Weekly wrap-up

It's time for a wrap-up and join Kris @ Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

This weeek was a regular week, with no major happening except for the normal usual regular learning.

We've moved on in our Geography. Zachary has been enjoying Daily Geography Practice, Grade 1 , where we are learning about maps, lands, oceans, rivers, plains, canyons, deserts, plains,  cities, directions. These days that is his favorite subject along with Science and, what is supposed to be a weekly subject, has become almost daily, and he always wants to do it first.

In Science we have moved on to learning about  the next kingdom, Plants, after learning about the animal kingdom last week. We have also learned some things about electricity, as Zach had been interested in that. I was able to finally get some books from the library on the subject, and he has been reading them, as well as watching a few videos on the topic.

Math and Reading went on as planned.

In his Singapore Math he has reached subtraction within 100 and that has been more of a challenge, but he is getting there. We are just  going through it, and will be done with the book probably by Easter, at which time I am planning to do review and games to solidify all the concepts he has touched on.
Singapore math is a fast pace curriculum and emphasizes mental learning and calculation. It fits Zach very well who is not a hand-on learner so much, although I do pull out the abacus and some manipulatives from time to time to illustrate the concept, or when he is having a hard time figuring it out. But the problem is sometimes you are not sure of how well he actually gets it. I looked up what the concepts will be in the next series of books and realized that they do come back over the same concepts. Overall we really like it.

For some reason he is not as excited with the First Language Lesson as he used to at the beginning, probably because it is becoming a bit more technical and he does not like details, but he still enjoys it somewhat. We've been covering contractions, the different kinds of verbs, which includes going through all these helping, linking verb lists, and have started on adjectives. We have also started dictation, which of course he is not thrilled about, since he really does not like writing, but I can see the potential. To minimize the amount of printing he has to do I have been skipping the copywork part.

We also have been doing some spelling using Natural Speller, by writing out words or short sentences made up of words from the grade 1-2 list.

Another subject he has been doing is handwriting using  Manuscript Writing ! by School Zone. And he actually does not mind doing these. 

Johann has also been doing some math and phonic worksheets and playing lots of games.

Yesterday we had a great time going to a concert put on by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, where we got to listen to great music and fun ones like a paper bag quartet concierto, and a typewriter concierto (which was my favorite). The concert ended with a piece called paddywalk where the lead musician was a tapdancer. The piece was based on This Old Man musical idea; it was pretty cool.

The rest of the time this week was filled with lots of free pretend play (give it a guess), lots of reading and computer time, and of course our regular circle time with lots of singing.

Have a great day,