Weekly Update: 9/13-9/19

This was a pretty mellow week because we had extra family together time. :)

Phonics: Haridas finished Unit 1, which was lessons 1-45! We flew threw this unit quickly because the reading part was all review. The handwriting, spelling, and careful listening skills were new for him, though. The unit ended with a three page test of eight questions to find the answer to on each page. I would say "fill in the circle with the ending sound in 'sat' and other sounds and words. He got them all right! I'm glad that he's getting easy testing practice because our state requires standardized testing in 3rd grade. I'm looking forward to the next unit, which will have new concepts like the sight words for the colors.

The Unit Test:




Coloring in 'is', 'in', and 'on' to make a flower picture:



When I was laying down and resting for some quiet time with the teething baby who has been waking up a lot at night lately, Haridas got some paper, folded it in half, and stapled together a little book. (We've been doing this together with McRuffy's creative writing suggestions.) I was surprised to see that he had drawn a picture and attempted to write the sentence "A ragged tooth shark is dangerous." What really surprised me is that I haven't taught him 'oo' or 'th', so he must have learned to write the word 'tooth' from me reading to him or starfall. I'm happy that he's trying to write sentences, that's exciting, even if misspelled. He also wrote "The End" in lower case letters, which he has been so resistant to in handwriting practice. Our first month of McRuffy is starting to show some results! Kids are full of wonderful surprises!



Math: We finished lessons 25-30, which ended in a new game, the Number Trail, which is like bingo with a game board. You roll the dice to land on a number in a shape, which you mark on your game card. This week focused a lot on left and right, greater than and less than, and some fun shapes to make with pattern blocks. Some beginning addition and subtraction was introduced with the greater than less than concept by placing the counter bear on the number line, and then making it jump to 3 more than and less than, etc.

He cut up different length strips of paper and then glued them in order from shortest to tallest, left to right:



Geography: We just did connect the dots Hawaii and read lots of Hawaiiana library books. Our favorites this week were Discover Hawaii's Birth By Fire Volcanoes and The Volcano Is A Girl. The Volcano Is A Girl brought about some interesting conversations about science and religion and mythology as well as personification. We came to the conclusion that Pele, the goddess of fire and the Hawaiian volcanoes, is the personification of what scientists call the 'hot spots' that cause our volcanoes.




Science: One of the wild hens that roams in our yard now has twelve baby chicks! We checked out a few library books about chickens and spend much of our outside time watching them. Many interesting conversations have come about while watching our cute little friends. We discussed how babies need help from their mom, babies need to eat often, and mothers are very protective of their babies. We also tied into our Hawaiian study by acknowledging that the Polynesians brought the chickens here on their long journeys across the Pacific ocean. We talked a lot about why we are vegetarians and why we don't eat animals, and how we are glad we don't support factory farming or the suffering of other living beings. We prayed for the safety of this sweet little family of fluffy chickens and hope they are blessed with a peaceful life. (Some of our neighbors have killed the wild chickens just for 'fun' or because they don't like the rooster's crowing.)

Mama Hen and her dozen baby chicks:


P.E.: Haridas is playing his second soccer game this week! Socialization with strangers is a whole new thing for him that I hope gets less and less strange as the season goes on.


Baby brother trying out a new hat I made for another homeschooling mom's 2 year old. Homeschooling with a 2 year old isn't easy, but babyhood is just so cute and precious, I am cherishing every second of it!