Wrapping Up Week 2

Our second week of school hit a few scheduling snags.  My mother-in-law was hospitalized on Monday and had surgery on Wednesday.  Meetings had to be changed, and a few lessons had to be rushed, but that’s just how the homeschool cookie crumbles sometimes.

The girls finished their 3rd week of ballet intensives.   Regular classes begin next week.  We’re already gearing up for Nutcracker too!  I’ve incorporated some to the girls stretches and strengthening into our daily lessons as well.

I’m already preparing for winter (because we all know how accurate those weather predictions are, ahem).   This week we had a huge load of wood delivered.  Stacking it was counted as P.E., life skills and family time.  Grins.

Here’s a look at our academics for the week.

Language Arts:  Everyone’s loving the Learning Language Arts Through Literature program.    I’m seeing a big improvement in Lindsey’s retention of what she’s read.   Olivia is really getting into her first book Carry On Mr. Bowditch.

Writing:  Olivia is working through Jump In, and is really enjoying the amount of personal input she has in her writing assignments.  This product has really been a big confidence booster where her writing is concerned.   You can read my full review here.   Lindsey, who failed to work diligently on her writing over the summer, is now paying the price.   She’s currently doing 3 lessons a day in her 3rd grade Abeka writing curriculum.  

Math:   Horizons is working well for both girls.  They are both enjoying the colorful graphics, and the added teacher involvement.  I’m seeing that Olivia is weaker in geometry than I’d expected.  But looking back, last year’s program didn’t cover much geometry at all.

History:  During our second week of our Wild West Unit, we’ve been studying outlaws and lawmen of the old west.  We’ve learned that there was often a very thin line between the two.

Science:  The experiments in our Chemistry and Physics curriculum are a huge hit.  This week we made homemade lava lamps.   This experiment really did work correctly, it just didn’t show up well in the photos.

Poetry & Art:   Our poet this week was William Wordsworth. The girls enjoyed his poems much more than Browning’s last week.  We used the book Poetry for Young People William Wordsworth; by Dr. Alan Liu for our study.  I wish we’d had this book last week as the illustrations would have gone much better with our chalk pastel project.

Our artist of the week was Botticelli.  Our core text was Getting To Know The World’s Greatest Artists – Botticelli; by Mike Venezia. Since Botticelli was known for his art “in the round”, we worked on our own round art this week.

I realize that the blog has been a bit slow lately.  That should be changing over the next little bit.  I have several reviews and give always coming up in the next couple of weeks. 

In the meanwhile, pop over to the Weekly Wrap Up and Collage Friday and see what’s going on in the homeschool world outside your own front door.