This week (as mentioned in my week 9 review) we embraced our new language, French! To start things off we watched some clips from Frozen in French. This was mostly done to tune their ears to what French sounds like. Getting to know the sounds of the language really helps with the rest. The kids know that movie really well, so they were also able to catch a few words here and there that they know in the movie and figure out what they are in French. For instance, from watching the movie they learned how to introduce themselves. I paused the movie and we practiced saying "Je m'appelle..." one by one to introduce ourselves.
Another thing we did for French this week was learn The First Article of Faith in French by using the song from the Children's Songbook. By the end of the week Keira knew it all, and Garrett knew most of it. I have a video of her saying it, but I can't load it, dang it!! They also practiced spelling a few of the words from that verse in their daily handwriting practice, both in English and French.
For math this week we did a lot of things from the Easy Peasy Homeschooling website (allinonehomeschool.com) for both Garrett and Keira. Garrett worked on skip counting, and Keira worked on multiplication facts and money games.
We also needed to fill out some worksheets for the program we're using (Harmony Ed), which was a little frustrating because I'm teaching them traditional math, but the worksheets they have us do use the new complicated ways. So we quickly did that and moved on to the stuff that makes sense. ;)
For English this week in addition to writing down our spelling words, we also did some journaling. All three of the kids wrote entries about their trips to Logan. Keira did hers herself, but for Garrett and Libby I had them speak it and I wrote it down for them. They drew the summary after I wrote it down. I've heard that at their ages it's better to do it that way unless they want to write, because it encourages the creative process, teaches them about how they can tell stories, and overall just encourages them to keep "writing" and to love it. With their fine motor skills still developing I've heard that it's better to encourage them to draw out stories so it's not a frustrating experience.
On another day I had just Keira do a creative writing journal entry. This is something we've really fought on in the past with school. She had to do this every week in school and she always put up a fight. So I tried something new. She, as usual, grumbled about having to write and asked how long it had to be. I told her front and back of one page. Using Story Cubes (dice with pictures on them to help the creative juices flow) she came up with a story and was doing really well. Her story wasn't near complete, but she was coming up on 1 & 1/2 pages and she was ready to quit. So, I took over the pencil from there and had her finish her story with me writing it. From there she proceeded to double the required space, and finished with a 4 page story! AND she was happy while she completed it! She went on to illustrate it, because she wanted to, not because I made her. *happy dance*
For the creative writing assignment for Garrett and Libby I just had them sit in a circle with me and we took turns rolling the dice and adding on to a story that we all created. We didn't write it down, but I think we'll do that another week. For this time we just told the story out loud. The point was to encourage the creativity more than the actual writing part for them.
As usual we did lots of reading this week. Keira read out of her library book (Wayside Stories) and Libby continued to learn new words on the Easy Peasy reading assignments. Garrett lacks a bit of confidence in reading, so I tried doing the more advance assignments on Easy Peasy and he caught on quick and giggled in pride as he read a few sentences on his own without any help from me! *happy dance, again*
Keira had a few more "lessons" this week than normal just because of her piqued interests. Because of the horse accident my back was really hurting me this week and so I spent my time a little differently. While I was laying on the couch Keira wanted to do an art assignment. I wasn't feeling up to it, but told her she could do it on her own if she wanted. So she got out her art book and supplies and got started. She did some experimental art using water colors and crayons, salt and water colors, and leaves. I was quite proud of her drive and vision in completing it!
Also, she completely made mac n' cheese by herself (I usually help her here and there), and then had questions about how mold grows so we started an experiment. We have three bags of macaroni n' cheese; one outside, one inside in a cupboard, and one in the fridge. I showed her how to start a journal entry about it and how to make hypothesis' and chart the results.
That was about it. We did violin lessons and speech as well, but because of my back we actually didn't go to PE or Park Day this week. :( Sad. Keira's excelling in violin! She now knows a number of different versions of Twinkle, Twinkle, as well as a few other songs. She's sight reading the notes on the page and learning more complicated finger patterns as well. Most of all, she's loving it! I'll give an update on Garrett in another post. But that's all from this week!
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