The Pretty Life: ivey league academy: week in review

Here's what we did last week!

Reading: We continued working in "Explode the Code" and also began reading out of a very old-fashioned reader called "Six Ducks in a Pond" that I found at Goodwill! Each lesson introduces a group of words and has stories containing those words; it seemed to be right on Caleb's level, and he thought the stories were funny. On Friday I selected a reader ffrom our homeschool library for Caleb to read out of since we were already done with the first lesson in "Six Ducks." He's enjoying the "Six Ducks" reader so much I managed to find the next one in the series, "King on a Swing" on Amazon. I think the series is out of print since most copies are very expensive, but the one I found is in great condition and was only about $5 plus shipping.

Spelling: We did our words for the week activities as usual, and I also had Caleb practice copying them on the dry erase board a few times throughout the week. And wouldn't you know, he aced his spelling test on Friday! It was the first time he had gotten all eight correct so he was so excited!

Handwriting: This week we started a journal for handwriting practice. We began "Draw Write Now" Book 1, which gives easy step-by-step directions for drawing something (in this case, farm animals), and then has a few sentences for the student to copy. Caleb really enjoyed this! I think our public library has a few more of these books so we might check them out when we're done with Book 1.

Vocabulary: This week's words were "breeze," "discuss," "famous," and "glance."

Math: We continued in Caleb's math workbook. He got to use his ruler for measuring and count nickels!

Bible: This week's devotionals focused on not lying, the Spirit giving gentleness, being humble, being considerate, and the Spirit giving joy.

Read-Aloud: We continued reading Pinky Pye.

Science: This week we learned about energy and electricity. We watched two different "Magic School Bus" episodes on these topics and read a few library books. We constructed a pinwheel using directions out of one of our library books; Caleb loved it but it didn't stay fastened for long, so we'll have to find a better way to make it last!

We kept the topic of electricity pretty simple for now...maybe in a year or two we'll build circuits or something, but for now Caleb knows the basic idea of how electricity works (plus I pointed out to him that every time he builds something with his Snap Circuits Jr. set, he's working with electricity!). He completed an electricity sort on Friday and we discussed what uses electricity and what doesn't.

Social Studies: This week we learned about Delaware. He colored his Delaware map and we also read a couple of books about Delaware using the Epic app on my tablet. We looked at pictures of horseshoe crabs, the Enchanted Forest, and the Punkin Chunkin events! We didn't get to cook any Delaware foods this week, but next week we'll study Maryland and Virginia so I'm sure we'll get a recipe or two from there!