Friday, January 29, 2010

Weekly Report 1/25-1/29

This is my first one so please bear with me:) As stated in my previous post, my dd has been quite the handful this week. We still managed to accomplish a fair amount though.

Phonics (OPGTR ) - We are on lesson 89 and finished the word scavenger hunt today. Which is where I write words from previous lessons on cards and she places them where the card says. For some reason though, I seemed to have a lot of the cards stuck on me. We learned all the different ways to spell the long a sound, a_e, ai, ay, ey, and ei. She seemed to grasp this concept quickly and read them off the white board and with the magnetic letter tiles.  Nightly we have a you read I read ritual. She reads a Bob book to me and then I read her a story. She seems to enjoy this and has her books picked out by bedtime.

Spelling (Spelling Workout A ) - We just began this two weeks ago and she seems to be able to zip through quickly so far. We do 2-3 pages a day. I have to read the instructions and she goes through the lessons while I watch. This seems to have taken the place of Explode the code 2 which I manage to get her to do 1-2x a week. She doesn't like ETC though which makes it tough. The Spelling Workout book seems to fill the void fairly well though, so I am sure we will be done with ECT before the end of summer.

Spelling Workout A lesson


Math (Saxon Math 1 ) - We complete 4 lessons and one assessment this week. We are still trudging through this with plans to finish, but neither one of us enjoy this curriculum. I have intentions to switch to Singapore Math for her Gr. 1, as it seems like it will be a better fit for us. Until then though we will work on our lessons and drills. She learned to tell time to the hour this week and counted to 100 following her number chart without any prompting from me, (for the first time) and she learned to count by 10's to 100, count dimes up to $1.00 and is learning to skip count by 2's (not quite grasping this yet).

Doing her math drill sheet

Geography (My First Map Book - By Apple Press ) - This is a simple beginners map book that uses fairy tales to implement skills. It focuses mostly on Canada which is great because I want her to get a better understanding of her homeland before we embark on a more in depth world geography next year. This week we learned about placement on a map, eg. above, below, middle. 

Handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears ) - Getting handwriting down is close to pulling teeth because she seems bored by it. Although her handwriting is not very good we are only doing 2 lessons a week at the moment. I plan to raise it to 3-4 gradually again, I just need to find a better time to schedule it.

Art (local art school) - We have a once a week Art class downtown that we go to. This week there was a blizzard so by the time we got there, we were covered in snow head to toe. It probably didn't help that I had to drop off library books and some packages on our walk there.........while holding a coffee which was ice cold by the time we arrived. We made clay masks this week. I posted about it earlier so I won't repeat it. Next week we are making jewelry boxes.

Music - I have been working with technical help for the last three weeks trying to get my MusIQ Homeschool disk to work because it won't install properly.  I am excited to get this working though, so we can begin our piano lessons. Other musical side notes, Roo LOVES Abba. Really, really loves them. We had to download it onto her ipod for as well as she constantly puts it on in her CD player. The movie Mama Mia fascinated her and when we listen to an Abba cd she can place every song to all the parts of the movie. The Mama Mia musical is returning to Toronto in June and we have plans to bring her, but the wait is driving her nuts.



 Listening to Abba on her ipod



Playing her guitar along with the Abba cd after lunch. 

8 comments:

Daisy said...

Great pictures! I love the guitar.

Skip counting by 2's is a bit tough at first. It helped to have my son count one number out loud and then the next on in his head. We also did a lot of pairing socks, I seem to remember.

Great week. I love your header picture.

Sara said...

Thanks for the counting tips. I'll try that with her, it make click better. I wish I could take credit for the header picture, but I can't. I keep it as a reminder of places I want to see in my world travels (finger crossed) some day.

Keri said...

Your daughter's glasses are great! Looks like good, well-rounded week, and I enjoyed reading your first report. Looking forward to lots more. :-)

Tonia said...

What a cutie! Welcome to weekly reporting - it's a great way to keep a journal of your homeschooling journey. We used the "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" rhyme for skip counting. I'd whisper the one and have dd yell the two and so on - really emphasizing the even numbers.

Mandy in TN said...

LOL, guess what is in our CD player? Yep, ABBA. We like to dance around the room to it and we are also Momma Mia fans. :-)

Chucki said...

Oh, your daughter is so cute!

We've only seen Mama Mia on video. It was great.

Cyn said...

What a great 1st post! Another ABBA fan here!...lol

Sara said...

Thanks a lot for all of the tips and encouragement! I really appreciate it. It feels good to be able to sum up the week and realize you accomplished more than you thought you did.