Saturday, August 29, 2009

Weekly Wrapup: Week 1



I have decided to try and write a little bit about our schoolwork for the week at the end of each week. Even if it's short I think it will still be good to have a record of what we've done at the end of the year. So, without further ado...

This was our first week of homeschooling for 3rd grade! Both Jamie and I were excited to get going. We are using Sonlight Core 2 this year with Sonlight 2 Intermediate LA and Science 2, and Horizons 3 for math. In addition we are doing "Conquering Cursive" as a cursive workbook and SongSchool Latin. I will be adding in some music theory/music reading lessons later on in the school year as we progress, but I wanted to ease in with a little less work at first.

This week in math: Completely review. Unfortunately this did not make Jamie dawdle any less. Worst length of time to complete 1 page front and back this week was 2 hours. On the up side, he had cut it down to around 40 minutes by the end of the week--but I know he can go faster. Trying to think of some creative solutions to get him to focus. We are also trying to do a Calculadders drill 2-3 times a week. This week we did Calculadders on Monday and Wednesday.

This week in history: We reviewed all of what we learned last year in the Usborne Book of World History. I did more of a question/answer format than the "reading names/dates while your child follows along" method the IG suggests, and it went well. We are forging on into new territory next week. We also started reading Explorer's News (like it), Red Sails to Capri (it's ok), and Window on the World (hated it so much I gave it away to a friend today). We are going to be looking for something good to replace WoW with--I have gotten a bunch of good suggestions from the Sonlight forums. We also started the Geography Songs book/CD. Jamie listened to the "Continents and Oceans" song and proclaimed it "One of the dumbest songs I have ever heard." Let's hope they get better! :)

This week in LA: We started Diamond Notes which so far seems to be a great writing program. Jamie read "Clara's Bookwagon" and started reading "Long Way to a New Land". We began cursive work as well as doing lessons in MCP Phonics C and Wordly Wise B. Jamie continues to have no problem at all with spelling words, and his handwriting has improved.

This week in Science: We have studied several different animals, including chimpanzees, bears, and tigers this week.

Electives: We worked through 2 lessons in SongSchool Latin this week. I am trying to alternate days with this and cursive, doing cursive on M/W/F and Latin on T/Th. Once cursive is easier for him I will move cursive in with LA every day and probably switch Latin to M/W/F and do music theory on T/Th. Jamie is enjoying learning Latin so far.

Extracurricular activities: Friends came over on Friday for a playdate and a trip to the bowling alley. The children's choir Jamie is in at church has their final performance on Sunday.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up! I'm glad you decided to join in.

We use Horizons Math, too. When my oldest was in about 3rd grade, she did that "take hours to do a page of math" thing, too. I finally printed off a blank Bingo board and told her that for each day she got her math done before the timer went off, she'd get to put a sticker in one of the squares. Once the whole Bingo board was filled up, she could trade it for something on a list of rewards I'd come up with.

Initially, I set the timer for a little longer than I thought she'd need to complete the math sheets. I thought she could easily do them in 30 minutes, so I started with 45 minutes on the timer, decreasing the time after several successful completion days.

Before the Bingo card was full, we were both forgetting to set the timer and she was still finishing in a timely manner. Dawdling over math has never become a problem for her again (she's in 8th grade now).

I don't know if that would work for you or not, but it might be worth trying.

Cheryl Pitt said...

Sounds like a great first week! I love Sonlight core, though the LA was too advanced for my oldest.

Good luck with the choir performance!

Erica said...

I hear you on the taking forever to finish something up lol. I've gone through that with my oldest, it can be very tiring. I love Kris's idea and just filed it away for future use lol!

AF Wife99 said...

Thanks for sharing your week! My oldest sometimes has the dawdling attitude on math. I think Kris's idea is really good for positive reinforcement. With my DD, I usually give her a time limit to finish the page, and if she doesn't we move on to the next thing. But if she doesn't finish school for the day, then she doesn't get to do what she wants with her free time.

Angela said...

Good to hear from you! It has been a busy summer here but I am finally back to blogging. Starting this week, LOL!

Stefanie said...

We started 3rd grade this year too! We're also Sonlighters, although we're using core 3.

Plug away with Red Sails, it gets better and better. We still laugh about that book. I tried to read it with all the characters having the proper accents. Of course I butched that but my dd loved it.

And be sure to check out videos of Capri and the Blue Grotto on you tube. BEAUTIFUL!

Joelle said...

Same story here. My oldest takes forever with everything, except, First language lesson. I actually switched math curriculum from Horizon K to Singapore Math 1A this year, because he complained there was too much writting and was therefore taking FOREVER. It still takes him a long time, but he is happier with it. Hope you have a good 2nd week.

bafleyanne said...

I LOVE the Bingo idea--I am definitely going to give it a shot. We did have a much better morning with math today for some reason though, but of course he then made up for it by stalling on copywork. It's always something!

Joelle: we had previously tried Singapore, I used the Singapore Earlybird when we did preschool work, but he seems to feel like the Horizons is more "fun" overall--he had started not to like the Singapore for some reason. His big stumbling block with Horizons is the problem sets. He usually skips over them and leaves them to do last--I have been trying to explain to him that if he does them where they come up in the lesson, he only has to do a few problems at a time rather than like 30 all at once! I can see where that wouldn't be fun! I think he has finally gotten the idea of doing that and hopefully that will help math run a little more smoothly.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions! :)