A Hillbilly Smile.....or Redneck Depending Where You Are From

So Roo's top two front teeth came out this week and this is how it went.

They were extremely loose but she refused to let me work at them so I just left them alone. On Monday she was trying to avoid brushing her teeth at bedtime and hid under the covers. When I whipped them back somehow one tooth got snagged or something (she must have been under there with her mouth wide open...strange) but never the less she came out with a shocked look and a tooth in her hand. The other tooth was hanging on sideways barely, so it looked like it was one tooth in the center of her mouth. When she smiled I burst out laughing and told her that it looked like a hillbilly smile. What do you think?





After 3 days of that, she let me take the tooth out on Thursday. She was very excited at 6:15 am the next morning when she woke me to show me that the tooth fairy left her ten dollars. The tooth fairy really needs to keep smaller change in the house.

We did school in 4 days this week because a) I am tired, b) it's hot and that makes me crabby, and c)We had an Opthamologist appointment on Friday. You could tell  Roo was taught reading by using phonics because when she did her eye exam chart she used the letter sounds instead of the letter names;) 

Roo's dance recital was last Friday. They were supposed to be Tinker Belle like fairies and they danced to It's Not Easy Being Green. She was nervous.

But apparently she is not nervous when she video tapes herself dancing. This video makes me think that she should be taken out of ballet and placed into hip hop. I had no idea when she filmed this video when I saw it, but then I remember her yelling "Mom, Where's my leather jacket? I need it for something".

Now on to what we finished this week and last.

Memory Work -  Nothing new has been added, we are just working through our memory box to ensure that everything is being memorized and retained.

Spelling (All About Spelling) - She finished Level 2 lesson 3 and 4 this week. 

First Language Lessons - Daily review

Writing with Ease - Completed week 36 of copy work and narration exercises from The Wizard of Oz. We are now done it and have slowly started Handwriting Without Tears Cursive. 

Latin (Song School Latin) - Review

French (Nallenart) - We learned about time, and numbers 30-59.

Math - Using our abacus we did 2 pages of Math Mammoth 1B (we only have 2 sections left) each day and one exercise from Singapore Math a day too. We continued with math facts online using XtraMath. She is plugging along and each day more go into the mastered list. This only takes about 5 minutes a day.

History (Story of the World) - We completed Ch 36 The First Roman Prince, Ch 37 Birth of Jesus and Crucifixion, and Ch 38 The End of the Ancient Jewish Nation and Ch 39 Nero the Evil Emperor, and Christians in the Catacombs.

Science (Elemental) - Our plant study is almost done and this week we completed Nuts, Cones and Spores as well as Stems.

Geography - Every day she reviews her Canadian provinces and territories as well as Europe via Sheppard Software. I really need to dig in my heels and figure out how I am going to implement The Core's method for Geography before I have to return it to the Library.

These are my thoughts on curriculum for next year (grade 2). Some of these I already have on my shelves. Edited to add some changes.

Language Arts

First Language Lessons 2

Writing With Ease 2

All About Spelling 2 and 3

Handwriting Without Tears Cursive

Math

Math Mammoth 2A/2B

History

Story of the World 2 - Middle Ages

Activity Guide for SOTW 2

Science 

Elemental Science Earth Science and Astronomy

Geography

Ideas from The Core 

Expedition Earth done secularly

Foreign Language

Latin for Children A

L'Art de Lire 1 - French

Art and Composer Study

Art - Meet the Masters Online. I asked around on the WTM Forum about Mac compatibility and they said it would work. I really wanted to use this program but the Internet Explorer necessity scared me away, but I have since been told that I can use my Safari Browser without issues. Yay!

Composer - a study I will put together (presumably one composer a month from the middle ages period) 

I always feel so late with my Weekly Report

Although it is technically still Friday, I always feel so late posting. Especially when you see other posting  weekly reports Thursday, friday morning etc, all way before I even think about it. This was our week back after a nice break to visit my parents last week. I think she was on over stimulation mode this week though, because it was hard to get her back into the groove. I'm tired and it is really stuffy hot in here so I'm sure this will be short and to the point. Roo lost her second tooth last week with a little help from her Nanny;)

Here she is displaying her two missing teeth while wearing headphones to ignore me.

We are on lesson #128 in the OPGTR Phonics and we have really slowed down in order to try to get these rules to stick. I honestly don't think I even realized how many rules there really were until I opened this book. She has been reading a few pages of Green Eggs and Ham by herself everyday and the sounding out is getting less and less. With Spelling Workout A we finished lesson 16 which still has easy enough words to spell that she hasn't had any wrong on her spelling test/review yet. I get immense satisfaction from seeing the growth like the words she struggled with last month are now offering no issues.

In an earlier post I decided that we were going to stop with the Saxon Math. I picked up workbooks last week and decided we will use those over the summer until the next year begins and we stat Singapore. It wasn't worth the fight or tears anymore and it was frustrating for both of us.

This was week two for L'art de Dire for us and it is enjoyable and short. At the beginning of the week we go over a new concept and then we repeat and practice is everyday. It usually takes about 5 minutes and there is a review of last weeks stuff as well. This week were learned introductions and the use of he and she. Il s'appelle, Elle s'appelle, Comment s'appelle-t-il and Comment s'appelle-t-elle. The book comes with flash cards to use and as I held each one up, she then had to tell me if it was Il s'appelle or Elle s'appelle and then say the name of the person on the card. It was fun.

In front of the library posing with the first fully bloomed flowers I have seen this season.

In art class this week she made a wooden spoon person that had a bottle body and various things for decoration. She chose to give it clown features (cut from a magazine), feather wings and a halo (which she lost). I think she called it a fairy clown. I call it a little bit creepy:)




I just got a call to say my book I ordered from inter library loans came in and I am excited to read it to Roo. It is book one of a three books series on evolution. This one is called Born with a Bang by Jennifer Morgan.



Book two is on order because who knows how long it will take for it to arrive.

Weekly Report

On Monday Roo's tooth that had been very loose last week was now extremely, I think she might swallow it super loose. I said that she was to work at it because I wanted it out by bedtime that day. By the way she carried on you would think I told her that all of her teeth were being pulled out. The problem was quickly solved when daddy came home and asked to look at it;) A quick flick of the finger and it was almost out. All she had to do was poke it with her tongue and voila. When she tells the story to people, it involves her doing it herself and how brave she was......selective memory.

First toothless smile.

This week in phonics we covered most of the oo sounds. I never really thought about how the oo sound can come from so many different letter combinations, many not involving the letter o at all.  I'm not sure if she totally got it so next week will probably be a review of all the oo sounds again. I am still using the Blend Phonics (for review) and Ordinary Parents Guide combo. It seems to work as well as liven up the lessons a bit. In spelling she finished lesson 12, passed her spelling test and has begun a review of lessons 6-12.
In math this week we worked on drawing line segments, sorting items, tallying numbers for counting objects and skip counting by 5's. The tallying part she isn't totally understanding so we are trying to tally different objects several times a day to build her confidence in them.

Art class is finished for the term so this week she decided she wanted to try drawing things on her sketch pad. On Thursday she wanted to draw the characters from the Arthur books/television show and below is her drawing of D.W. that she drew from me pausing the t.v. so she could copy it.

Drawing of D.W.

Geography this week was a brief look at Asia, its location on the map, what oceans surround it and what familiar animals live there. It is usually a quick and to the point lesson that can be expanded on if her interest or questions lead us there. She then decided to go take her Mousetrap game and see if she can redesign the trap.




Mouse Trap overhaul.

Striking a pose outside the library while trying to scope out the birds in the trees.

We went to the library this morning where we spent about and hour going through books and playing and then we took the bus home. For some reason at our stop Roo didn't want to get off the bus using the back door like we usually do. The problem was, I got off first and was trying to reach in to get her and the door started to close. Me thinking the bus is going to leave with my kid still in it pushed my body against them to keep them open while I yanked her out. But I couldn't get myself out completely with the doors shutting and it closed on my leg. It didn't hurt because there was padding on the door frame, but the bus began to drive away while my leg was in the door. People on the bus shouted for her to stop, but wow, I thought buses has sensors or something like elevator doors do. What if I was a kid or an elderly person, there could have been some serious damage. So after that I didn't really feel like a lot of schooling so I gave her a lesson on bus safety and then we watched the NOVA movie called Becoming Human which is a new 2010 release and was actually quite good. Roo kept forgetting the name Neanderthal and called them Niagara Falls instead. We did read aloud from the book Evolution Revolution by DK  for science/history,







and we ended the day with a world geography computer game. My week started off with our first tooth fairy visit and ended with what could have been a serious accident. We did get a lot of good library books though, and I managed to keep hold of them while the bus was leaving with my leg;)