Weekly Wrap-Up

One month into grade four and we’re still going strong.  So far no major hang-ups or attitudes.  Even the Wee Tot has been relatively agreeable, for her, and we’ve managed to get school finished in a timely manner each day. This is one happy mommy.

Bible

We’re still reading through the Book of John and learning along with the original 12 disciples.

Math

We’ve moved on to dividing by 3s and 5s.  Division is continuing to go well.  And to think she was nervous about it.  Reviewing our multiplication facts all summer sure helped.

Language Arts

We reviewed dictionary skills, verbs, and diagramming  in First Language Lessons.  One of her new skills in FLL is proofreading and learning proofreading marks.  She likes being able to “check” mistakes in the assignments.

Spelling Power and Writing With Ease continue to go well.

Social Studies

Mackenzie finished reading Sing Down the Moon.  While she was very upset to, again, read about how horribly our country treated Native Americans, she was very happy with the ending. 

She is now reading Freedom Train, about Harriet Tubman.  That, along with our read aloud William Wilberforce, has began our study of slavery.

True to her nature, Mackenzie is horrified and feels some guilt that her ancestors would treat people so cruelly.  She has such a tender heart when she reads about other people hurting.

In spite of the difficult topics she is, at some level, enjoying the readings.  She said of our Wilberforce readings, “I’m glad that some people were willing to stand up and help.  This book has given us lots to talk about hasn’t it?”

We also started our Civil War History Pockets.  We started with pocket two, on slavery.

Science

We finished lesson two, on what makes a bird a bird.  We concluded the lesson with an experiment about what food birds prefer.  Basically, we needed two identical bird feeders, with the only variable being the type of seed in them.  We filled one with a basic seed mix and the other with just black oil sunflower seeds.

Much to our dismay, not one bird has approached either.  Not having a bird friendly yard is making this study a difficult one for us. LOL   There is nary a tree or a bush in our tiny yard to attract them.

Extras

We are continuing our artist study on Mary Cassatt.  We just love her work.  This week she did a notebook page on one of her picture studies.

  In honor of our bird study in science, we decided to draw and paint birds using a lesson from Deep Space Sparkle.  We opted out of the feathers because I didn’t want to dig them out.

Mackenzie starts piano lessons next week so we purchased a digital piano for practice.  She is loving that.  Not bad for a girl who never touched a piano before today.

She also started soccer this week.  It was alright.  I’m a little disappointed with the coach.  He’s a very sweet man and I know she’ll have fun but he doesn’t seem to know a lot about soccer.  Her coach last year taught them so much.  They did drills of all sorts, learned plays, and had a great time.  Her skills improved tremendously last year and I was hoping for the same.  Maybe he’ll surprise me, but I hope they’re playing more and sitting less next practice. LOL

And we enjoyed our last Water Country day of the season.

Be sure to check out the other wrap-ups over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.