ivey league academy: week in review!

Here's what we did the week of 11/27-12/1!

Reading:  We continued with doing a Word Ladder a day as well as reading out of our Kittens and Children reader.  Caleb is doing so much better with reading out loud.  I can tell he's really trying hard not to rush, because it's when he goes too fast that he makes mistakes or skips words completely.

English:  We finished the last part of Chapter 7, which focused on practical skills.  We learned about how to use a dictionary (guide words, entry words, how to see if a word has more than one definition, etc.), library skills (fiction versus nonfiction and how they're organized on the shelf), and even how to use a phone book (a dying skill, admittedly.  We covered the basics and skipped the lesson on how to take a phone message...we don't have a landline so if we ever do get one then we'll cover how to take a message!).

Spelling:  We did Week 3 of his Spelling You See curriculum.  I noticed this week's lessons were different in the teacher dictation part.  Rather than tracing the simple three-letter words, starting this week he had to listen to the words I called out.  They still have the same vowel sound in common, but it's a good way to teach Caleb to listen for the letter sounds as well as how to group similar words together.

Math:  We continued in his Horizons workbook. 

Word of the Week:  Our word of the week was "ransack."  In his journal, Caleb wrote that he would "ransack" his room if he ever couldn't find his game ball from baseball!

Bible:  We continued Lesson 7 and learned about what our purpose is and why God created us (spoiler alert...He created us because He wanted to and we're to give Him glory).  :)

Zoology:  We played catch-up on Monday and finished Chapter 14.  Caleb filled out information on the snow goose and I also copied a map out of a library book that shows geese migration patterns.  We pasted it into his logbook.

After we were caught up, we continued to Chapter 15 (the second part of the Arctic habitat section).  We learned about polar bears and mountain goats.  For the scientific demonstration, Caleb learned about how polar bears can walk on the ice without slipping; they have special fur on the bottoms of their paws that helps them grip.  To demonstrate that, we put two small cans (one wrapped up in a washcloth) on a large baking sheet and tilted it.  The wrapped-up can represented a polar bear's paw, and it didn't slide down as easily as the regular can did.  I also reminded Caleb that we did a very similar experiment last year when we learned about friction!

Countries:  This week we learned about Ireland.  We read library books and filled out a country fact sheet as usual.  For our recipe, we made Irish soda bread.  It uses baking soda instead of yeast to make it rise, and hearkens back to when many people in Ireland were poor and found ways to make nourishing food without a lot of ingredients.  For our craft, we made shamrocks using bell peppers as stamps!

Extras:  One day we had a little extra time, so we got out our SQUILT cards and I pulled up the videos for the brass family of the orchestra.  We had a nice quiet listening time as the videos featured works like "Pictures at an Exhibition," "The Ride of the Valkyries," and even the theme from Superman!  We still have the percussion family to go and after that I might look into purchasing another SQUILT set, maybe composers this time.  Our read-aloud was Chicken Squad by Doreen Cronin.  It's a very quick read as a read-aloud (as opposed to Caleb reading it by himself), and very silly and entertaining!  I put the rest of the series on hold at the library because I could tell we'd go through them quickly!

Links:
Irish Soda Bread recipe (Let's Dish Recipes)
Shamrock Stamp craft (Crafty Morning)