What happened this week? It’s always a blur; I need to rely on my phone pics, but it’s somewhat challenging to take good photos with a three-month-old. Nevertheless… I persisted in snagging a few.
Math
We did mostly math on Monday and Tuesday. Everyone did bead chains. Then we were burnt out on math and no one did anymore the rest of the week. Boo. That’s ok because last week we did a lot of math.
Language
Mary has a renewed interest in reading and spelling — likely prompted by the fact that her big sister is f i n a a a a l l l l l l y getting the hang of sounding out words. Josie is 10 but has a severe articulation disorder (three surgeries for speech to date) among other language processing challenges.
All three kids are making solid reading progress which is fantastic. Makes my nerdy heart glad.
I have officially made Friday library day. We pretty much spend the whole morning reading. Then in the afternoon we’ve been baking. I think next week I’m going to get in a poetry teatime (or something like that) to round out the fun. We’ll see. We’ve got a full plate already, but I’m game for snacks anytime.
We have been reading together for about an hour before bed, and the kids have been listening to audiobooks every night as well. They just finished Ragweed by Avi tonight. Tomorrow I’m starting them on Sounder by William H Armstrong. I have no idea how that’s going to go down with the kids, but I read it as a child and actually remember it, so if it was good enough for me…
On that note, I introduced the kids to Amelia Bedelia this week. Mary seems almost uncomfortable with the character’s ignorance. Josie and Mike just think it’s hilarious. I get a kick out of all of their reactions.
Science
We spent so much focus on animal classification this week. I bought this set of books (About series) based on a recommendation in the Montessori Homeschooling Facebook group, and it’s wonderful. It’s perfect for beginner readers. Succinct and to the point with gorgeous artwork. I recommend.
We’re on track with science though we’re moving at a brisk pace. The idea was to cover earth science (volcanoes), biology (animal classification) then swing back into earth science (rock cycle). That is the summarized version anyway. The Waseca Biomes continent materials sort animals by vertebrate class, so I wanted to give a good foundation in September before we move into our continent work in October through the rest of the school year.
I’m going to review the Waseca Biomes Tree of Life in the upcoming week. We’re enjoying it.
I keep adding so many cool things to our animal classification boxes, and I’ve had someone offer to translate our cards into French and someone offered to translate into German. So I will definitely be working on the elementary version and get that all uploaded. I have learned so much from other bloggers, I want to help however I can — if I can.
Instagram is cool — I’ve had several people share pictures of their kids doing the play dough layers of the earth mat with me. I absolutely love that. Small world after all. 🙂
I’ll post more animal classification box contents soon and update the freebies / add a freebie section to the blog. Check back or follow us on Instagram for the latest content.
Have a few good ideas I hope to execute over the weekend. I wish there were two of me and at least one of me was good at following through on projects.
The other could just clean up after that me. I’d be quite the dynamic duo.
Ok have a fantastic weekend and thanks for checking in on us.
I’ll leave you with some cooking / baking photos!
Practical Life
