October 22-26

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his math book this week.  He is reviewing counting money and starting to work on story problems that are multiple digit addition and subtraction.  It is taking some time, but he is starting to get it on his own. 

Sorry about the background trick-or-treat singing.  That's the reality of home school sometimes.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her math book this week.  She is working on time as well as starting to learn about word problems.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on numbers and simple addition facts.  He also plays lots of math games including his favorite, inchimals.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his language arts book this week.  He also read a Flat Stanley book about Australia.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her language arts book this week.  She finished another mini reader book as part of her language arts curriculum.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  He is working on letters and sounds and putting three letter phonetic words together.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa and Caleb:

We Studied the islands of Oceania this week for world geography class.  We watched a great video that helps explain the difference between the different island areas - Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia.  It was very helpful to understand the differences.  

We also watched videos about traditional island dances like hula dancing (which isn't just for girls) and the haka.  

We had Hawaiian haystacks for lunch and tasted some tropical fruits that grow in island areas.  The foods we sampled were papaya, mango, coconuts, bananas and pineapples that we ate with our Hawaiian haystacks.  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

For building and engineering, the kids were asked to build something representative of Australia or the islands of Oceania.  Preston and Caleb built together with their friend Owen.  They built a banana tree with a man climbing it.  

Marissa:

Marissa and Slade worked together to build something from Australia or the islands of Oceania.  They built a girl on a raft and a fish trap.  They explained the whole system of how the fish gets caught in the trap and then the girl can swim out on the raft to get her fish for the day.  So cute! 

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his co-op PE and art class this week.  He also started karate classes this week.  He is loving them and so excited to learn more.  He also participated in our morning yoga sessions before we start our schoolwork.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her co-op PE and art class this week.  She also attended her tumbling class and participated in morning yoga sessions before her schoolwork started.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his co-op PE and art class this week.  He will be starting karate lessons next week and is so excited.  He also participated in morning yoga sessions before schoolwork started for the day. 

October 15-19

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on measurements and some early fraction concepts.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her math book this week.  She is currently reviewing counting and addition concepts from 1-100.  She is also working on geometry concepts with shapes and fractions.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on number recognition, writing numbers and addition up to ten.  Caleb loves counting so we often create math games with toys or whatever he is playing with at the moment.  This week we played a game using the animals and dinosaurs he had out in the front yard.  He made up the rules, but it was a great game for counting and spacial reasoning.  We had so much fun!  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his language arts book this week.  He is currently reading "Flat Stanley: The Australian Boomerang Bonanza" because we are studying Australia for geography.  He's really enjoying it!  We recently finished reading "Farmer Boy" as a family and are now reading "Little House in the Big Woods."  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her language arts book this week.  She isn't sure she loves reading, but she is definitely improving.  I'm trying to find a balance to encourage her learning, but not push her away from her love of learning.  She read "Green Eggs and Ham" to her brother and did great.  She also is loving our family reading.  She loved "Farmer Boy" and is really excited about "Little House in the Big Woods."  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  We are taking a gentle approach to learning letters and words and he is loving it.  He loves books and is also enjoying our family reading.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We are still studying Australia for world geography.  The kids are really enjoying studying animals so that has been a big part of our studies the past couple of weeks.  This week we talked about marsupials.  We watched an awesome video about a baby kangaroo climbing into his mom's pouch.  We read several books about different marsupials.  We also made a koala with paper plates.  It was such a fun class!  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston has been working on card stacking again.  He has been watching youtube videos to learn new techniques, but he loves the triangle and pyramid structure still.  He decided to try to break his record this week.  It took many tries, but he ended up completing eight levels of cards.  He was so excited! 

Marissa:

Marissa used brain flakes to build this week.  She worked with Caleb to build a jungle with flowers, trees and animals.  They love building together! 

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his art and PE co-op this week.  He will be starting karate lessons next week.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended her art and PE co-op this week.  She also attended her tumbling class.  She is getting so good.  She is currently perfecting her roundoff with six back handsprings and is working on learning a back tuck.  She loves it!

Caleb:

Caleb attended his art and PE co-op this week.  He will be starting karate lessons next week.  

October 8-12

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his math book this week.  He also worked on geometry puzzles with his siblings.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her math book this week.  She also worked on geometry puzzles with her siblings.  She loved creating all sorts of things with the different shapes.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He had lots of fun building the train puzzles with different geometric shapes.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is progressing really well with spelling, grammar and reading.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five lessons in her language arts book this week.  She is doing really well with her mini readers and her fluency is improving.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is still focusing on reviewing letters and sounds.  He loves the games and activities in his language arts book.  

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

We learned more about aborigines in Australia in our class.  We also learned about many animals that are unique to Australia.  We talked about echidnas and platypuses.  We read lots of books and made echidnas out of playdough.  The kids love learning about animals!  

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston purchased a Lego set from our family store with money he saved up from doing chores this summer.  He built his Lego set for building and engineering this week.  

Marissa:

Marissa built a Lego friends set we had in our Lego collection for building and engineering.  She loves putting all the rooms and accessories together.  

Caleb:

Caleb helped Preston with his minion set, but mostly was excited to play with the evil minion that Preston built last Christmas.  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his art and PE co-op class this week.  We ran into some problems with scheduling swimming lessons so we are looking into starting a karate class until we can figure out a better solution for swimming.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended art and PE co-op class this week.  She also attended her tumbling class on Thursday.  She is improving so quickly! 

Caleb:

Caleb attended art and PE co-op class this week.  We are looking into starting karate lessons for Caleb because scheduling swim lessons has not worked out with our schedule and the renovations they had at the pool. 

October 1-5

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed five assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on adding and subtracting multiple digits.  He is also working reviewing skills like time and temperature. 

Marissa:

Marissa completed five assignments in her math book this week.  She is working on adding and has had fun starting to create her own right brain addition flash cards.  They are taking awhile, but she loves them! 

Caleb:

Caleb completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on numbers and counting.  He also has a book of games that he plays and practices adding quickly with dice.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed five lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is almost finished with a whole section of spelling words and can't wait to complete that.  He has been reading more and more out loud to his siblings and his speed is improving every day.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed five lessons in her language arts book this week.  She loves it!  She got to work on sight words with a leap frog game.  She practiced over and over and then got Caleb in on the action as well.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed four lessons in his language arts book this week.  He is reviewing letters and their sounds.  He enjoys learning with his brother and sister and sometimes prefers to "help" them with their learning instead of start his own.  We're not telling him that means he's actually doing more difficult schoolwork.  ;) 

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

For our class this week, we traveled to Australia.  We learned about aborigines and read portions from a book called "Exploration Into Australia."  We then completed our own aboriginal art.  It was a favorite of all the kids!

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston:

Preston completed his Tinker Crate this week.  It was called "Walking Robot" and was so cool.  We all had so much fun playing with it after he put it together.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed the first portion of Her Kiwi Crate this week.  It was called "Muscle Magic."  She built a soccer player that can really kick the ball.  She loved it!  

Caleb:

Caleb completed the first portion of his Koala Crate this week.  His crate this month is all about farm animals.  He made animal finger puppets.  

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his art and PE co-op class.  They worked on jump roping skills.  He also rode scooters.  We are still waiting on details about swim lessons.  

Marissa:

Marissa attended art and PE co-op class this week.  She learned to jump rope.  She also rode her bike and scooter and attended her tumbling class.  She is looking forward to swim lessons when we get more details from the school on class times.  

Caleb:

Caleb attended his art and PE co-op class.  They worked on jump roping skills.  He worked on jumping into and out of a hoola hoop since jump roping was tricky.  He also rode his bike and scooter.  We are still waiting on details about swim lessons.