Geography/Literature: This week was fun as we left Russia and sailed the Baltic Sea on over to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (that is the full name which includes England, Whales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). We stamped the passports and colored the map and flag of the UK. Knights and castles pretend play was a lot of fun for the boys with a cardboard sword, shield, and helmet we made. I'm glad that the swords broke quickly, since I don't like fighting even for play. St. George and the dragon made a big impression on them as they joined forces to fight the big (green tree) dragon. Discussions on dragons lead to a side study of dinosaurs, dragons, and what scriptures say compared to what scientists say. We'll go into it more next week with some dinosaur books from the library. We read two Magic Tree House stories, one about knights and castles and one about Shakespeare. We love these books, even the 2 year old begs to hear them again and again. We also read about sheep, since there are lots of sheep in the UK. The stories Smudge The Little Lost Lamb and Ten Sleepy Sheep were the most read of all the story books this week, since they are so sweet.
Language Arts: We did lessons 21-25. The theme was 'long e', 'long i', and 'long u'. This was all review, but it was still a lot after having a week each for 'long a' and 'long o'. The reader was Beep, a very funny story about a sheep that beeps and bothers everyone until its beep saves the day. Many new sight words were introduced; put, that, this, and with, on top of reviewing previous sight words; all and said. It was definitely a harder reader compared to the ones before, but the humor of the story and pictures keeps it fun and encouraging. Handwriting is improving greatly, and most letters are perfected! (Thank God). The ten weekly spelling words are becoming normal now. This week I put them on the wall so he could see them often throughout the week. We reviewed 'apostrophe s' to show how something belongs to someone. We reviewed adding the suffixes 'ed' and 'ing' to long and short vowel words ending in vowels and consonants, and then introduced the suffix 'ly', which is easier because it doesn't start with a vowel, so no changes to think about (like dropping the 'silent e' or doubling the last consonant for 'ed' and 'ing').
Math: This week we started Light Unit 102, which introduced subtraction. We did lessons 21-25. We learned about subtraction and understanding subtraction story problems, counting by 5's, identifying a triangle, understanding expanded numbers (like 10+10+2=22), and counting coins with the greatest value first with dimes. Each lesson ends with a speed drill, and he loves these and wants to do them right away! He can answer all 15 math facts in one minute now, and got them all correct one day, and one wrong on the other four days (2+3=5 is now called 'the hard one'). He's so funny, he does all the +0 ones first and then goes back to do the +1 and +2 ones. Subtraction required much more thinking than last week's adding zero, which was a no brainer. We had to keep it very visual with legos and fingers, since it seems that subtraction is much more abstract to him than addition. I am curious to see how this progresses over the next month. If it gets too hard, we will spread lessons out over two days, since CLE is advanced and the end of 1st grade math is equivalent to 2nd grade math, plus he's only 5 and is starting 1st grade 6 months early. We'll see how subtraction goes next week.
We love homeschool! I'm looking into adding in some more science experiments and spanish soon! Thank you everyone for your love and support!
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