Year 2 Weeks 7 & 8

I was halfway through week 8 and realized I didn't post about last week yet. Oops!  Life just keeps happening, you know?



Here is a couple of pictures from my husband's trip to Nicaragua with BMDMI.  Aren't those twins cute?!  A sewing group at our church makes little dresses and hats year-round to send to the girls down there.

I spent last weekend researching freezers since the guys are done remodeling after the water damage we had.  I haven't decided on one yet, but am leaning towards an upright.  Feel free to share your favorite freezer in the comments...I need help!

Now, for the rest of the story...

Week 7 & 8 for AO2, with the following changes and additions:

The Bible - CC lesson 16, 17, 18 and Truthfulness from Kids of Character
Tree in the Trail chapter 10 25, 26 and 27 - Done!
Pilgrim's Progress Dangerous Journey, half of ch. 5
Math - lessons 31-36 of Graded Work in Arithmetic

My parents were in town a couple of days for week 7, but we managed to get the work done.  His attitude was worse, probably because he was anxious to be done and just play, but in reality it made things take longer!  We went to Minds in Motion as schedule for 2 afternoons, and he enjoyed that.  He also had a field trip to a local nursery with our library's home school group so learned a bit about plants.

Week 8
The Bible -Humility.  CC 19, 20 and 21.
Poetry of Walter de la Mare, poems 27-35 (almost done!)
Dangerous Journey -rest of ch. 5 and, upon his request, ch. 6

Math - lessons 37-39, plus Khan Academy review
McGuffey reader -  through lesson 13.  We have been doing readings lessons twice a week, but I increased it to 3x/wk this week.
Handwriting - lessons 13, 14
Spelling - lesson 6 (review)

We are continuing with piano lessons and are up through lesson 16 on freepianolessons4kids.  We listen to our monthly hymn, folk song and composer study music almost daily (see amblesideonline.org for more info).  He resists art study more this year than last - possibly because impressionism isn't his thing, or maybe because I'm asking a little bit more of him.  The habit of attention is one he struggles with, so focusing on a painting for a full minute or two is a challenge for him.  I have him focus, then we flip it over and tell what we can remember and talk about what we missed when we look at it again.  Short and sweet, a la the Charlotte Mason method.

He has gotten to where he enjoy Rosetta Stone for Spanish, and the BBC's typing lessons for kids.  We do those 2-3 times a week.

In follow-up to listening to Romeo and Juliet (Nesbit's version) last week, we watched the BBC animated production, which he enjoyed.  (Here are other Shakespeare animated tales.)

Next week starts the month of October.  This means new songs!  Also, public schools are taking fall break, but if I'm not babysitting, I'll go ahead and "do school" on those days.  I really have no idea what next week will look like!

I'm linking up to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

Year 2, Week 6

This was a week of beginnings.  While my husband was off for his second missions trip to Nicaragua, DS started fall soccer and Minds in Motion.  Everything went well, including my babysitting job and meetings.

Week 6 of AO Year 2, followed nearly to the letter!

The Bible - continue with the story of Abram and Sarai
An Island Story ch 26 William the Conqueror - Death of the King
The Little Duke - second half of chapter 3
Tree in the Trail - through chapter 24
Burgess Animal Book: A Fellow with a Thousand Spears; A Lumberman and an Engineer
Poetry of Walter de la Mare - through poem 25
Understood Betsy: ch. 5
Pilgrim's Progress Dangerous Journey - watched video for chapter 4
Parables of Nature - The Light of Truth

For handicraft Thursday, he created this coin purse.

We intended to do ants for nature study, but ran out of time with everything else going on.  We did, however, spend quite a bit of time at the park and playground, so at least outside time happened.

Mushrooms growing prolifically on our property

His copy work is improving - going to the park first thing in the morning, combined with his time at Minds in Motion resulted in him voluntary pulling his paper out of the sheet protectors and touching the paper with no issues.  If you are wondering why we were using sheet protectors, see Overly Sensitive? from earlier this year.

For math, we did Lessons 29 and 30 from Graded Work in Arithmetic, which I like so far.  Its gotten harder fast, so I'm slowing down some more.  We supplemented with Greg Tang's multiplication book, called The Best of Times.  That's one I want to come back to again next year.  If you haven't looked at any of his books, they are a fun, different way to look at math facts.

 

Year 2, Week 5

This was a short week because of Labor Day.  And foster kids.  And construction in our house.  And a field trip.

Yet, somehow, all of the scheduled AO readings were completed, along with 3 days of Bible, 2 lessons each of typing and Spanish, a spelling lesson, reading and copywork lessons, math and piano.  I did less of several things, but there is no doubt he was still learning.

The readings for week 5 were followed, except for:

The Bible - Discernment was our character trait, and lesson 13 from Calvary Curriculum
Tree in the Trail chapter 7 - still speeding through to get it back to the library soon; ch. 12-17
Poetry of Walter de la Mare - I only read poetry twice this week, so we are through pg 21 now
Pilgrim's Progress  Dangerous Journey, finished ch 3 and all of ch 4

For piano, we did Lesson 12 from freepianolessons4kids.com, then tried out a new iPad app.  Its called Piano Dust Buster by Joy Tunes, and is similar to Magic Piano (which my husband loves).  Both remind me of Tap Tap Revenge, or Guitar Hero :)  The great thing about Dust Buster is that it shows the keys and as you (a little granny on the keyboard, holding a feather duster) tap the key at the right time, granny jumps up and dusts the "germ", making music.  Its too cute.  It also has a real piano mode, where your ipad listens to your actual instrument to play the game.  However, we couldn't get it to "hear" our keyboard, so that's something for me to figure out soon!

His Pa is teaching him leather-crafting, and he made some designs on coasters this week.  One had his own name, one said MOM and the third said DAD.  It was cute, and when he came home he had to show us what he learned so laid everything on the kitchen table and promptly used up the "practice" coaster leather that same day.

Cockatoo stare-down

On Friday, I used my Groupons for Kentucky Down Under, which is about an hour from here.  It was a warm day but we both enjoyed it more than I thought we would (I'd heard mixed reviews).

A gray kangaroo, daddy of the joey below

The Lories

Petting the youngest joey - 10 months old