Homeschool Week 16

Another fairly productive week.  Ds3 is still fighting that virus, has a lingering cough and major nose congestion, but he still eats, sleeps and runs around so we are just waiting it out.  He did really well keeping up with the three math programs this week…thankfully two of them actually covered the same topics so it wasn’t so bad.  I have put formal math on hold with ds4 for now, letting him watch over ds3’s lessons while we wait to start Mathletics with him.

I did start a unit on the human body for science, combining the RSO lessons with a TCR activity book and plenty of books we had on hand (including an Usborne internet-linked book which we love around here!)  We started things off with learning about bones.

Here ds4 is assembling a skeleton from the RSO lessons.  He loved it and named it “Skully.”  Skully accompanied ds for the rest of the day, but had to use sign language to talk because, as ds put it, “He is laryngitis.”  :)  We studied Babylon in history and ds3 drew his own version of the Hanging Gardens.  We finished up The Jungle Book and ds chose The Call of the Wild as our next reading selection. 

Ds4 is still learning about proper nouns in First Language Lessons and this week we covered our city, state and street address.  We also read Katy and the Big Snow and started a little mini unit with it.  So far we have reviewed about street signs and compasses.  Ds2 emerged from his room long enough to let us know Florida is the only state to not get snow this winter which pretty much ticks me off…I’ve said before that it is no fair at all to get the freezing temps but not the fun stuff to go with them.  We have actually been below freezing all week…not kidding, below freezing during the day and not just overnight.  One day this week it barely, barely made it into the low 30’s.  Okay, I’m done with the bold button.

We are currently reviewing a music cd featuring the London Philharmonic so I went to the library and found some resources to further explore about orchestras.

This book is an excellent introduction to orchestras, cute and humorous but quite informative.  And on this site you can play snippets of each instrument which the boys got a real kick out of.  So far we have only covered percussion instruments but ds4 enjoys being a conductor the most lol.  So yes, we’ve had a pretty good week, filled with a lovely mix of the basics and a few fun things thrown in for good measure.  And lots of snot, but really, you didn’t want to know about that so those of you who actually made it this far just ignore this last sentence.  :)