the kids and we sometimes end up a little behind (on paper) but miles ahead in reality.

So this week was very good week for our nature study and art/handiworks. We had a few days of beautiful Fall weather and we took full advantage of this. Two days at the park and two nature studies in one week! Wow! Like I mentioned in previous posts, the nature studies have really become a way of life in our homeschool and the kids even think of their own topics to discover/explore. Monday's nature study was helping to find the different aspects of nature at the park versus our house. This led to a wonderful language arts session afterwards which incorporated spelling, copywork, grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure. Wow! I'm no where close to teaching those things in my grammar lesson book. But the questions came up and the opportunity to teach was there. I took it!

Today we did the same thing. Dd7 has Strep throat so we've been keeping a low profile for a couple of days. While Ds5 was in KinderTots today I took the girls to the park nearby and thankfully no one else was there. We decided to walk around looking at the different types and colors of the leaves. We collected a few and brought them home to draw and write about them. The same result happened...we had a wonderful language arts lesson and she didn't even know it. And the artwork is simply beautiful.

We also worked on our handiworks this week. The kids have been making clay structures off and on recently. They have a lot of items dried and today we decided to paint them. Even Dd2 got in on the painting. We gave them to Daddy since today is his birthday. Ds5 helped me cook breakfast this morning (I let the kids help me cook at least a couple of times a week...they love it and I love the extra opportunity to teach!). He even let Dd2 help stir the chocolate chip pancakes (a family favorite that we end up eating at least once a week!).

Dd7 has been working hard on her piano lessons as well. I try to remember to have her practice each day but I must admit that it rarely gets done on the weekends. I just never seem to remember unless we're doing school. But she still gets her 5 practices a week in. She's very good and almost done with her first set of books. She's far surpassed me already and I'm no good when she has questions. But she can usually figure it out on her own.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a sick week for us and I was afraid that that meant no school. Quite the contrary! We took all day Tues and Wed. reading books in bed. I got most of our AO reading for the week done on Tues. and on Wed. I let her pick what she wanted to read. Her first choice? Shakespeare! She's too much like her Mamma! We both love Shakespeare. Except that I never started learning the works until the 8th grade! Obviously, we read the story versions, but still they are very difficult and confusing. She just loves a challenge though. We began Viking Tales this week and it's already a hit for us. I hope that continues.

Ds5 is doing great on his letters and letter sounds. We're farther than I thought we'd be by this time of the year. I figure he'll be putting words together very soon. He's already doing C-A-T and other three letter words. But I don't push him. He asks me and I tell him. I'm a firm believer that they will read when they are ready and pushing them too early is the wrong approach. But I know that each child will be ready at different times. Dd7 is an excellent reader. She reads American Girl and Little House on the Praire books with no problem. Yet she didn't start reading until the first grade. Ds5 is in K-4 technically (although I'm doing K with him this year) and he's close to starting to read. I love seeing how each child is different. That's one of the joys of homeschooling!

Well, it's been a busy, full, fun week where we've learned a lot more than I expected. The sickness didn't keep us down. It just kept us from doing math (my daughter's best...but LEAST favorite subject). But we're way ahead in math anyway so I gave her a break this week. Next week though...is a different story. Until then...God bless!