Week Three: Short But Sweet

Our homeschool week was cut short, with the Labor Day holiday and then ds3 with his first illness of the season.  So we only did school two days.  This was it, the first test to see if my new 4 day planning system would pay off.  And it did!  We easily fit in (most) all of the lessons I had planned in only two days and I did not have to carry over a lot of stuff in my planner.  I am loving this new system so far. Ds4 wanted to start off one morning with painting, so he got to be the first to break in the new watercolors set.  He thought the new paintbrush with the little plastic cover over the bristles was “fancy.”

We started a new book, The Chalk Box Kid.  Both ds3 and ds4 did great with the assessment questions after each chapter.  I was surprised since ds4 is really just listening in.  They both drew pictures of what they thought Gregory’s new room looked like.  In writing, ds3 learned about mysteries and we read Nate The Great as an illustration.

In case anyone was wondering, ds2 is home with us, but following a virtual school online, so I don’t include him with our weekly report.  He is taking six classes and works long days but still joins in on some of our adventures from time to time.

Our science experiment this week tested whether air expands by freezing a pop bottle, placing a nickel over the opening and watching it “pop” as the air inside the bottle warms and expands.  Ds3 was not a fan of holding on to the cold bottle lol.

The bottle has stayed in my freezer all week and been taken out on many occasions to replicate the experiment.

For SOTW we learned about Sumer and made Sumerian seals.  Here ds3 is rolling out his clay.

Inscribing his seal.

The finished product.

We added New Jersey and Georgia to our states notebook, and celebrated Georgia’s peanut industry with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup milkshake.  Mmm, studying Georgia tastes good!

Ds3 is still doing well with Mathletics, breezing through the multiplication section we started this week.  The only things we did not get to this week were nature study and art, but those are definitely flexible subjects anyway. 

I am still tweaking ds4’s curriculum.  I used Abeka’s 1st grade program with ds2 and a more laid back patchwork approach with ds3 at this level.  Ds4 is still only 5 (will be 6 next month) so I was hesitant at going full force 1st grade with him, but finding that he isn’t being kept busy enough with just a math and phonics workbook and listening in with ds3 on the rest.  So I’ve ordered a lot of new resources for him, including Wordly Wise, First Language Lessons, All About Spelling, HWT, Get Ready For The Code and Writing With Ease.  It sounds like a lot and I don’t normally approach 1st grade with this much vigor lol, but I think ds4 is ready for more of a challenge.  Whether or not I am ready…