ivey league academy: week in review!

Here's what we did this week!  We had Monday off for Labor Day and had a light day on Thursday, but still managed to get pretty much everything done.

Reading:  We started the Blue Book in Hooked on Phonics and learned sounds such as "oi," "oy," "ow," and "ou."  Caleb also earned a couple of stars on his chart!

Language Arts:  We began Chapter 3 of our English curriculum.  Since the previous chapter had been about the process of making a story, I decided not to test Caleb on this.  When we attempted the Chapter 2 review last week, he got confused on certain concepts (like do you make a word web when planning the story or editing the story, or at what point do you edit?).  We will definitely visit these concepts again later in the year, so I decided to just move on to the next chapter.  We studied nouns this week, as well as when to add an "s" or an "es" to plural nouns.

Spelling:  We did List 5 in our spelling curriculum.  Caleb got 8 out of 10 correct!

Word of the Week/Journal:  Our word of the week was "palindrome."  We had fun looking up different palindromes, and we also read a book already in our homeschool library called Mom and Dad are Palindromes!  Caleb wrote a very short journal entry for "palindrome" (he wasn't really into writing that day but I made him do it anyway), then chose a short animal poem the other day.

Math:  Caleb took his second math test at the beginning of the week and then continued on with the lessons.  On Friday we revisited the concept of "carrying the 1" that we learned in first grade.  Caleb had forgotten but caught on eventually after I helped him with the first few problems.  The workbook also reintroduced telling time, and Caleb is great at that!

Bible:  Because of our crazy week (including Caleb having a very late night on Wednesday; he went to his first Braves game!), we only got to one Bible lesson this week.  We began Lesson 3, where we'll start to learn about what God is like.

Zoology:  We continued our journey in the desert this week, focusing on the spiny-tailed lizard and the fennec fox.  I helped Caleb fill out his animal record sheets, his desert habitat map, and his desert habitat fact sheet.  We also did a scientific demonstration about the fennec fox, which has very large ears to help cool it down.  I improvised a bit since the demo required the use of an instant thermometer, which we didn't have, but it still worked.  I let the water in the kitchen sink run very hot (yet not too hot to touch), and filled up a pie plate and a coffee mug.  I told Caleb the pie plate represented the fennec fox's big ears and the coffee mug represented smaller ears.  He touched the water in both vessels and confirmed they both had hot water.  We then left them for about ten minutes while he worked in his logbook.  After ten minutes, I told him to dip his finger in each one again.  This time, the water in the pie plate had cooled down and the water in the coffee mug was still pretty warm.  So the more surface area, the faster the water cools.  In the same way the big ears of the fennec fox help cool it down during the hot desert days (while also giving it excellent hearing!).

World Cultures:  This week's country was Guatemala.  Caleb filled out his country fact sheet, including coloring the Guatemalan flag.  The flag has several objects in the middle so we looked up the significance of each one on the internet, something I think we'll start doing for each country's flag since so much symbolism and significance went into designing each one!  For our craft, we made worry dolls.  We read a library book (one Caleb has checked out on his own before!) about a little boy who worries so much he can't sleep.  His grandmother gives him some worry dolls and instructs him to tell a worry to each doll and then they'll do the worrying for him so he can sleep.  This is a tradition in Guatemalan culture, almost like what a security blanket or favorite stuffed animal would be in our culture.  We used wooden pegs, embroidery thread, pipe cleaners, markers, and little stickers to decorate our worry dolls.  I made a girl and Caleb made a boy, then later on that night he got the supplies back out to make another one!

We also made two traditional recipes:  champurradas (sugar cookies with sesame seeds on top, traditionally served with coffee so you can dunk them!) and Guatemalan hot chocolate.  I did most of the latter recipe since it involved melting tablet chocolate (a hardened disk of pressed sweetened cocoa powder) with milk and cinnamon on the stove.  They were both delicious and perfect as an afternoon snack.

Read-Aloud:  We read The 26 Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths this week.  We managed to read a lot of it Thursday morning when Caleb was still fuzzy from his late night (on that day, we didn't do any school till the afternoon!).

Art:  We haven't gotten to our art curriculum since the first week!  Not stressing that much though, since our other subjects often include some kind of artistic elements too.  It would still be cool to incorporate different artists and styles though, so I'm going to take it week by week and see what we can fit in.

Links:
Country Fact Sheet (Teachers Pay Teachers)
Worry Doll Craft (Actually Mummy)
Champurradas Recipe (Flaming Tortillas)
Guatemalan Hot Chocolate Recipe (Global Table Adventure)