Week In Review- 5/11/12

This review is for the last two weeks.  But first, remember in my last post where I shared a recipe for the Strawberry Swedish Pancake Muffins?  Well, per Jeff’s request, I replaced the strawberries with turkey sausage patties (that I cut up into small pieces) and shredded colby jack cheese.  In our opinion, they taste an awful lot like Mc D’s McGriddles.  I haven’t had one of those in at least a few years but from what I can remember, they’re pretty close.  Jeff loves them.  I thought I’d share that with those of you who already tried the recipe and liked it.  These are great to make in big batches and freeze.  Just grab what you need out of the freezer, pop ‘em in the microwave and breakfast is ready.

In our homeschool:
Next week we will be going to an information meeting for Classical Conversations.  I’ve been interested in this for some time, since my friend and her son did it a while back.  I recently found out that there’s a new group starting up in my neck-of-the-woods and they’re in need of tutors (which would help us to offset the cost of the program).  I’m strongly considering tutoring…at least for one cycle…then we’ll see from there if this is something that works for us.  Anyone have any thoughts on CC, and/or the tutoring experience?  Did you like it/hate it?

Developmental/Readiness Skills:  Developing the Early Learner: Level 3
We did quite a bit of these over the last couple of weeks.  I have a goal to complete volumes 3 & 4 by the end of the summer.  Here’s what we worked on:

Visual:  Figure Ground (2), Space Orientation (2), Memory
Auditory:  Rhyming (2), Memory
Comprehension:  Language (2), Awareness (2), Category, Sequence
Motor:  Hand-Eye, Maze

Developing the Early Learner 3 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Character Building:  Child's Book of Character Building: Growing Up in God's World - At Home, at School, at Play, Book 1
We have completed this series (books 1 & 2).  I am so glad we did it and we’ll be repeating it when Owen’s older for sure!  Our final lessons covered the topics of love and generosity.

Bible:  I Can Study Jonah & Ruth Alone With God - King James Version (Alone With God Bible Studies) /I Can Study Esther Alone With God - King James Version (Alone With God Bible Studies)
We have completed the book of Ruth and are now working through the first chapter  in the book of Esther.  We won’t be learning the verses from these Bible studies.  We’ll be working on the verses suggested in the CM program.

Math:  RightStart Mathematics Level A Lessons For Home Educators
We did the following lessons:
Lesson 6- Quantities 1-8 & Ordering
Lesson 7- Quantities 1-9 & Parallel Lines & Planes
Lesson 8- Quantities 1-10
Lesson 9- Memory Games & Perpendicular
Evan already knows the quantities we studied but as I’ve mentioned before, we’re working on learning to look at them in a different way.

Right Start Math Level A VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Science:  The World God Made
We did lessons 1-9.  All of the lessons were about day 1 of Creation.
You can see in the second coloring assignment that he was in a hurry to finish (while he was coloring the football players).  He was ready for lunch and I told him that he could have lunch when he finished his work…I took my eyes off of him for a couple of minutes and he scribbled his way to lunch time.  Before I gave him lunch I had a little chat with him about always doing our best rather than rushing to get to something else that’s more appealing. 




Language Arts:  Spell to Write and Read
I’m looking forward to attending another seminar for SWR this summer.  I need a refresher on the large amount of info I received from the last seminar I attended.  I hope to begin full-fledged next fall. 

We’re continuing to learn the 26 basic phonograms.

Literature:
We listened to the rest of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis from The Chronicles of Narnia 7-Book and Audio Box Set .  Then we watched the movie .  I remember watching the old version in school when I was a kid.  The newest version is so much better.

I read aloud the following from Aesop's Fables for Children: Includes a Read-and-Listen CD (Dover Read and Listen) :
The Wolf and the Kid
The Tortoise and the Ducks
The Young Crab and His Mother
The Frogs and the Ox
The Dog, the Cock, and the Fox
Belling the Cat
The Eagle and the Jackdaw

Supplementary: 
The boys (mostly Evan) played around on ABCmouse.com
 
 I’ll be writing a review for it soon. 



You may have noticed in the picture that I cut Owen’s hair off.  I have to say that I was on the verge of tears as I did it .  His hair grows quite fast and I hate cutting it because he’s so wiggly.  I always cut Evan’s hair w/the clippers and Owen’s hair w/scissors.  While I was cutting Owen’s hair, he was being difficult so I said to Evan, “What do you think, should I do it?”  He said yes and I thought, “Ok, I’m doing it.”  So, I grabbed the clippers and made my first swipe…there was no turning back now…this is when I got a little teary and I kept saying, I can’t believe I’m doing this.  I know it’s just hair but I loved his long, blonde hair.  Jeff wasn’t too happy w/me when he found out either .  Owen looks cute w/the short hair too, but I think we’ll be growing it back out .



I snapped this picture of the boys cuddling…so cute.



Evan scored 2 goals in his last soccer game and it was published in the local paper this week.  He was so exited about that.



My tulips have bloomed.  I’ve always loved tulips and last fall we planted some bulbs and I’ve been looking forward to seeing them bloom since then.  Here’s a picture of a few of them for your enjoyment.