Caz

Another week has flown past!    We started back to our Home Ed networks weekly activities for the term on Monday and it was very obvious how much the boys missed them over the long break! (too many public holidays on monday at the start of the term = short term! :(    Without further adieu... I'll get on with it!

Math:  Frodo worked on his multiple digit subtraction with regrouping this week.  I was a bit draggy about the math this week though, so we will probably work on it a bit more this coming week as well.  Sam is skip counting by 5s and struggling with why on earth you would want to LOL.  Tried sitting us around the table and counting by 5's  using each of our hands for a visual aid, but he still said 11? lol  So I'm going to find the skip counting songs cd and see how he goes with that.

Language arts:  Frodo - Reading comprehension lesson, Grammar Once a Week (revision for the first part of the book).  He also did a solar system grammar 're write' where there was a paragraph with no capitalization or punctuation and he had to write it correctly below it.   He did exceptionally neat work for him!  He also did a couple of pages in his cursive handwriting book.  He read two chapters of his 'Knights of the Round Table' book and the Magic Tree House 'Knights & Castles' study guide.   Sam - did a couple of episodes of Reading Eggs,  worked with his new upper & lower case alphabet matching game (made by moi) a bit, and we worked on starting sounds of words throughout the week at completely random times :)  He also did a couple of pages of his handwriting book and got up to the first section review. 

History: This week we were on Monks & the medieval Christian church.  The boys didn't really 'get' why certain countries rulers thought that everyone had to have the same religion as they did.. and I don't either really.  I simply had to tell them that sometimes things people do in history just don't make sense.  We did our reading in the Usborne encyclopedia, and Frodo read his Knights of the Round Table chapter, and answered a couple of questions about what he read. (his comprehension has come a LONG way this year!)   For our history craft of the week, we made illuminated letters like the medieval monks did in their monasteries, as well as decorated a peice of notepaper with patterned borders.

Science: Busy week science wise around the Hobbit home!   I finally went and purchased the Earth & Space Real Science Odyssey from Pandiapress.com, to go along with our studies this year.  While I did work out our plan for the year and we'll be sticking to that, I decided I liked some of the activites in their free preview enough that I wanted to add it to our program :)  This week we studied Neptune and how it is SOMETIMES the 8th planet but for 20 out of 248yrs, Pluto skips in line and Neptune becomes the 9th.  We also learned about Pluto and how it USED to be a planet, but was demoted a few years ago and is now a dwarf planet.

The exercises were just great, and the kids enjoyed doing the 'experiments' and filling out their Lab reports!  They've asked if we can do a few of the activities for the planets we have already covered... who am I to say no to kids asking for science?? lol  

They also had their first Professor Jellybean class (see previous post!) and the kids LOVED IT!  And we watched 'Our Earth' on ABC kids, the subject was plate tectonics, continental drift and volcanos.  Frodo was riveted so that was a success.

Lote/Sose:  ABC program on Hindi wedding traditions...very interesting stuff. 

Art:  Class with Miss Liz on Monday was their first drawing class.. the boys had a bit of trouble at first, getting back into the routine.  Frodo left class well before it was over *sigh*, and Sam was a bit confused and ended up with an unrecognizable castle lol.  SO, I chatted with Liz and got the low down on what the goal was and the boys & I sat down Friday and repeated the project.  The idea was to use basic rectangle & squares, putting them together to create a castle.  The boys cut templates then positioned & traced them.  THEN the fun of embellishing by adding knights and scenery and DRAGONS began!

Health & PE:  Gymnastics class for both on Monday, MUCH scooter riding outside.  Merry had HIS very first tots gymnastics class as reported earlier, hoping it goes a little better this week lol. 

Other stuff  :D  We baked our favouite eggy pies this week and Frodo did ALL the grating (except the cheese which is too hard he says.. and I agree lol), we planted the last of our seedlings and the boys have been doing the daily watering and checking for bugs etc..  Merry had playgroup and enjoyed hanging out with the other kids, riding bikes, doing puzzles and playing with lego.  

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