September 28 - October 2

WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS

PRESTON

Preston took a break from his math curriculum to work on getting faster with his math facts.  He's been working on multiplication.  It's amazing how quickly he's getting fast at calculating, which will make his math easier when he gets back to it.  He completed all the levels of multiplication this week and started on division.  He was so excited one day to show me how much he improved during a level from his pre-test to his post-test so he took my phone and snapped a picture of his progress.  

MARISSA

Marissa had an assignment in her language arts' book to write a letter to someone.  She chose to write a letter to her piano teacher.  It was so sweet and turned out so great!  She loved that it came with a paper that turned into an envelope and she can't wait to take it to her teacher next week!  

CALEB

We read a poem this week called "The Cow" by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  One of Caleb's favorite things is "becoming" everything we talk about.  After I read the poem to the kids, Caleb hopped on Preston's back.  He decided he was riding this friendly cow.  Preston is such a good big brother and very tolerant of an energetic little brother who always wants to play!  Marissa discovered her love of poetry a few years ago during a co-op class and it's fun to watch Caleb learn to love it as well.  

OTHER

GEOGRAPHY

We finished Asia in our Geography sticker book this week.  We learned about the Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin who was the first human in space.  We watched a few videos about that and had a lot of fun learning about space and rockets that day.  We also learned about heavier subjects like the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 the atomic bomb during WWII.  Marissa hates learning about difficult topics so we didn't go too in depth, but it's been good to cover all sorts of world topics spanning centuries.  

GEOGRAPHY

Our official geography curriculum finally arrived!  We will be studying the United States, specifically focused on the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.  It is geography through literature and I'm really excited about this approach to learning.  There is a lot of supplemental resources so we will have to see how in depth we end up going with it, but we read the first couple of chapters of our book and did some map work.  It's a new way of learning.  Marissa loved it, Caleb had fun with it.  I'm not sure about Preston.  He may have thought it was too much busy work for his tastes.  We shall see how it goes moving forward.  

HISTORY

For history, we like to study great individuals who have gone before.  We read stories and biographies or just learn about an individual when an opportunity arises.  This week, we learned about Mother Teresa.  It was so fun to talk to the kids about Mother Teresa and what a great example she was of service and love.  

HIKE (NATURE WALK)

We went hiking this week and decided to pause at the end and explore.  It turned into more of a nature walk at the end.  Marissa found a whole bunch of snail shells.  She was so excited!  Caleb found acorns, which he decided to collect.  We went home with pockets full of nature!  

OTHER

Sometimes our favorite part of the day is snuggling up to listen to audiobooks or read-alouds.  The following pictures represent the cuteness that sometimes simply needs to be documented. :)