Weekly review...

This seems to work well, a weekly review. So I might do this for a while and see how it goes.

This week was a busy school week. The kids worked on tracing their letters quite a bit. Hannah has been getting tired of this quickly even though she is always excited to start and is the first to come to the table to do it. Ben is learning the correct way to draw the letters. It will be something we will have to keep practicing. We don't want our kids to have doctor's handwriting!

We went to the library on Tuesday. I feel that it is very important for the kids to learn the library, the system, how to choose books, and about the different books they have so we will be going to the library frequently. We found the non-fiction section and sat ourselves in the aisles to find some books. It was hard with Noah running around, then Ben joined him (this is when we left) but Hannah really did well. She found so many books. I tried to show them how to check out a book to see if it is one that they are interested in reading about. It is something that we'll keep working on. She found some on animals and the post office while I found some activity books that we'll work out of. Ben did find a few books on flies that he wanted to read and learn about. Really, house flies!

We started to go on night walks. We handed the kids flashlights and we walked around a couple of blocks while the kids hunted for crickets on the sidewalk. They were really good at spotting them. We had no idea how many crickets are on the sidewalk...until now! They also spotted lots of signs of fall on our walks, with all the yellow and brownish leaves (not many, really) falling on the ground.

They worked on their Alligator Pies a couple of times this week. The first time they used them they made up dialogue to go with the clothespins (alligators). The little apples kept falling off the clothespins so I'll have to buy wooden ones so the glue will stay stuck longer. They really did well with them. They also made up some little games while working on them.

All three kids played with cars and trucks or blocks (amongst other group play time), they practiced sharing with each other. The big lesson is to share so that Noah will learn how to share by observation. They are doing pretty good at that but it is still hard on the bigger kids when Noah decides that all the cars are his, screams and starts hitting them on their heads (usually with a truck in hand). He only acts this way with his brother and sister, with other kids his age he does very well with sharing.

We played together outside and bounced the ball to each other. They did pretty well, again it is a control game where they have to be able to control where the ball goes. I think that with practice, by next year they might be able to get to play 4-square! Another day the kids played soccer with Corey. Ben went to karate three times this week. Ben was rewarded with praise for helping another student with a move he was working on. The Head Instructor recognized it and made a big deal about it. It was nice for him to be noticed in a good light.

We graphed the different types of apples we bought. We had 6 different types of apples and we charted info about each one. We observed the apples from the outside and then we cut into them and observed from the inside. We used almost all of our senses: sight, smell, taste,and touch to record on the graph. Even though they couldn't read all the words on the graph, they knew what we were doing.

We celebrated with some of our homeschooling friends with a "Not back to school" party in the park. It was great fun. They played and then we did some party stuff too. Someone even brought ice cream (raw and vegan) and the kids lined up to get a cup. There was a parachute game and water balloons....and to make it a real party there were party favor bags! That made it official in my kids' minds.

They worked on their computer games for a little bit. We can't get everything in that we want to do during the week, but htere is always next week. And the good thing about this education at home is that they can work on it during the weekend and in the evenings too!

That's all I can think of right now. So until next time!