Expressions from our Youngest

Expressions from our Youngest
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Friday, May 6, 2011

My Homeschool Week

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

It's time for The Homeschool Mother's Journal. Just click on the name to go to this great meme.

In my Life this Week:  We had a productive week and got to visit grandma on Mother's Day weekend.  My daughter wanted to spend her own money to get grandma a gift.  She is so sweet as she wouldn't accept my help.  My pre-schooler wanted to sit in our car with me and pretend to drive.  This is when I found some coins and started teaching him the value of money.  He would pretend to drive to the ice cream store to buy us ice cream as I told him how much it would cost.  Then I would help him count the appropriate coins out to pay for our pretend ice cream.  What fun it was - seeing him pretend to be a grown up and learning at the same time!

In Our Homeschool Week:

Religion: 1) Read Sessions 21-25 in Finding God  2) Resurrection Eggs w/ story  3) Reading for Journal Entry:  Mary Anoints Jesus  4) Reading for Journal Entry:  The Entry into Jerusalem

English:  1)  Correct use of nothing and anything w/ diagramming  2) Distinguishing between nouns and adjectives when the same word is applied differently w/ diagramming  3) Correct verb forms w/ diagramming  4) Present tense, past tense, past participle, and future tense w/ diagramming

Vocabulary: 1) Written Test  2) Completed Lesson 6 w/ words dealing w/ agreement and disagreement  3) Another Written Test (will have to continue or oral exams next week)

Writing: 1) Conducted interview and wrote article for co-op newsletter  2) Finished final draft on book report ('A Long Way from Welcome')  3) Pre-schooler wrote two journal sentences

Reading: 1) Seton Readers - St. Vincent Feirer and St. Francis Xavier  2) Pre-schooler - Catholic National Reader and library books.

Math: 1) Adding and subtracting decimal numbers  2) Converting units of length  3) Changing improper fractions to whole or mixed numbers  4) Test  5) Pre-schooler - MCP Math and value of coins

Science: Classroom Lab on Compounds

History: 1) Finished research on General Henry Harrison and General Andrew Jackson  (Did you know Andrew Jackson tried to give Native Americans their own land west of the Mississippi?)  2) Read Lesson 28 on Jacksonians and Whigs (1825-1849)  3) Started Workbook.

Art: 1) Patterns - designed some stationary w/ patterns and studied a pattern in Gustave Caillebotte's painting  2) Two Journal drawings and colorings.

Music: Piano Lessons and practice

Health: Calories

Physical Educ: 1) Ballet 2) Dance and Movement

Places We're Going/People We're Seeing:  Grandma in West Virginia and our co-op families.

My Favorite Thing this Week:  My Dance and Movement Class at our co-op is so nice when I see the little ones perform the works I made for them.  We do works on Creation; Praying; Knowing, Loving, and Serving; and Baptism.  They are so cute when they sing the songs and do the hand motions.  We do these works in between the songs we dance and move to.  It gives them a change of pace (and me and them a breather).

What's Working/Not Working for Us:   Doing journal entries with my pre-schooler is very effective because we are doing Gospel stories too.  It covers Writing, Art, and Religion all at the same time.  Please see my blog at  http://nucleusoflife-ordainedpraise.blogspot.com/  for some examples of my 4 year old's work.  My son has me close my eyes sometimes to make me surprised that he can choos the right letter to build words in a sentence.  It is like a game to him sometimes.  I enjoy seeing the expression on his face when I look surprised.  I often tease him and say, "you don't know which letter that is."  This encourages him even more to build his words with the appropriate letters.

Homeschool Questions/Thoughts I have:  Do your pre-schoolers behave better for you when their not around other little friends?  Sometimes - when we're at co-op - it is harder to get my pre-schooler to cooperate and pay attention because he gets distracted by his little friends.  I am trying to teach him that this is inappropriate during class time.  He seems to focus more when he is at home with only mom.  Does this happen to anyone?

A Link, Photo, or Quote to Share: " Give people a bit of your heart, rather than a piece of your mind."

4 comments:

  1. You do so many interesting things. Can you tell me about the "works" you mentioned in movement/dance with the little ones? And, "Finding God" is this a book?

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  2. I agree that children can be easily distracted around other children...I see this even in my oldest who is 10. We don't belong to a homeschool group, so I have the children to myself most of the time, until the evenings and weekends when the neighborhood children are home. Thank you so much for the kind, encouraging words on my site. I appreciate it very much! I'd like to learn more about the religious curriculum that you use. I'm on the fence right now about what to use in the fall; even contemplating putting a curriculum together myself.
    Have a great Mother's Day!
    Carrie

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  3. Finding God is by Loyola Press (they have a website). The Teachers Manual has black line masters we complete of simple excercises and quizes to help internalize the material. We've started a notebook with them in it. Loyola Press has some very good material. I really like it. I believe they go up through eighth grade. There are also CCC references you can go deeper into the faith with your children. It is Catholic but I do not see why protestants can't learn from many of the lessons in this book if your not Catholic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) was compiled by John Paul II. He was an awesome man - now a Saint.

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  4. The works we do in our dance and movement class can be found on my website www.nucleusoflife.com under the Teachers Aid section.

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