There is still time to enter the Grapevine Bible Studies Giveaway! Even if you are happy with your Bible curriculum, take a moment to check this out. It's a fabulous way to to Bible study with kids in such a different way than I have ever seen! This engaging Bible study series really grabbed my in-church-since-birth girls' attention.
I also completed my very first review as part of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew! Take a peak to see what great resource we reviewed. It's an amazing online resource updated daily. Every time I visit the site I find something new! Click the picture below to read my full review.
This was our last week of school before our Christmas break. The girls have had a really hard time focusing since our houseful at Thanksgiving. I've been told this is the typical mid-year-slump fitted neatly in between two fun holidays. I remember this from my full-time middle school teaching days, but honestly had forgotten about it. Last year was a little different as our first year of homeschooling. My daughter and I were still figuring things out and since we started homeschooling part way through the year it didn't feel like mid-year to us. Through it all we managed nicely this week and I feel that we finished well!
Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 10
Grace was very happy with me this week. I'd taken a couple of weeks off from her regular curriculum in order to focus more on a couple of areas with my older girls and she made it very clear that she was displeased. This week we studied Gideon, Samson, and Ruth. As usual, the Bible story was her favorite part each day! She also really liked the finger-play letter poem this week for the letter I. She learned that, "Nothings is i-i-i-impossible for God to do!" I've been pleasantly surprised how much she remembers from week-to-week. She can consistently tell you the sounds each letter makes. Every once in a while she forgets, but when I remind her of the finger-play motion she immediately remembers! 
She also enjoyed reading her Poingo books with her reading pen. Grace's favorite discovery was the classical music she could hear on one page that matched a pre-recorded piece on our Clavinova piano. She was so excited and told us all multiple times that it was just like the piano. Grace plays with her Poingo books very sweetly while I teach the other girls...some of the time. Other times she has been intentionally trying to distract all of us and pay attention to her! The trouble is she is so cute and my girls are easily entertained by one another. She wants more and more lessons and still gets very frustrated with me when I am trying to train her to patiently wait. It is a process and hopefully it will get easier in the next few months!
Something Grace loves to do is cut. Her grandparents bought her a cutting book by Kumon that she can't get enough of! We're bought her another one for Christmas and I know she's going to be over the moon about it! By the way, what is it about this age and rubbing her head on everything? My funny little Grace rubs her head on me, the furniture, her animals, whatever. She's not itching, she just likes rubbing her hair. Her pictures are usually with tousled hair which I find adorable, but I'm just wondering where she picked this habit up from. She'll even tousle it herself as soon as I'm done brushing it!
Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 16
Beth learned about Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection this week. This is a very familiar story to her since she has been in church since she was an infant. I'm glad she doesn't get tired of hearing it! We should daily remind ourselves of the sacrifice God made through his Son, Jesus. For my girls this is just something they have always known. I'll never forget hearing my husband tell my girls the day they were born that Jesus loved them so much that He died to save them, then singing Jesus Loves Me.
Beth continues to enjoy spelling and does so well with our All About Spelling curriculum. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to start this in Kindergarten, but for Beth it has been great. I like that she's now learning how to write sentences as part of the curriculum. It has been a great followup to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. You can see her here segmenting words into their sounds. It has continue to strengthen her reading skills in addition to teach her the foundations of spelling.
Beth is our silly girl. She loves to spin a good story and make us all laugh. Most of the time my girls look very studious in their pictures...and I'll admit that I'm blessed in that they are very easy to teach! On this day Beth was very wiggly and was excited to take a silly picture after her working picture!
Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 17
After I realized Rose was ready to work full-speed through her curriculum this year I had the goad to finish Unit 17 by Christmas. We did it! She has loved learning about early American history and this week we studied Daniel Boone. She particularly likes Stories of Great Americans by Edward Eggleston. It is an older book, but very readable for her. These stories are intended to be read aloud, but since she is reading several grade levels above what I expect she enjoys reading this on her own.
Rose also learned carry subtraction this week! I was nervous teaching it because although I understand these math concepts I'm not always the best at explaining them. I did a couple of practice problems on the board, explaining along the way, then she did a couple on her own. She confidently completed all the problems in her book without a problem. I'm so proud of her!
This picture is for anyone wondering how our school room looks while we're doing lessons...
As you can see, we like to spread out!
I hope you all had a great week as well! I'll still be posting our weeks in review, but they will be filled with all the fun stuff I hope we get to do!
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