Homeschool Week in Review: March 28 - April 1, 2016

Future homeschooler, Baby L (7 months old) is definitely part of the family - he falls asleep clutching a book!  The older kids had a good school week.  Here's a summary..



History

In The Story of the World Vol. 2, we learned about the first Russians (which were descendants of the Vikings), Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible.  "Russia" was a theme in homeschool this week, and the children enjoyed hearing Russian folk tales (checked out from the library).  Some favorite stories included The Frog Princess and Vasilisa the Beautiful.


Music

We studied Tchaikovsky, read the book Tchaikovsky Discovers America and Swan Lake.  The kids watched a full performance of the Swan Lake ballet on YouTube.


Writing

Writing was a focus in homeschool this week.  I invited the twins (age 6.5) to write something every day.  On Monday, they typed emails.  The rest of the week, they summarized the stories we were reading or wrote about nonfiction science topics.


Grammar

In Grammar Island, we learned how to identify the subject and predicate of a sentence (more specifically, an action-verb predicate and a linking-verb predicate, as well as the direct object).  I thought this would be harder for the kids to "get" than the parts of speech, but they did great.  The twins even invented a game where I give them a sentence and L says the subject, followed by E saying the predicate (while jumping on the couch, of course).


Latin

We completed chapters 2 and 3 in Song School Latin.  The kids can now introduce themselves and say how they are feeling in Latin (very useful).  Actually, we discussed the Latin roots "bene-" (good, well), "optimus" (best), and pessimus (worst), which will definitely be useful in vocabulary.


Math

We're still working on multiplication tables using games and worksheets.  L also made a "math fruit salad" where she had to use multiplication to calculate the number of pieces of each fruit (seven orange sections, cut into thirds, would yield 21 pieces, for example).


Science

The kids lost interest in botany, so we learned about the Great Barrier Reef instead, using David Attenborough's Reef website (http://attenboroughsreef.com/).  It has different topics to explore with videos and simulations, mostly relating to the effect of rising temperatures and more acidic water have on the coral reef.  The kids also enjoyed reading various science encyclopedias this week.  H (age 4.5) has been carrying a dinosaur encyclopedia with him everywhere, while E (6.5) decided that she is going to read her animal encyclopedia cover to cover.  L (6.5) enjoys flipping through illustrated encyclopedias and reading the captions.


Reading

I am reading The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling aloud to the children.