April 29 - May 3

MATH

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on area and reviewing time and perimeter.  

Marissa:

Marissa completed four assignments in her math book this week.  She is learning about perimeter and story problems setting up double digit addition.  

Caleb:

Caleb completed two assignments in his math book this week.  He is working on writing numbers and counting and adding skills.  

LANGUAGE ARTS

Preston:

Preston completed four assignments in his language arts book this week.  His reading is becoming more and more fluent, even when reading poetry.  He is learning about homophones right now.  

Marissa: 

Marissa completed two assignments in her language arts book this week.  She also is reviewing her mini readers and completing reading assignments every day.   

Caleb:

Caleb completed two assignments in his language arts book this week.  He practiced writing the letters A and T.   

HISTORY (WORLD GEOGRAPHY)

Preston, Marissa & Caleb:

The week we learned about China.  Preston has been begging to study China all year and we finally made it happen.  Some weeks are better than others, but our class was so simple yet fun.  We read several books and the kids were following along with every word and concept.  They were really good books and there were several others the kids flipped through or we will read another day.  We also watched a YouTube video about the Great Wall of China.  It was so much fun. We made Chinese lanterns and then ate fried rice for lunch.  Caleb got excited about construction paper for the Chinese lanterns and decided to make his project into a Chinese dragon instead.  I just let the 5 year old decide what he learns as long as he's not too disruptive.  It turned out really cute!  Owen and Preston looked up the Chinese symbol for dragon and drew it on their lanterns.  It was exciting for them to learn to write something in Chinese so Preston ended up creating a story with pretend Chinese writing on our white board later in the week.  Preston clearly has an interest in China so I may end up getting some supplementary materials for him to study more on his own this summer.  

Marissa and I had a very special day this week.  We attended Shen Yun.  It was so awesome that the performance coordinated so well with the week we were studying China (I wish I could say I planned it that way, but I'm not quite that organized).  The boys watched a movie about ninjas at home while Marissa and I had a mother and daughter day to see the performance.  It was INCREDIBLE and so inspiring to watch, both from a fine arts perspective and also to learn about the history of China and its culture over the years (both good and bad).    

TECH (BUILDING & ENGINEERING)

Preston and Marissa:

Preston and Marissa built an awesome fort in the backyard for building and engineering this week.  Several friends in the neighborhood ended up helping assemble it (and play in it) when they got home from school.  The kids used lawn chairs, the trampoline, a patio table and all sorts of random supplies to create a really cool hangout space.  Unfortunately, I was busy with cooking projects and it got taken down before I realized we never took a picture of it. 

Caleb:

Caleb built a Chinese dragon out of brain flakes this week for building and engineering.  It turned out so cute! 

OPTIONAL (PE)

Preston:

Preston attended his karate class three times this week.  He will hopefully be testing for his orange belt in the middle of June so he is working really hard to learn everything that is new for yellow belts.   

Marissa:

Marissa attended her tumbling class this week.  Her ankle is doing better, but still weaker than the rest of her body so she is working, but careful as she practices.  She is trying to decide if she is going to take a class next year or if she wants to be part of the competition team, which requires more time and commitment.  

Caleb:

Caleb's karate class ended for the year, but he had a really fun week.  We took his training wheels off his bike to start working on balancing and he learned to ride a bike without training wheels in about an hour.  It was a fun surprise for both of us!