We had a light week this week. A lot was going on with Mackenzie’s schooling this week so we only got in a few days of tot school.
Raising Rock Stars
Unit 2 Deets
Verse: Exodus 20:15, The Ten Commandments
Letter: Tt
Color: Green
Number: 2
Shape: Square
Getting ready for T sheet. I like to use tiny crayons to encourage proper pencil grip. These game with our Grasshopper Preschool Prep Kit but we also have a huge box of them from Handwriting Without Tears.
Cutting her vocabulary cards. Her cutting is getting better every week.
Coloring her memory verse. She was very excited to use the “stinky” markers. lol
Other Activities
We were reading Head to Toe in one of our Sonlight books and Kayleigh did some donkey kicks like a donkey. Can you believe that the book is a treasury? Look at the size of those illustrations. We just love this treasury with it’s full size illustrations.
Playing on ABC Mouse. There is a way to customize the lessons to your liking, so I could arrange them to match up with the letter we’re studying in Raising Rock Stars, but I just haven’t had time to figure that out. I’m too busy having to redo Mackenzie’s curriculum. Grrrr!
Our Starfall lessons are coordinating with RR though.
Well week 2 of our new school year was just as perplexing as the first. Sigh… So on to the highlights.
Bible
We are still working our way through Genesis with our Bible Study Guide for All Ages program. Mackenzie is really enjoying working through the pages on her own. She tends to get testy if I try to get in on it. LOL
Math
We’re using Math-U-See Epsilon. Mackenzie had her first math test of the year. We weren’t surprised to see that grade, as it was just review.
She also got to try out the fraction overlays this week. Those are pretty neat.
Language Arts
We’re using Advanced Language Lessons and Writing With Skill this year, but they won’t be out until October. In the meantime, we’ve been working through Word Root Beginnings and Wordsmith Apprentice. She likes both, especially Wordsmith. The premise is that you are an “intern” at a newspaper and you are learning the art of writing from the “editor.” She thinks it is great fun!
For spelling we are using Big IQ Kids. She is also enjoying that. I’d like to tell you more about it but that will have to wait, as it is something that I’m currently reviewing for the TOS Review Crew. I will tell you that she is doing well with it and really enjoying it.
She is currently reading Sherlock Holmes as her reader. And just look at her. Chewing gum and blowing bubbles! During school. I made that mistake once in fifth grade and all that got me was 50 sentences declaring that “I will not chew gum in class.” LOL The things homeschoolers get away with is shameful!!
Science
Science is definitely our favorite subject at the moment. We are LOVING Exploring Creation with Anatomy and Physiology.
Our apple that we mummified last week was ready. It worked great and we were thrilled. You could definitely see the difference between the mummified apple and the control apple.
Our focus this week was cells. She made a drawing of a simplified cell in her notebook.
She also made her “person” that we will be adding to throughout our study.
The highlight of the week was our edible cell. So fun!!
Social Studies
The best part of social studies this week was one of our review items. A wonderful game called Civil This. We’re having a B-L-A-S-T reviewing past studies with this game. And that’s all I’m going to tell ya for now.
If only the rest of social studies were this wonderful. We had one issue after the other. So lets start at the top.
Let’s start with the labeling of the Travel With Me map. We were supposed to label the countries. Sounds simple enough. Except the maps are inaccurate and we had four extra labels. I can sort of see maybe forgetting some of the tiny countries, but Iceland? Really? Plus I paid a lot of money for these things and I want all the countries on there.
Make no mistakes, Mackenzie does not like having to deal with all the Winter Promise errors. Every. Single. Day.
The map’s looking pretty full now. And we’ve yet to add the cities and “landmarks”.
We were assigned this…
Sounds simple enouch, strange, but simple. What we found. A table of contents.
And this…
These pages had lots of interesting facts and stats. And yet were are never assigned these pages to read. Just to pronounce the names of the states. Why Winter Promise, why? We read them anyway. Ha!!
Then there was this one. Simple enough.
Opps! Pretty much every page for these readings are mis-numbered.
And now the one that took us an hour. Color and label a landform map of Europe. You get a list that they expect you to label. Please note that the things circled in pink are items that we couldn’t label. We were also supposed draw the boundary between Europe and Asia. We couldn’t do that either. Why you might wonder…
Well it was pretty much impossible because, once again, their map cut off about 1/4 of the eastern part of Europe. And, again, Iceland wasn’t even on it.
We had to add all the rivers and mountains ourselves. So those are definitely not accurate. They did have the Alps on there, so kind of them. However, they had them running into Spain. The Baltic and Black Seas were entirely closed in by land, making them lakes. Do I really need to keep going?
The result of this “educational” activity…tears.
When she tried to label the Baltic Sea and couldn’t find it, because it was blocked in by land and looked like a country, well…it was the straw that broke the camels back.
And that, my friends, was all she wrote. I’m revamping my plan. Definitely anything from Winter Promise involving a map is being tossed out the window.
This week's topic is the school room. We are very blessed to have a dedicated space for school and storage. I'm not saying that we do all of our work there but quite a bit.
Looking in from the door. Our main bookshelves, which house some of our Sonlight cores, tot books, instructor guides, and whatever else I shove on there. On the right, holding my beloved Canon printer, is the shelf where I keep Kayleigh's activities. She used to have tot trays on the lower shelves but I need those shelves for books. So the trays are now in drawers. In the center is Kayleigh's table and in back is Mackenzie's keyboard. It has a place of honor next to my laminator. =o)
Standing in the back of the room you can see the desks for Mackenzie and I. Since we've moved to all Macs I can now keep my current IGs where the cpu tower used to go. I LOVE that they are right next to me when I need them. It might be my favorite part of the room at the moment. LOL
The other side of the room is a lot of storage. Math manipulatives, art supplies, science stuff, educational toys and games. The closet there is chock full too. It's still semi-organized since our redo last year. (If you're bored, go check out the before pictures in our school room makeover. Frightening. LOL)
Things I'd like to change...
The wall color. It red doesn't go at all with my colorful trofast bins from IKEA. It was red when we moved in. That I might be able to change soon since the it's chief-selectee season and those guys will be looking to make $$$$. They'd be happy to move all of those bookshelves and paint.
I'd rather have just a window instead of the door wall. That's never going to happen while I live there. I don't care that much.
More wall space to hang maps and such.
The tinkerbell table. It clashes and I don't like things with characters on them. LOL I'm still kicking myself for not getting a little table for Kayleigh while we were at IKEA spending all of our money. Still tinkerbell is better than nothing. I'll fix that next time.
All in all I love it. The furniture, except for Tink, all comes from Ikea. I've got Billy Bookshelves, lots of Trofast storage bins, and I don't remember the name of the desk. The chairs are from are old dining set though.
