Weekly Wrap-Up, Sept. 17

So far, I'm LOVIN' the child scheduled workboxes. My biggest worry was how long it would take me to prepare the night before. I was tired last night and almost didn't get the boxes ready; instead, I decided to time myself. LESS THAN 10 MINUTES! While workboxes aren't for everyone (I didn't need them with my older dc), they are great for some children...my current homeschooling child in particular!

A few highlights from the week...

Sonlight Core 3 - Intro to American History
We started in June with the Core, so we're actually on Week 10.

*Bible-- it works well to have the Sing the Word CD on my iTouch and in the workbox. (Love, love the CD!) DS can read through the daily scripture and then listen to the song in one swoop.

*History-- we don't use the Sonlight timeline materials. I had a friend (with a box factory) make me a custom piece of cardboard. When folded, it's 24" x 12". When open, its length is 120". It allows kids to see and understand history and where things happened in relation to one another. I strongly prefer this over a book where the child must flip back and forth between pages without really being able to see the amount of time between events. This week my ds added Jamestown and Plymouth to the timeline and was surprised to discover how recent it occurred as compared to Ancient Egypt.

We watched the Sign of the Beaver movie and made a venn diagram comparing the book and the movie. The book is strongly preferred! DS found the audio tapes of Sign of the Beaver at the library and is listening to the book again. For fun!

After reading about how people advertised (sometimes falsely or with little real knowledge) about the "New World" in an effort to get colonists to come, ds made a brochure of his own.

*Writing/Art/Science-- Our sunflower project has really blossomed! After doing three observations (by eye, magnifying glass, microscope), we learned that sunflowers were new to the "Old World." He wrote a paragraph to the "Old World" people, describing a sunflower. I was especially impressed with this simile about a sunflower seed... "It tastes like a burnt rice cracker." I doubt if that's ever been said before!

*Poetry-- After listening to the Pied Piper poem, I encourage ds to read several Pied Piper books. It helped him to more fully comprehend the poem which was a little incomplete as presented in the CD.

*Extra-- I introduced ds to a card game, Into the Forest. He asks to play it daily. Over and over and over.

*Math--We finished up Bridges Unit 1 and began Unit 2 and Base 5. Lately, we've been working hard on learning (and practicing!) strategies for addition and subtraction facts.

Preschool--

We did a lot of preschool math workboxes. Youngest ds has been sick, so we haven't gotten a lot more done. (Photo is from an idea taken from Confessions of a Homeschooler.)

It's been a busy week! Check out some other weekly wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.