Homeschool Update: Week of 9/21/20

Morning Time

• Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Windsong" by Judith Nicholls, "Auguries of Innocence (Excerpt)" by William Blake, "Summer Goes" by Russell Hoban, "Noisy Noisy" by Jack Prelutsky, and "The Swallows" by Elizabeth Coatsworth
• Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "How did medicine start?"; "When did people start cutting their hair?"; "When was soap first made?"; "Who invented shoes?"; "Who made the first false teeth?"; "How did forks originate?"; "When did man begin to drink milk?"; "Where did ice cream originate?"
• "Lead Kindly Light" sung from The Vatican II Hymnal
• "The Wabash Cannonball" sung from Wee Sing Fun 'n' Folk 
• Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): Portrait of Baby with Dog by Joseph Whiting Stock
• Listening to Hungarian Dance No. 2 by Johannes Brahms
• Lesson 3 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 
• Liturgical year: Padre Pio (9/23)
• Questions from the 500 Questions Game Book (Parragon Books, 2017) for fun on Friday
• Memory work: M. recited "If" by Rose Fyleman and C. recited "The Fairies" by William Allingham
• Recording weather, including temperature, sky color, wind strength, and clouds, as well as animal activity and observations about the leaves. 

History

C. spent the week carefully copying all the events we decided to put on her timeline onto a large piece of paper in chronological order. On Friday, she added some illustrations.

M. read about Mohammed and the development of Islam in A Picturesque Tale of Progress. She wrote and illustrated a narration about Mohammed and filled in a chart listing the five pillars of Islam. 

Table Time 

One day, I moved the girls outside to do kinetic sand during this time. The other activities for the week were lacing cards (which only M. wanted to do), the "Doll People Dress Up!" coloring page from this set of printables (which M. and C. both loved), and sticker collages. 

Math

M. and C. did the usual Singapore and Khan Academy math work. M. is still doing weights and measures (mostly kilograms) in Singapore 3B and C. is still working on addition and subtraction in 1B. They also did a chapter each in Life of Fred on Wednesday. M. is in Goldfish and C. is in Apples. 

Preschool

E. is kind of a preschool dropout right now. She likes the idea of school, but would prefer that it consist primarily of snacks and videos. She doesn't like most of the things the older girls did at her age, so I mostly just say yes when she asks me to read aloud and offer activities when she seems receptive.  

Science

In our second week with Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding, we did Lesson B-2: "Distinguishing Living/Natural Nonliving and Human-Made Things." This included organizing this set of items into their proper categories and discussing how we can tell by looking at something whether it is alive or not. 

Reading and Writing

M. continued working her way through the worksheets in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills: Grade 3, and she also wrote a few more sentences in her story about Mr. Albatross. (See last week.) 

C. and I finished our shared read-aloud of The Boxcar Children. 

We also started a new lunchtime read-aloud: Magic by the Lake Edgar Eager. 

Music

M. and C. both practiced piano and recorder for 15 minutes every day this week.

Physical Education

We have been skipping the daily exercise video in favor of running on the deck. I think that is likely to continue until the weather turns uncomfortably cold.