Sunday, September 26, 2021

Homeschool Update: Week of 9/20/21

Weekend Activities (9/18/21-9/19/21)

On Saturday, M. and E. went to Dollar Tree with me to shop for gifts for C.'s upcoming 6th birthday.  C. went to the park with Daddy and the twins. 

On Sunday, we attended the Latin Mass as usual. 


Morning Time 

Music: I read aloud the rest of Chapter 3 and the very beginning of Chapter 4 of Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells by Opal Wheeler (E. P. Dutton & Co., 1942), and played recordings of the following pieces mentioned in the book: 

Singing: This week's song was "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." We also reviewed "I Met a Bear." 

Poems: From Favorite Poems Old and New, edited by Helen Ferris (Doubleday Books, 1957), I read aloud: "The Road Goes Ever On and On" by J.R.R. Tolkien, "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, "Autumn" by Emily Dickinson, and "My Land is Fair For Any Eyes to See" by Jesse Stuart 

Art appreciation: This week, we studied and compared The Crucifixion of St. Peter by Michelangelo and The Crucifixion of St. Peter by Guido Reni, both found in The Vatican Art Deck by Anja Grebe. We also watched a video about the restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes.

Catechism: M. and C. worked on learning the questions and answers for Lesson 8 in The New Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism. On Tuesday, we prayed the appropriate prayers for St. Matthew's feast day from The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion by Kendra Tierney (Ignatius, 2021). On Wednesday, we used the same book to begin praying the Novena Rose Prayer in anticipation of St. Therese's feast day. On Thursday, we listened to the Saint Stories for Kids episode about Padre Pio and the girls watched the episode of Lukas Storyteller about him as well. 


History

First Grade: C. focused primarily on cave art this week. We finished reading They Lived Like This in the Old Stone Age by Marie Neurath, and we also read the sections entitled "The Cave Dwellers" and "Cave Artists" from Builders of the Old World. C. also watched Our Ancient Human Cousins from SciShow Kids, Lascaux Cave and the Stunning Primordial Art of a Long Lost World from Blast World Mysteries, The Oldest Known Cave Paintings in the World from TopTenz, and Did Humans Make These Ancient Cave Paintings? from National Geographic. On Friday she drew her own cave art on brown paper using oil pastels. 

Third Grade: M. heard these sections from The World of Captain John Smith by Genevieve Foster:  

  • John Smith, Schoolboy
  • The Faerie Queen
  • The Upstart Crow 
  • The White-Plumed Henry 
  • El Greco and Philip II
  • John Smith, Would-Be Knight
  • El Dorado, City of Gold

She also read El Greco by Mike Venezia, and wrote and illustrated a narration about John White and the Indians on Roanoke Island. 


Science 

First and Third Grade: This week, we worked on Lesson B-5 in BFSU Volume 1: Concepts of Adaptations, Food Chains, and Energy Flow. This included the differences between herbivores and carnivores and the balance among them as well as an understanding of food chains. We read Who Eats What? by Patricia Lauber on Open Library and also watched the Food Chains Compilation from Crash Course Kids. At the end of the week, I printed some worksheets about food chains from Enchanted Learning (available to us through our umbrella group) and C. and M. did those for review. 

Pre-K: E. and I finished reading The National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Why


English

M. and C. each did a few pages in their Mad Libs grammar books. C. struggled with the page on capitalization, mostly because she has not learned to print and has not yet learned capital letters in cursive. 

On Tuesday and Friday, I read aloud two more chapters from Three Children and Shakespeare. We have just one act of The Merchant of Venice left before we move onto the next play.

E. worked on some more words containing consonant blends in The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading. We also read some of the Sheep in a Jeep books together; she read the words she could, and I did the rest. She also practiced her poem  "If I Had A Cardboard Box" by Aileen Fisher. C. started Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and practiced her poem, "My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson. M. finished Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries and started Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques. To Gran over Skype, M. is still reading Ol' Paul by Glen Rounds and C. finished A Brother for the Orphelines by Natalie Savage Carlson. M.'s new poem is Shylock's famous speech from The Merchant of Venice.

At lunch, we finished listening to Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright. At dinner, my husband is still reading aloud Polly and the Wolf by Catherine Storr. 

On Wednesday, we hosted story time and we  read books on a farm theme: Early One Morning by Mem Fox, Click Clack Moo by Doreen Cronin, Stanley the Farmer by William Bee, and Barn at Night by Michelle Houts. The babies also heard Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth by Lucy Bate, Here are my Hands by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambeault, Can You Cuddle Like a Koala? by John Butler, To Market To Market by Anne Miranda, and A Parade of Elephants by Kevin Henkes.


Languages

C. has taken a real interest in American Sign Language, so we started learning the alphabet and we're practicing some songs from We Play Along on YouTube. She has mastered Happy Birthday and is close to mastering You Are My Sunshine


Typing & Handwriting 

M. and C. both practiced typing skills on Typing.com. M. copied questions from the Catechism in cursive and C. practiced writing her name in cursive. 


Math 

M. worked on another review section in Singapore 4A as well as more quizzes in algebra on Khan Academy. 

C. worked on subtraction with renaming using the soroban in both Singapore and with me for extra practice. She also did Khan Academy every day.

E. continued to practice moving the beads on the soroban up to 9. 

M. drilled multiplication and division and C. drilled addition and subtraction using the Flashmaster app. 


Physical Education

M. and C. did their morning exercise routine almost daily. On Monday, M., C., and E. stayed with our next door neighbors while we took the twins for their 18-month well check. The neighbors took them to play on the playground and on a walk around the neighborhood and then played ball and running games with them until we got home. I also forgot to mention that I recently took M. to the high school track to see if she could run a mile. She ran it in 10 minutes, 58 seconds. 


Instrumental Music

M. and C. practiced piano and recorder daily.

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