Reading: I decided to try another literature-based reading curriculum with Caleb. I find he does better (and stays more engaged) if there's a story to read and hands-on activities to do along with it. So we started a fun book I found at Goodwill awhile back; it's the teacher copy so I just make copies of the pages we need. This week's book was Cliffored at the Circus by Norman Bridwell. We checked out a library copy and Caleb read it through with minimal mistakes! Then every day we'd do a different activity related to the book, such as a word search, putting events in order, etc. Then at the end of the week he made a fun evaluation of the book in the shape of a bag of popcorn. In addition to this curriculum, we're also going to do a "word ladder" every day to help Caleb's spelling and sounding out words skills.
Language Arts: This week Caleb finished his final draft of writing instructions, and then we reviewed for our Chapter 4 test which he did very well on. This curriculum often has cumulative reviews as well, which I've decided to take advantage of since I don't want Caleb to forget what he learned.
Spelling: We did Week 9 of his spelling workbook and he got all his words correct on his test!
Word of the Week/Journal: Our word of the week was "dilemma."
Math: We continued in his math workbook. He had his fourth math test and he got 100%!
Bible: We started Lesson 5 of our Who is God? curriculum, which focuses on the three Persons of the Trinity.
Zoology: We continued our stay in the Amazon rainforest this week, and learned about poison dart frogs and blue morpho butterflies. Since both of these animals undergo metamorphosis, we also discussed that. Our scientific demonstration for this week was to continue observing our caterpillars, who ended up in their chrysalises by the weekend. I waited a few days and then transferred them to the butterfly habitat this week. I'm worried that some of the caterpillars died since only one chrysalis was attached to the lid when I transferred it (it also wiggled while I moved it, which is a good sign!). I went ahead and transferred the others and placed them on paper towels near the walls of the habitat just in case they're alive and just ended up on the floor of the cup!
Countries: This week we studied Peru. Caleb filled out his country fact sheet and we also tried making alfajores, which are shortbread cookies with dulce de leche sandwiched between. The cookie dough ended up too sandy in texture to work with even after chilling, so instead I made a roasted Peruvian chicken for dinner one night. That ended up delicious! For our activity, I let the boys watch "The Emperor's New Groove" for fun....it takes place in what is now modern-day Peru, and even though it's fictional some of the architecture, customs, and rainforest habitat still shows through. I printed out pictures of llamas for the boys to color as they watched.
Read-Aloud: We finished The 65-Story Treehouse this week. Our library doesn't have any more in the series yet, so I told Caleb he could pick something else. His choice was a nonfiction book about Lewis and Clark! So we started reading that.
Links:
Peruvian Roasted Chicken recipe (I Breathe I'm Hungry)
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