Friday, October 12, 2007

Weekly Report - October 8-12

(A slideshow with pictures is at the end of this post.)

Science


After having the kids work on a lapbook for the past few weeks, and listening to the grumbling, I have given them up. As much as I would love for my children to be interested in making those cute mini-books and assembling them into one overview of our science study, it's not going to happen. It was time for me to let go of the fantasy and return to what works - notebook pages. They actually like making these, so that's a good thing.

We made our first ocean animals for the ocean boxes. It was our first time using Sculpey clay and I helped them with shaping the animals. I plan on being more hands-off next time.

Robert made a killer whale and Ruth made a dolphin. Unfortunately, our dolphin had a tragic accident (AKA Robert dropping it) and lost its nose. We will be making a new dolphin soon.

Language Arts

I blogged in my previous post about switching to using the Arrow for our grammar, dictation, and writing. Grammar and dictation went well, but I'm not so sure about the writing. I may need something with more step-by-step instructions that I am getting with this. I'm going to stick with it through the month, so I'll have to see what the final result is.

History

We read about monks in history this week. For a project, we made illuminated letters. I have seen several versions of this project, but I liked the instructions in Hands-on History the best.

We also checked out the Leaves of Gold web-site. They have a lot of information about illuminated manuscripts and how they were made. When the kids made comments about how long it was taking to color their letters and borders, we talked about how their work compared to the work done in the middle ages. We also discussed that only the wealthy owned books, and even they only owned a few. Ruth mentioned that she can't imagine a home not filled with books. Nor can I, my dear.

Fine Arts

We listened to Polovtsian Dances by Borodin. This is a favorite piece of Griff's so we've heard it before, but I am trying to teach the kids the names of pieces and composers.

We have a new picture from our Cassatt study - Children Playing at the Beach. I've also seen it titled Two Children at the Seashore. Can I say again how much I love this artist?

Hymn and folk song didn't happen... again. I need to get all the music on one CD. I think that will make it easier.

Books Read

Robert
  • Matilda by Roald Dahl
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
  • Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla

Ruth
  • Matilda by Roald Dahl
  • She's also about half-way through Heidi. I loved that book as a child.
(Can anybody tell me how to underline text in html?)

Latin

We are on lesson 3 of Prima Latina. Ruth is especially loving this. I'm not sure why, but she gets a real thrill out of it. They are also really picking up on the whole concept of Latin roots in our language. They are usually able to think of at least a couple of English words for each Latin word we learn. Since I want them to learn Latin for vocabulary purposes, I'm very happy about that.



7 comments:

Tina in WA said...

I love lapbooking, but agree that if the kids just don't like it, don't do it. Their notebooking pages turned out GREAT!

I checked out the arrow link. It seems like an interesting tool... Something to think about.

~Tina

Anonymous said...

Looks like a great week...we too would never survive lapbooks. ; )

to underline do this but with No spaces:

< u > Heidi < / u >

Meliss said...

Thanks! I bookmarked your links since we will be doing Middle Ages next year.

When I was 13, I played cello in a local city/university orchestra. It was quite the experience to play the Polovtsian Dances with the orchestra and the choir. I love that piece!!

I think you were wise to ditch the booklets and to go with notebooking pages. Same content, less frustration.

The illumination and model are well-done!

Anonymous said...

We prefer notebooking here also. Looks like a fun week!

Darcy @ m3b said...

That is a pretty fancy looking orca. I'm with you - stick with what works, whatever that is. :)

Fun week! Your kids are still in t-shirts, you must still have nice weather.

Barbara said...

Love your weekly report! We're doing a little notebooking for the first time, and my boys seem to enjoy it, yay. Thanks for the ideas in medieval history -- we're doing medieval this year, too. I love the Leaves of Gold site! I plan to return several times this year to the concept of handmade books, and see where it takes us.

blessings,
BarbaraL in OK

my5wolfcubs said...

The illuminated R's turned out beautiful! And we love Sculpey here. I know just what you mean about having a hard time keeping your hands off the kids projects -- next week, I hope to see a picture of something you made!
Lee