weekly report

Well it's been a few months since I said I wanted to do a weekly report each Friday... but I'm no perfectionist!! I can try again.

Here's what we've done this week:
In geography we are studying South America. This week we learned about the native animals there and drew some pictures on our map. (map drawn by E). This tour of the continents we are doing is from Catholic Heritage Curriculum's grade two lesson plans. Next week we will move onto the next continent which I don't' know off the top of my head.

In math: We finished lesson 9 which was all about dimes, skip counting by 10s and adding 2 digit numbers. E picked it up very fast so we also moved through lesson 10 which is about Dollars, decimals and the hundreds place. We practiced a lot with play money,and the math blocks. She seemed to enjoy this real life application of math.

spelling: We are still moving along, now on lesson 16. She has the most amazing visual memory and is therefore a wonderful speller. I have found the best program for creating her spelling review sheets. You can make your own lists in cursive or manuscript, and in varying sizes. It is just what I needed, as we have started to focus on cursive writing in spelling to get the letters formed properly. If you want cursive, you have to choose at least grade 2.

Religion: We are in the thick of preparing for First Reconciliation (confession) and have been enjoying the stories provided in the CHC's First Holy Communion preparation supplement (from the grade 2 lesson plans). I am finally learning the Act of Contrition myself, as is E, and we are learning quite intensely about examining our day before we go to bed to see where we might have done wrong, being sorry for what we have done, and trying to make up for what we have done. It is a good lesson for all of us, and I am benefiting just as much as she is. Lent is fast approaching and then Easter, so we gotta get a move on preparing her for her first communion as well!!

Grammar: We have finished memorizing a few more poems. This week we learned ' Good Morning Merry Sunshine' which is our first 4 stanza poem. She copied out the first 2 stanzas and illustrated them in her book. Next week she'll copy the rest. We also learned how to address an envelope, and how to write dates correctly.

Reading: We are finally done our phonics program, and I'm not into any more workbooks than we need, so we are done phonics for awhile. She's reading so much better now and has wonderful comprehension and expression. This week she read to me a story about Moses, one about a new baby, and a book about a bird learning to fly. They are all easy reader grade 1-2 books, but she is doing so well. At night she has been reading to herself. She finished the first book in the Magic Treehouse series, and is in the middle of the 2nd one. She is also reading a book called "In Aunt Lucy's Kitchen' by Cynthia Bryant, and she really likes this one too. At night, daddy is reading Mr. Popper's Penguins again because we just finished a bird unit in science.

Science: We are just starting a new unit on the Seashore. We read the first 3 pages of our book, but haven't done much beyond that this week.

History: We are finishing up Egypt (still! Urgh!). A lapbook is in process, and we added (finally) some items to our wall timeline. The most interesting part of the timeline, was looking at the whole long strip of paper, putting her birthday right near the end, and asking her where she thought we should place her grandparent's birthdays. She was very surprised to see that they were only about 1 inch away from hers. Guess we aren't that old afterall :-)

Arts: She started up her new art class this week (same teacher as the fall), and she's excited because she gets to walk home from her class with her dear friend Kateri each week like a big girl. This week they learned to draw faces, placing the eyes and nose and mouth in proper placement, discussing how baby faces are different, and drawing the eyes in detail with the reflection of light in the pupil, and the detail of the iris. This is all beyond me, and she was teaching me things I didn't know when she got home.

Music: the Girls choir started up last week and she is enjoying that immensely. Her teacher is so good with the girls and it is a true teaching choir where they learn many things about music. Her church choir is always going each week as well, and she is so sweet singing in the front row with her face buried in the song book trying to read the words fast enough to sing with the choir. This will improve as she gets older I'm sure.

February will bring many things, including ash Wednesday, Lent, and the start of new piano lessons. We found a great piano teacher who lives just a block or so behind us and will come to our house each week to teach lessons to E, and when she's older like maybe next year, she can walk to her lessons at her house by herself.

So, that's my long update for the week. Looking forward to the weekend where daddy will be home all day, we will watch the Pirates who don't do anything, and relax a bit.