This week started off CrAzY! After close-to 2 weeks fever free, Sunday night Truman spiked a 105 fever. We were expecting bad weather Tuesday, so I knew Monday would be my only day available to take him to the doctor. For some reason Monday always seem to set the pace for the week. I was determined not to throw the towel in just yet; however, a sick baby + bad weather = VERY tempting. The longer Truman stays “chronically ill”, the more I adapt to the unpleasant circumstances. I loaded the boys lap-desks with their school work & we took school on the road. It didn’t all get done, but it was a faithful attempt. We made it home just in time to meet the rapidly dropping temperatures, thunder, lightening, & rain. As the cold front approached the rain turned to ice & soon snow was falling. Another week of school in the house – bundled in front of the fireplace. YAY! (Do you sense my sarcasm?) Praise God Truman’s sick spell only lasted 2 days, which made things much easier.
3 R’s
I have been thinking a lot about reading & phonics with Tucker & Trevor. They are such hands-on visual learners. I’ve added quite a bit of manipulatives to our reading time & we will begin them soon. For now, we continue to work through their Explode the Code books (they are almost done with book 1) & reading their little readers. I haven’t introduced sight words formally yet, but plan to in the upcoming weeks. My mustangs dictated their first story to me this week. I made an idea box with word prompts (farm, ice-cream, dog, etc.) for them to choose from. Tucker picked baseball & Trevor picked dinosaur. I wrote their stories in their writing books & they illustrated it above. Trevor’s dictation:
“There once was a dinosaur who lived in Texas. He ate my parents. I went on a dinosaur hunt. I caught that mean dino & put him in jail.”
Tyler is still focusing on writing mysteries & we have continued this genre in reading as well. He finished his first Encyclopedia Brown book this week & will begin another one next week. The additional work in the Drawn into Reading has complimented his writing well. I cannot express enough how much we are enjoying our writing curriculum. Reading his stories has been absolutely hilarious. He totally cracks me up. This week he wrote a story about Animal Tracks In The Snow. To conclude this genre he had to solve a mystery:
History & Science
We didn’t get near done what I had planned; however, we still managed to have a great time on the days we were able to tackle these areas. The Middle Ages are so fascinating to young boys. Knights & Castles, Oh My! Tucker & Trevor listened to the history of Robin Hood, discovered life as a knight, & were super excited about the Samurai. Tyler learned the dangers of gunpowder on ships & the changes guns made to a sailor’s work.
My mustangs learned about trees, plants, & flowers this week during science. Tyler’s science was fully of activities. He explored the affects pollution on coral reefs with 2 cups of water – we used a flashlight (as the sun) to witness how the sun reflects through to the ocean (the glass), but pollution (adding flour to the glass) prevents the sun from reaching below the surface. His other experiment was a hands-on “oil spill” which proved to be harder than he anticipated. We were both surprised after the experiment was over, at how much oil was not cleaned up that we thought was.
