Our Learning Journal * week 1 *

Here we go I think things have settled down enough that I can start posting on a regular basis about our days. I am going to try and review our week every Friday or Saturday. I hope to share more about what we are doing so that I can see that we are working hard (or not).

.....................................Resource Favorites..................................

This week we really enjoyed our History/Geography lessons from The Story of the World. We read chapter three and learned about the first writings in Ancient Egypt. We also colored maps, locating the Nile river, Euphrates River, Tigris River, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Sumer. The Kiddos were very entertained as they learned that hippopotamus means: river horse. This was used to teach them that Mesopotamia means: between two rivers. We are going to do some Hieroglyph and Cuneiform writings of our own before moving on to chapter four (mummies!).

I also introduced HanaRose and Violet to the Walk beside me Preschool Curriculum which you can read about here in an earlier post this week. Violet completed most of the packet, but I used a few of the pages to entertain HanaRose too. They can't wait to do the next letter packet!

.........................................Book of the Week....................................

This months Earth Science focus has been on volcanoes. We all really enjoyed reading The Magic School Bus: Blows it's Top! I read this to them all before we studied the pictures in our other books (one pictured above) from the library and labeled a diagram of the parts of a volcano. 

.................................................Toddler Time........................................

Violet (3) was very involved this week with our learning. She colored along with the others and was happy to have some "work" of her own to do with the A is for Adam packet. 

Evalynn  made a couple of milestones this week as she comes up on her 2nd birthday. One being that she discovered she likes to stack the wood blocks and then knock them down! And the other...sticking a crayon in her nose...she was very proud of herself! 

............................................Star Students..........................................

Making  Chocolate Zucchini  Bread...Yum!

Lyllian (10) did a great job with her math this week. She started off testing on Lesson 7 (Math-U-See Delta) and proceeded to complete and test on Lesson 8 by the end of the week. She is finding that learning division is fun! She has also read through a couple of Ramona books. Doing most of her reading when she goes to bed and in the morning before rising.

Eprhraim (8 next week!) only missed one question on his math test (on Lesson 7 in his Beta book) this week. He was worried because the concept of Regrouping seemed very daunting to him. All of his practice paid off! He was very proud...and so was I.  He is also progressing well in his Sequential Spelling book. He has completed 17 lessons.

HanaRose is listening better this week. We have had no more pencil incidents and she has actually enjoyed writing in her journal. She is working on writing one or two sentences on her own with help only for big words. She has also enjoyed reading some Bobs books that we picked up at the library.

.....................................Field Trips & Other Fun Stuff....................................

Wow! It has been a full week of field trips! We arrived here just in time for canning season with Granny! This has been a great time to learn for all of us! We have canned tomatoes, grape jelly, pickles, relish, & peaches so far. We have a few more peaches, pears, blackberry jam, and apples to do next!

Here we are picking up the peaches at the Orchard:

Here is some of our tomatoes and relish:

Here is Lyllian learning to do dill pickles!

To top of this exciting week....we went to the FAIR! 

There was a Camel in the petting zoo!

Here we are enjoying snow cones and listening to some good 'ol  country music!

The Kiddos were excited to see all of the animals and other events taking place. We even saw the neighbors pumpkin they entered and won first place for largest by weight! I allowed them each 2 rides at the carnival before it was time to go home. This was really their first experience with the Fair, but no their last!

Happy Day!