Weekly Report 8

I feel like C and D get short-changed in the weekly report sometimes.  We try to include them in everything we read and discuss.  Sometimes they’re right there with us, sometimes they’re not.  They play a lot, and C loves to sit and “read” books.  He’ll thumb through books for hours. 

However, we went to Barnes and Noble this week before grocery shopping so I could look at Kumon workbooks.  I love the Kumon books, but bought the wrong number book (1-120) for C a few months ago.  I’ve been looking for the 1-30 book ever since.  I finally found a store that had it in stock and found out that there are now Kumon First Steps Workbooks as well.  So I bought the cutting one for D.  He’s been bringing me scissors and paper for weeks and saying, “Help me cut, Mommy.”  

But a book with colorful pictures and lines to cut is oh, so much more exciting than blank paper!  I’ve created a monster.  Every day we wakes up and asks for his cutting book.  We’ve done about nine pages already.   He is so proud of his work.  The upper pictures were cut apart and then pasted together to form pictures.  The bottom ones, he just had to snip the gray lines. 

C isn’t nearly as thrilled about actually doing bookwork, but I try to do a couple pages a week with him.  He’s practicing tracing letters and numbers, mixed with dot-to-dots.

And now here’s what A has been doing: 

Math: Singapore Math 1B lessons 50-56

Language: We did First Language Lessons #22 and 24, and A finished Spelling Workout 15 and part of 16.

History: This week was Ancient Africa, chapter 11 in SOTW.  I wanted to do more than we did, but we pretty much just read the first chapter in The Ancient World: Great African Kingdoms and lots of African folk stories and watched four Anansi stories on video.  Frankly, that’s more than I remember ever learning about African history in school anyway.  We also all made shakers by filling paper plates with rice, beans, and pasta, which was also the assignment for C’s Kindermusik class, then we danced to the African music from last summer’s Kindermusik camp cd. 

Reading: We read lots of folk stories together and discussed how stories are passed down orally.  We compared different versions of the same story and also compared some of the African creation stories to the creation in the Bible.  A really liked the Monkey Business book and my favorite was Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain.  I don’t think A has finished any other books this week.  We’ve been pretty busy.  I need to schedule set reading time every day.  He reads a lot, but I can’t keep track of it, and the other two need more reading time with Mom.  Still.

 

Science: We read about the nervous system and added brains to their body outlines.  A wants to know when we’re adding the esophagus, but I had to tell him that we won’t get to do every single body part.  I think the only thing we have left to add is the face next week.

Art: We did Artistic Pursuits lesson 11: Artists see shape and we experimented with making collages by cutting out shapes.  D had fun just cutting and gluing.  A decided to make a 3-D house from construction paper instead complete with furniture on the inside.  C told me what he wanted on his picture, we discussed what shapes he needed, and I showed him how to cut to get the right shapes.  Then he and D both wanted a dump truck and a tractor so I cut those for them.

   

Music:  A was on fall break from Kindermusik, but C and D both went to their classes yesterday.  We finally sat down to color a picture of Bach and listened to the Classical Kids cd Mr. Bach Comes to Call, which in retrospect would have been a good intro to Bach at the beginning of the month.  Sunday night A and I went to a recital at the University of the Bach Cello Suites 1, 3, and 5.  Mr. Cheney is playing Suites 2, 4, and 6 this Sunday night, but I don’t think I’ll take A.  He was getting pretty wiggly by the end of the first one and he’s much more familiar with the first three suites because we’ve been listening to them all month long.  Tuesday night we all went to the Utah Symphony’s Halloween concert and had a great time.  Details are down a couple posts.

We also had fun raking leaves outside, went grocery shopping, went to the aviary, visited the great-grandparents, went to Halloween storytime at the library, watched Cars, and of course had lots of fun on Halloween.  Tomorrow we really need to work in the yard before it’s really and truly winter and I also have a symphony concert to play in.