Sep. 19, 2008 - Weekly Wrap Up, And A Wind Storm Update
Wow, we've actually made it through our first seven weeks without imploding! Now we're off for a well deserved week long break. Before we go, here's a look at what we've been doing since my last update.
Science is going along well. The kids are enjoying it and are full of questions. My favorite: "Mom, if my drink is made up of atoms and I drink it . . . am I killing them?" Big Man (8) Ah, always the sensitive spirit! They have very much enjoyed the hands on nature of Chemistry. Here they are building molecules with marshmallows:
Big Man has made it thru his first One Minute Reader book. We took an extra week with the book to go back over the stories to see if he still had good speed. He was very proud of his results, especially when he beat his top score on one of the stories. I let him pick the book we would buy for the next level. He's looking forward to reading about Cool Creatures.
Math is still way easy for Little Monkey (6). He just buzzes thru things, not struggling with any concept we've come across yet. Making sure we have a time for reviewing flash cards every day has made a huge difference for him. He's much faster completing his worksheets! He's almost finished with his 1st grade book. While we're off I'll be going thru the 2nd grade book to see what things we can skip (since a lot of the first few lessons are just review anyway). Big Man continues to struggle with borrowing in subtraction. It just seems to be the one thing that he can't grasp completely. As soon as I think he has it, he'll stumble. Division, however, has come to him suprisingly easily. Figure that one out.
Both boys are enjoying history. Last week we learned about Benjamin Franklin. A historical figure who was full of inventions? Perfect for little boys! Due to other things going on, we weren't able to do as much with this as I had hoped, but they still enjoyed it. They especially enjoyed playing water glasses, then watching a You Tube video of a woman playing a real armonica. We also played a Virtual Armonica. This week we were learning about George Washington and the beginning of the American Revolution. The kids favorite was the Redcoats, so we pretended to be Redcoats camping out. We ate beef jerky *yuk* and made a very un-Redcoat treat of banana boats (A banana split down the middle lengthwise, then stuffed with chocolate chips and marshmallows. Wrap in foil & roast over an open fire. Not as good as it sounds!) Since we were doing some open fire cooking, we took the opportunity to learn first aid for burns.
We have been very impressed with The Barton Reading & Spelling System, and it's only been seven weeks! That's very encouraging 
The tricks in there for the most common directional errors have been extremely helpful for Big Man. He's confusing b's & d's far less frequently, never reversing them while writing, and he is usually catching when he is reversing his p's while writing. Those are HUGE improvements. His confidence level has increased dramatically, especially his spelling confidence. He is a couple of lessons into Level 3 and is expected to write dictated phrases and sentences. These are carefully controlled of course, only dictating what has been taught and mastered. He has NEVER been able to write a sentence with zero spelling and directional errors until now. Just that accomplishment has been wonderful for both of us to see! Little Monkey is on the last lesson in Level 2. After our break, we'll finish up that lesson and he'll take the post test. He will then zoom right into Level 3 as well. His reading is very much improved as well, and he is impressed with himself that he can spell "words that aren't even words" . . . aka nonsense words.
The Great Leaps part of our day is very popular. After a certain number of stories mastered, they get a date night out with mom. Big Man already had his first, a trip to see Prince Caspian again. Little Monkey has one on hold, thanks to Hurricane Ike, but he wants to go see The Clone Wars.
Speaking of the big hurricane, as you can see we survived the massive wind storm around here. It has been amazing for our kids to see the fury of a hurricane in Indiana that started out hitting Texas. We had massive winds that knocked out power to a record number of people in this area. We feel very, very blessed that our power came back a few hours after going out. There are people in this area who won't have power for another week to ten days. We invited some people over from church who don't have power, gave them a hot meal and the use of our washing machine. Our house held up quite well, loosing close to 50 shingles. We were suddenly glad we never got around to replacing the trees in our front yard! We were one of a very few houses that didn't sustain damage from trees. We have neighbors who: had fences, sheds, etc. crushed by falling trees; a huge section of fencing simply blow away; and shingles ripped off a third of the way across the roof like someone pulled back a blanket. Here's a common sight in our neighborhood right now: 
Those are discarded tree parts piled twice as high as a mailbox. One telephone pole wasn't just snapped in half, it was snapped into thirds!!! The top third is still hanging down on the power lines. 
Today, as the kids and I were driving down the road, we saw this: 
Not the best picture for what this is: a huge movie theater sign bent backwards and twisted at probably a thirty degree angle. Schools around here are pretty much all closed for the week, and my hubby even got Monday off of work since there wasn't any power. He would have enjoyed the day off had he not been repairing the roof all day! This has really impressed upon the kids how powerful hurricanes are, and how easy we got off at our house!
Comments
Sep. 27, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by TreasureHeart
Sounds like your school year is going so well! I think I would like to add more science into our days. I need to figure that out.
Just curious what you will do during your school break? Hope it is a good time for ya'll!
God's power displayed in weather is so amazing to me. Even more so that a storm that starts in the middle of the ocean can reach so far inland! We live in North Texas and had winds and rain. Houston and the coast line is still quite a mess. I am very thankful to live here and not have to experience the full force of the storm.
Take Care.
Cassidy
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