Week in Review! 8.31.12

We had a pretty hectic week, one of those weeks that makes you grateful for a few extra days in the schedule! Despite the distractions, week 4 down! Monday brought the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaac. Public schools were off but while we were trapped in the house I saw no reason to waste the day. They were a little bummed, but we survived! The girls helped make lunch (biscuit pizza, and  yes we made that up but they loved it!).

Wednesday was the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and I wasn't able to sleep all night so we had a slow day. Ron reminded me about trauma and anniversary dates, how trauma can bury its history in your cells and your body remembers. Made sense, but I was still exhausted and emotionally drained as I grieved for my NOLA friends going through this experience again. Tuesday and Wednesday had work crews at our house fixing a hole in the ceiling, Wed. involved them painting throughout the house.

Little hands and wet paint sounded like a disastrous combination so I packed up the kids and we did school at my sisters. My parents got back Wed night from 3 weeks in Italy and the kids couldn't wait to see them so we did school over there on Thursday. While we got "through" it, we certainly didn't get to everything I had planned. Friday involved taking Grandma to the doctor and a sleepover so school was closed. So glad we did school on Monday!

Bible: 

We are settling into a routine of Bible after a shaky start. E complained about the new intermediate pages for BSGFAA because she missed the coloring page of the beginner pages. It was also quite a challenge at first trying to do beginner and intermediate pages at the same time. I did go ahead and order the beginner pages for E just in case, but not for this unit so we are going to give it some time and decide then if we want to make the switch. Right now we do the beginner review questions with the beginner timeline, then read one section at a time first from the beginner pages and then the intermediate. We only read the whole passage of Scripture when it was mentioned in the beginner pages. It is not ideal, as I would like to read the passage every morning, but doing 2 levels is time consuming, so for now this will have to work. I am liking the depth of the intermediate pages and am leery of switching E back to beginner because of that. One small tip that has really helped has been using my iPad to take a pic of the BSGFAA reading from the beginner pages so I am not having to lean across the table to read every morning. So simple, yet takes major stress off me! E reads hers so that is not an issue. For J, I copied the teacher visuals from the Teachers manual and she colors it. 

We are on our 4th TRUTH 66 verse and about to start our second key passage. I am loving having it all scheduled out! We will begin practicing drills next week.

Math:

Both MM for E and RS for C are going really well. I have slowed E down to 1- 1.5 pgs of MM a day and she is doing well. C is flying through RS doing a lesson a day, and seems to enjoy it. I love how hands on it is and after the initial few days of making me hunt for materials, we ahve settled in to just needing the Right Start that are all on the shelf and I am thrilled. Since C is not ready for much writing at this point, this has been a great choice. 

Language Arts:

E is doing well with All About Spelling, First Language Lessons, and Sonlight Readers. She took a break this week from the readers and read the American Girl McKenna book. I was just thrilled she was interested in a book! She finished it and is now reading The Sword in the Tree which ties into what we are reading for history. E is struggling some with the dictations of Writing with Ease, and I am on the fence of how worth the battle it is. I KNOW you are to just struggle through and not expect them to just get it, but it is frustrating, for me and her. We won't give up yet, but the idea of giving up dictations is on the table. 

Phonics for C has been a challenge. After a frustrating start with OPGTR, a 1 minute attempt at Abeka, we are now happily plugging along with All About Reading Pre level 1. We have been doing a lot of phonemic awareness exercises and working through Super Star Speech, and I am seeing some major improvements. I am so glad I did not insist upon "sticking it out" with a curriculum that wasn't working. I usually try to give things more than a week or 2 but this time I just felt the need to switch and I couldn't be more thrilled! C is doing a few lessons a day right now with AAR, so I know he will finish it in no time and move onto AAR level 1. I looked at AAR so many times but didn't want to spend the money, since I did have two solid phonics curricula on the shelf. Ugh, hate those fool decisions! Next time I will remember to make my decisions without financial considerations. hmmmm not sure Ron will like that philosophy! It is true though, one didn't fit C, and one didn't fit me. It has to fit both to get done, and the best curriculum is the one that gets used! 

Science: Well, sad but true, we didn't get to it this week. :( We will try to make up for it next week! 

History: We completed our 2nd week of Biblioplan (with a SL flavor!) and I am loving it. Another thing I am so grateful for. I love the simplicity of the program, the ability to do as little or as much as you can. This week we listened to SOTW ch 2, did a coloring page of King Arthur, read through some of the BP companion, E started The Sword and the Tree as a reader, and we did The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great as a read aloud. We also reviewed the 7 continents and 5 oceans for geography.We had a project planned, but since Friday didn't happen this week, we shall save it for next week! 

Spanish: I am very excited that we are actually getting to Spanish this year. I am pretty close to being able to post our Spanish lessons plans for our year of basic Spanish Immersion. I love that even on the craziest of days, I can put on the Bilingual songs CD for the vocab we are working on and everyone is thrilled! We are continuing unit 1: Colors, numbers, days of the week, and the body.