Weekly Report - First Week Back

So this was our first week back from Christmas break and our first week back with the new baby joining in. This picture may show how it went.

Me sitting with the baby in my arms while Roo dances around in her pj's, wearing her wolf hat totally not paying attention while taking pictures using the cameras timer. That was a mouthful, but she is having jealousy/adjustment issues. These come out full force at bedtime. She loves her sister and is super sweet to her, but she has become a nightmare to deal with at bedtime. We are at a loss on how to deal with her.

These pictures are like polar opposites of one another.

Now, on to our week:

Memory Work - was mostly review and working on some of the tougher to memorize things, we  didn't add anything new this week.

Phonics (Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading) - We went back to lesson 200 and are reviewing those and moving forward.

First Language Lessons - Still working on the different nouns and how addresses work.

Writing with Ease - Completed week 13

Latin (Song School Latin)  - We finished the chapter review

French - We began to learn the different rooms in the house and how to use them in a sentence.

Math (Singapore Math) - We continued to work on subtraction and fact memorization. Today we did a few page from Evan Moors Skills Sharpening book and played a few games of Sum Swamp. I like being able to trick her into math in the guise of a fun game. Also, the online game she likes to play called Jumpstart, added a new math world which she played for an hour this morning.










History (Story of the World - Ancients) -  We learned about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt with Egypt invading Nubia and the Hyksos invading Egypt.

Science (Elemental Science) - We are still studying birds, this week was Swans, Swallows and Hummingbirds.

Art - We did a picture study of a portrait of Henry VIII and then Roo made a water colour portrait of Merle and I.

The weather has been cold (not super cold like it should be though) and I haven't fully recovered from my c-section, so this week was a pajama week for us.
We are a hat family, we all like to wear them and we all look good in them. So I like to stick my kids in hats for some reason. This is our newest hat on our newest addition. It reminds me of the Swedish Chef and I like it;) I love this age when they will let you put anything on them.

Can Zombies Homeschool?

This baby is kicking my butt this week. It's like it has superhuman powers that are draining my energy into itself. I swear those women that talk about how much they love being pregnant and how easy it is must be lying. I am mostly living in automatic robot mode, doing things mechanically until I get my energy and my brain back. I bet if you asked me my name right now, it would take at least 7 seconds of me staring at you blankly to finally be able to answer. We also had 10 billion doctor appointments this week as well for various things, follow ups etc. The one we had today was at a medical center a little over a mile away from home so we decided because it was actually a beautiful day today to walk home. My motive behind this was that Roo may potentially be quite tired after walking home and combined with getting up super early this morning and she may want to nap....I may have been able to finally have a nap (I don't think I have napped once during this pregnancy). So she decided to skip.the.whole.way.home and then proceeded to feed off this energy buzz for the rest of the day. So we achieved the opposite of my desired outcome and now I am hoping for a nice and easy transition into bed for her tonight. One can only hope. We did manage to school 5 days this week, even after all the appointments messing up our routine and attending the Remembrance day parade (pregnancy hormones and Remembrance Day parades don't mix well) It was a good thing I was wearing sunglasses.

What we achieved this week:

Memory Work - We worked on a new poem from FLL, and added in Egyptian Pharaohs. I had to search them all to verify the pronunciation though. I can't be giving incorrect information no matter how tired I am;)

Phonics - We have reached the 200's in the lessons of The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. We started learning contractions and apostrophes she grasped the concept very quick. I thought it was going to be more of a struggle than that.

First Language Lessons (FLL) - We are still learning about nouns and she began to memorize a new poem from there. I added it to our daily memory work.

Writing With Ease (WWE) - We started week (I think) the Charlottes Web Focused week. I am very happy with how her handwriting it becoming so much neater. I was even watching her deliberately going slow to ensure that her writing was as neat as she could do it.
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Latin (Song School Latin) - We worked through the review chapter and then began a new chapter that focused on the commands sit, stand, write and repeat.





Math - The addition math facts up to 10 are coming along and we worked on a few drills and math work books that I had around. I think that maybe next week we will begin Singapore again at a slower pace and still keep up the facts and drills.




French - I introduced the months and now we are constant rotation of the days of the week, weather and months with one day a week being a full on review. She likes to lay out all of the flash cards and turn them into a game. This weeks game involved Polly Pockets and dice.

Notice the Polly Pockets? They made an appearance in the above photo as well.

History (SOTW) - We studied Gilgamesh. She is loving it, and I checked out the Ludmila Zeman versions of the Gilgamesh trilogy. On her Etch A Sketch she was drawing fast snapshot pictures of the story as I read it aloud to her. She loves the character Enkidu.




Science (Elemental Science) - We focused on water animals this week, walrus, dolphins and whales. We also did a quick experiment on how the plastic rings from drink packages get stuck on animals and the results.

This is from our science. The top photo is our habitat posters (we didn't do a diorama). The second photo is our food chart. 

Music - We worked on week 2 of Arcangelo Corelli and listened to several pieces while completing the are project.

On a personal level we finally installed her princess canopy thing over her bed. It only took a 2 months of daily reminders to accomplish this goal. Next thing, assemble the crib.

This is her "finally you finished it" face.

Oh the perils of moving.....

We moved on the first (Canada Day = Bad day to move). It took all.day.long from 9:30 am to 9:00 pm to get everything over to the new apartment. Then we stayed up until 2:00 am trying to get the basic necessities set up and put away so we would have things for when we woke up. The next morning my dh had to get up at 5 in the morning to leave for the entire weekend. Which totally sucked because it left me alone to start attacking the boxes. I had to sit at home all day on Friday waiting for the satellite guy to show up because he was to be there between 8am and 5pm. It would be nice if they could pin point a more accurate time. He didn't show. The excuse of the company when I called was, there was no one home when he came. What? I stayed within 15 feet of the front door all day to ensure I wouldn't miss him. Now we won't have cable until Wednesday. Also, my phone and internet didn't transfer to the new house on the first like they were supposed to. I had to wait at home again today for the phone guy to show. He just came and he had to install a new jack because there wasn't a working one in the apartment apparently. This sucks. I am unpacking all by myself assembling beds and moving boxes and it is hot as hell outside. Although I will admit that this apartment is way less hot than the other one was. I managed to make a dent in the dining room/office/school room (a completely multifunctional room;) to hopefully get back into summer lessons on Monday, much to Roo's chagrin.  I would have posted pictures but the piles of boxes were too horrifying to keep documented. I just want to get into bed and sleep, but I probably won't from over stimulation and new surroundings (because I'm weird like that). At least I can hopefully sleep in tomorrow since I don't have to get around and wait for anyone to show.