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Thankfully the south decided to finally thaw a bit from the cold and dry out from the rain! The girls have enjoyed a lot of time outside. Unfortunately a fever/cold also made it's round and we haven't enjoyed as much time with our neighborhood friends as we would have liked! Now that they're all better, it's sleeting outside. What a crazy spring!
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Before I got on with our week-in-review...
There is still a chance to enter two giveaways from two fabulous companies!
Click the images above to see my reviews and enter the giveaway!
Little Hands to Heaven: Unit 17
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We're just about finished with the B Book in the About Three series by Rod and Staff. She has progressed so much as a result of these simple black-line workbooks. She loves coloring the pages after she is finished so I'm glad they are black and white! I highly recommend this series and you can read my full review of them by clicking on the picture.
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Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 25
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Beth's word-wall letter was P. Her words included panda (her favorite animal), pig, pogo-stick, pumpkin, pen, pin, and Penny (the name). She has fun coming up with words and it has been a great starter for journal writing now. I really like the e-book journal I purchased at the dollar days sale for her which lets her draw pictures and fill in just a small portion of the entries. It has been an excellent tool for her and we'll continue this on into 1st grade.
I'm hoping to do a write-up of our reading/language arts program soon because I've been asked a lot about it. I will go into more detail at a later date, but for now here is what we do in the order they are added:
Heart of Dakota's Dictation
I start teaching my girls to read when they ask which has been 4 and 3 and a half so far! This is also the route Rose took via private school (k) and homeschool (1st). It left her with a very solid reading foundation which we're building on continually with All About Spelling. It seems a bit eclectic for my style, but our choices came from what we owned and what I saw working. I plan to stick to this path with Grace.
Our study of George Washington was a lot of fun this week! We learned about the cherry tree story including that it may or may not be true as well as another story of his disobedience to his mother concerning a colt! I had never heard this one before and Beth really enjoyed it. One of the activities was pretending to be a colt and George Washington riding it. Grace filled in for GW since the purpose was to follow directions (right, left, etc.) Beth did a fabulous job and I even through in some north, south, east, west directions. The only trouble she had was being able to follow the directions through the giggling!
We are almost through with the the Inside Outside book from the ABC Rod and Staff series. We'll be starting this series again with Grace next year and I will be a little sad to see them pass. My girls have all loved them and they have taught so very much. This last book focuses on wildlife in North America.
Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 27
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Arithmetic has become just a little sweeter for both girls thanks to this wonderful program we are reviewing for the TOS Review Crew! I'll be posting on this in another couple of weeks, but I an tell you now that we use it daily and the girls beg to practice math facts now! Rose particularly likes that she is beginning to learn multiplication now. Her regular math curriculum starts that in 3rd grade and she's been regularly asking to go ahead and learn multiplication. Now she can!
We're on unit 8 of All About Spelling book 3. This is one of the best phonics follow-ups I've ever heard of or seen. Rose continues to easily recall all the spelling and phonics rules she has learned with ease. This rule we focused on this week was doubling letters to protect the short vowel and using y as a vowel at the end of words. Oh yeah...and my portrait is now saying, "I am a robot!" Hmmm....
For history we studied about the naturalist, John Muir, and touched lightly on the Spanish-American War. I appreciate that Rose is being introduced to the wars now lightly. She is young, but hears about them all the time. She also learned about some of the animals in North America that have gone extinct just in the last century. She drew a Florida Black Wolf as part of her notebooking page.
For literature Rose is reading a biography about Sacajawea from Knowledge Quest. It's also a review we're doing from the TOS Review Crew. I like that it is written from her perspective and Rose is thoroughly enjoying it. Since my background is teaching literature I make up my own literature units using a variety of pages and ideas. She just finished up her mystery unit and after the biography we'll move on to historical fiction.
I'm excited to announce I'll be hosting a giveaway from Safari, Ltd! If you've never seen their amazing animal and historical figures you'll really need to check them out. It starts Monday, so don't forget to stop by next week to enter!
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