Weekly Update October 17, 2008

Math: We did mostly facts. Take a look at my previous post for a game that we tried. Since Math U See is moving to captions I am going to take a stab at teaching using that program. I may try and muddle through the rest of our current curriculum. We did money on Wacky Wednesday and I plan on doing that topic this week as well so will write that up as a separate blog.

Copywork: We continued with Proverbs and wrote a note to our pen pal. We are practicing numbers on Wacky Wednesday as Andrew often writes many of his numbers backwards.

Speech: We went to speech and Andrew has the initial 'Vs' down so we will move to final 'Vs.'

Reading/History: We fished the Beverly Clearly biography and Andrew did a book report on it. He did a story map review using the table of contents. He drew picture and I added captions. We also started D'Aulaire's Christopher Columbus and are taking it slowly. I copied various worksheets from Enchanted Learning to complete a lapbook. The worksheets are nice because Andrew does not mind them and he enjoys seeing all his work put together in a lap book. They are a good thing to have round when I just need Andrew to 'do something.' Not ideal- but not completely twaddle since putting the lapbooks together are a great guided participation exercise.

Politics/Economics: Can you teach this in elementary school? We are doing a double lapbook on the election and Andrew has learned quite a bit. I'm trying to keep it non-partisan but Andrew has his own mind made up;) I will save what we are doing for posting later when it is done and complete but if you are interested in doing an election project with your elementary student you can google 'election lapbook' and there are many free resources. Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you would like some links. We also read The Ballot Box Battle by Emily Arnold McCully which is part fiction, part non fiction about women gaining the right to vote. A great living book.

Poetry: We listened to and composed our own Hiaku which is suppose to be primarily about nature but we also wrote some on other subjects.

the noodler...by Andrew Lapain
I am the Noodler
I like to make knots in things
but not all of them.

Fall by mom and AJL
God made leaves special
They are different colors
The trees are disguised

Puffle by AJL
I am a puffle
I am cute, funny, loving
I love all of you.

Field Trip: We went to the Cider Mill this week. Andrew and Noah wanted to do a 'play' and we promised to continue the production on a play date this week where I will take video and then post it for all the world to see.