Week in Review: September 23-27

Another week has come and gone. We read, we calculated, we learned. Maybe this should be our mantra!






Little Hands to Heaven: Sigh...

That's all I've got: a sigh. Grace is almost four and she's been testing me in a lot of areas. It isn't that she doesn't want to do school, there were just other things which needed attention this week! We didn't really go through a terrible twos or threes. She of course tested us, but not to the extent her older sisters did at that age. This week there was a lot of time spent seeing if Mommy and Daddy really mean what they say.

She's spent a long time at the kitchen table after refusing to eat the very thing she asked for breakfast just minutes before and time in her room for being sassy with her responses to me. She's told me she's mad at me for making her lay down for her nap and yelled at her sisters for not doing what she told them to do. It's tough being almost-four! Although at the moment I think it is tougher being the mommy of this almost-four-year-old!

We did manage to get a few reading lessons in and she enjoyed some more time on the computer using Reading Kingdom and a handful of other learning games. I'm hoping this week will go better since Friday she seemed to be quite cooperative.

Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory: Unit 6

I think I am enjoying Beyond Little Hearts as much as Beth! This is my second time going through the guide, but the first time was with Rose during our first year of homeschooling. I had a hard time enjoying and appreciating it then because I felt such pressure. I'm really having fun with all the history readings and activities.

She did a "scrubbing day" just like the ladies in Holland did and she really enjoyed it. She scrubbed our stove completely and now it is shining!

The poem we studied was about the months of the year. She really enjoyed putting the poem in the correct order and showing off her knowledge of the months!

She is really enjoying her timeline now! At first she was so nervous about being able to do it correctly, but now she just goes right ahead. I usually write it out for her on another piece of paper so she can see just how to space it and to give her a sample of the picture.

For grammar this week we looked at question words. She was supposed to draw a question word from the pile and ask a question starting with the word about what I had hidden in a bag so she could figure it out. 
She picked "what". 
Her question?
"What is in the bag?" 
Well played little girl. Well played.

Preparing Hearts for His Glory: Unit 3 (2nd half)
Rose finished up the second half of unit 3 in Preparing this week and begged me to start going full-speed because she just couldn't handle not reading more for history! I explained part of the reason we were still going half-speed was because it was taking her so very long to do her work each day and honestly to even get started! We're doing at least one more 1/2 speed unit and we'll see how it goes.












Math is finally going really well. I found a wonderfully large pdf collection of math fact pages for her so she doesn't have to copy the problems while she's learning the facts. While addition facts seemed to take forever, this is going much better! I'm not sure the difference, but at the moment she is flying through her times tables! Click on the picture to the left to see the website. I happened to stumble upon it one day and I'm so very glad I did!

This is the newest book we're reviewing for the TOS Review Crew. I seriously can't tear her away from this! She loves this novel and has been taking it with her everywhere she goes. She very much takes after her mother and both of her grandmothers. I am just thrilled to watch her world open up as she continues to devour great literature!

Rose once detested spelling. She now loves it and actually asks to do spelling. We follow the HOD suggestion for dictation twice a week and do a unit from All About Spelling twice a week. I really believe both methods have improved her spelling and am grateful for the change in her attitude this year. She doesn't always get everything right the first time, but she now has the skills to make corrections without me just having to tell her how it is spelled. She has also started proofreading her own writing better and checking herself for mistakes. Yay! 

We are studying a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson during each unit this year. She is supposed to share the poem in a special way so she rewrote Rain using the quill pen she got from Williamsburg. She's getting pretty good at it although she does have to make lots of cross-throughs and corrections! 

I'm hosting another wonderful giveaway from Applewood Books through this coming Friday. Make sure you take a minute to enter by click on the link! The choice for the winner is going to be difficult. We loved all four books so much!

We had the chance to have two field trips in one at the end of this week! Take some time to read my review of the Children's Museum of Alamance County...

...and the Art of Brick exhibit hosted by the Alamance County Arts Council.