Chipette
Math: We did a chapter out of our Math in Focus book this week
and the corresponding workbook pages. I also let Chipette take two of the
upcoming chapter tests because I really thought she could pass the tests
without doing the work. I was right; she made 100% on both. That’s two chapters
out of the book we get to skip! Yipee!
Language Arts: We are still
working our way through Sentence Island, Practice Island, Music of the
Hemispheres, and Building Language. I can’t believe how quickly Chipette is
able to find all the parts of speech and parts of a sentence now. It was such a
struggle at the beginning of the year I was afraid I’d made a mistake using
Island level for 3rd grade, but it’s been the perfect fit.
Our most exciting news is about writing. We are using Classical
Academic Press’ new writing program, Writing and Rhetoric: Fable. It has been exactly what we needed for writing. While
I loved Writing with Ease and the skills it was teaching Chipette through narration,
copywork, and dictation, she is such a natural writer that she was wanting more
and a chance to really work on some creative writing. Writing and Rhetoric:
Fable is the perfect blend of a classical writing program like Writing with
Ease, but with a fun creative writing flair thrown into the mix. Perfect for
kids like Chipette who enjoy writing, especially creative writing.
Here is Chipette’s rewrite of the fable The Mouse and The Lion.
Her instructions were to chose an animal smaller than a mouse and write the
story from the experience of the smaller animal helping the mouse.
Literature: We finished Unit 8 in K12’s Third Grade
Literature program. This unit was all about Greek mythology. A great warm up
for our 4th grade study of ancient Greece.
Read Aloud: We finished A Long Walk to Water this week. It was such a wonderful
story! Next up we are reading Children of
the Longhouse to go along with our study of the Mohawk and Iroquois
nations.
Independent Reading: Chipette finished The
Secret School and is starting Freckle
Juice this week.
Natives and Nations: I caved in to the
girls’ demands, reworked our weekly schedule, and started back our world
geography studies by finishing up Kenya and starting South Africa this week.
Here are the completed Kenya notebooking pages:
For her own personal study Chipette and I are studying Native
Americans two days a week. This week we focused on the Chippewa or Ojibwa people
who lived in the forests around the Great Lakes area. Here are our
completed Chippewa notebooking pages:
Did you know that almost all of the wild rice that is harvested in the United States is still harvested by the Chippewa people and in almost exactly the same method that their ancestors have used for hundreds of years? Well now you do!
Science: Currently
Chipette is doing two science programs, Sassafras Zoology and Apologia’s Flying
Creatures, but this will be changing soon since she is only one chapter away
from finishing Apologia. This week we did an experiment to see how a water
strider was able to walk on water by making a needle float.
In Sassafras we have gotten WAY behind. Since I tied it to our
world geography studies when we stopped world geography, we stopped Sassafras.
Unacceptable according to Chipette since she LOVES Sassafras! This week we
finished chapter two about lions and cheetahs and next week we’re moving on to
chapter three.
Magpie
Math: She did pages 123-136 in Singapore Essentials A and pages
S-1, S-2, S-3, and S-4 in Miquon Orange.
Phonics: This week she completed three lessons
in Logic of English Foundations A and two lessons in Reading Made Easy. She
also finished Book of Get Ready for the Code. She starts Explode the Code Book
1 this next week and is SUPER excited!
Literature: Our book study this week was The Three Pigs by David Wiesner. I had
never read this one before and it was such a FUN book! Definitely put this one
on your list for your next library stop. I even caught Chipette reading it on
the sly! Here’s Magpie doing a piggy
math activity:
I’m still trying to find a chapter book that will grab Magpie’s
attention enough that she doesn’t need a picture on every page. This week I’m
checking out Gooney Bird Greene by
Lois Lowry to give that one a shot.
Science: This week for our Bernstein Bears’ science
program, we studied the Sun. We learned some basic facts about the sun, and
then we talked about how the sun makes daytime and nighttime, our years, and
our seasons. Lots of work with the flashlight and our globe! Magpie works hard on her notebook pages and here are some that
she completed this week:
Language Arts: I’m branching out into something different for Magpie
this year for first grade. We are using Language Lessons Through Literature Level 1. I had never heard of this curriculum
until a couple of weeks ago, but it was exactly what I wanted for Magpie, a very
gentle introduction to language arts using copy work, picture study, poetry
memorization, and fables. This level focuses on writing mechanics, and the next
level for second grade focuses on parts of speech. Our first week to use it was
this past week and she loved it! So far I’m pleased with my purchase as well.
Monkey
I try not to be one of those mothers who thinks that everything
their little darlings do is soooo advanced, but I have to say that Monkey’s
fine motor skills for a three year old boy are AMAZING! Check out this pizza
and toppings that he cut out and glued while I was doing school with Magpie.
He wanted something to do so I gave him a page out of this old
cut and paste book. When I looked over he was cutting like a champ, so I told
him I’d pick up a new cut and paste book for him. It was actually really cute.
Monkey: I school too, Mommy?
Me: Sure, I’ll buy you some cut and paste books like this and
you can do those.
Monkey: You be my teacher?
Me: Of course.
Monkey: *Huge hug* Dank you, Mommy!
So that’s a major selfish reason that I homeschool, it doesn’t
get better than that!
Lots of ciphering, reading, and writing planned for the upcoming
week in the tree house,
Chelli
