ivey league academy: week in review

This week's chalkboard had a Jungle Book theme!

Reading:  Caleb continued in his workbook and learned more about adjectives.  We also kept reading through his A King on a Swing reader.

Spelling:  We did Week 17 of our spelling curriculum and Caleb got a perfect score on his test for the first time ever!  The words were a little easier than last week's words, plus we did some hands-on activities for practice, like spelling each word with Scrabble tiles and writing it in salt.

Handwriting:  We continued in his handwriting workbook.  Caleb admitted he was a little bored with it, so on Thursday I let him write in his journal instead.  I recently ordered a different handwriting practice book that has the student copy down a riddle or joke each day; it came in the mail this weekend so we'll start that on Monday to see if it helps motivate him.

Vocabulary:  This week's words were "panic," "interest," "final," and "direct" (the verb).

Math:  We continued in Caleb's math workbook.  

Bible:  We continued in our His Mighty Warrior devotional.

Read-Aloud:  We finished Peter Pan this week!  Caleb liked it overall but we both were disappointed that there were such big words in there; it made it hard for Caleb to understand what was going on at times.  He requested The Wizard of Oz next; we don't have that in our homeschool library and our public library's copies were all checked out, but I found the ebook version for free so I'm reading it off my tablet.  The ebook actually contains the first five books so we have the option of continuing the series if he wants!

Science:  This week we learned about food chains.  We watched the food chain episode of "The Magic School Bus" and read a few books about food chains, including a funny one with poems about how animals eat (butterflies tasting with their feet, "cowgirl" spiders swinging their web strands like lassos to catch prey, etc.).  I've been seeing fun art projects about food chains where each animal is placed inside the next animal's open mouth; they were pretty detailed for first grade but then I found a freebie online that had a simple version for this age!  I made a prototype the night before, and also traced the shapes onto construction paper so Caleb could cut, paste, etc.  He was also inspired to draw a sea food chain that he saw in one of our library books!

U.S. Geography:  This week we studied Indiana.  Caleb colored his state page and we read books about Abraham Lincoln (who spend some of his childhood in Indiana) and popcorn (Indiana is part of the "corn belt" and Orville Redenbacher, a citizen of Indiana, helped boost its production of popcorn).  We also discussed the race track at Indianapolis and Caleb colored his own race cars!

Homeschool Group:  This week we had our monthly park day and met at a local playground.  It also happened to be Veteran's Day so Daddy was able to tag along!

Links:
Food Chain Craftivity (Teachers Pay Teachers)
Race Car Coloring Page (Color Kiddo)