Welcome 2014...a week with unit 19!

          Happy 2014!!!  We had a wonderful break and enjoyed the holidays together with friends and family. I finished mapping out and planning our school year and hope to finish by the time Paul is out of school for summer. I am so excited for this new year! Last year the girls made a resolution to read 100 books by years end well I am super happy to report that Audrey read 275 and Ally read 350 for a total of....625 books!!! Proud does not even describe how I feel about them! This year I told them to just keep reading and focus more on reading chapter books instead of the little picture books! 

       It took a bit to get back into our school groove but we did it and had a great time getting back to HOD and learning. I had my mom do school with them on Tuesday as I had to take my 3 hour glucose test and was not feeling well the rest of the day. Daddy was home for a few days to due to the weather canceling school for him. Here is how our week went. 

Unit 19: Life for Puritans in Colonial Times 

Verse: 1 John 4:10-11 

Song:  We Love Him 

Poem: Monday's Child 

Bible: We read Psalm 119:105-112 and talked about how God is the light of the world and how the bible is given to us by Him to help us walk in the darkness or in times of trouble. I had all three kids walk through the dark house with a flashlight and recite the key verse of our text "The Lord is a lamp unto my feel and a light unto my path." Ian had the best time with this and I love hearing his three year old voice recite the verse.

Story time: We finished reading or listening to the Railway Children. I found some really neat audio of it and the girls would listen to it while I worked with Ian on a few things. The girls enjoyed the book and we finished our mystery a week ahead of schedule! I am looking to find a copy of the movie for us to watch. The girls wanted to make a word search for the book as an ending activity.

Spelling: ay words Phonics: Ally old, oll, alk and Audrey long vowels with a silent e focus
The girls did well in their work this week. Here is a sample of one thing we did with our words this week.

History/Geography: In history we learned about a young girl named Remember Biddle and how she had to stay home all alone and took on all the chores and even met an Indian who wanted to capture her! The girls were very interested in that story. We also discussed how the Sabbath day was celebrated and the girls connected that to when we read Little House in the Big Woods as well as comparing and contrasting that to our church. In our church kids in first grade and up sit out in service. The girls could not imagine sitting and listening for 3 hours! 

Science: We had two science lessons this week one was over how the sun does not move but rather the Earth does and the other  was on the parts of the ear and how sound travels. The girls enjoyed the sun experiment the most this week.

" Once upon a time there was five silly racoons named Daddy, Mommy, Audrey, Macey, and Emmy. Emmy was having a birthday paraty. At midnight the party started. There was a treehouse, there was balloons. Then they all went out for lemonade. Emmy got a new pair of sunglasses. That is all about my story. " 

Writing: We did alot of writing this week! We started with a journal entry where the girls wrote about their Christmas. Then we used our story books and stickers to write a silly story. We also worked on neat handwriting, especially for Audrey! The best thing the girls and Ian did was write letters to their new pen pals! I found a fellow HOD mom  in the BLHFHG Facebook page with children similar in ages to mine, they live in Illinois. We found their state on a map and looked up their pictures on Facebook. The kids cannot wait to get their first letter!

" Once upon a time lived a pig named Ian and a princess named Audrey. Pig Ian became princess Audrey knight. One day knight Ian went to see a baer namd Ally about how to be a knight. one day a dragon came to get pincess Audrey but knight Ian savd her. Thay livd happily ever after. "

Reading: In reading we are on the Nature Science Reader and the girls are reading it well and comprehending but are also enjoying it! They are not big non fiction readers but like this book. I had them do a compare and contrast activity in their reading journal about the wasps they read about. I also had them do a reading comprehension sheet on their own for practice in reading and answering written questions. They did super!
                                     

Math: We started in our new book, Singapore 2A and the girls did well! We worked on comparing numbers and working with hundreds. They had fun using the base ten blocks! Ian used them as well to practice his counting skills. 

Art/PE/Computer/Music/Enrichment:  For these activities I let the girls pick! They did learning games on the computer, Wii for PE as well as a video, piano practice for music and lessons, a lesson in our extra art book on lines, and then their Mindware books for enrichment. 

We had a busy week but a fun week with lot of learning! I cannot believe we will be on unit 20 and are over halfway done with Beyond!