Home
Archive for
2016
The Phantom Tollbooth. We didn't get do it this summer after I saw how much fun we could have with it during the school year.
One of my favorite parts.
"We're having a special treat today," said the king as the delicious smells of homemade pastry filled the banquet hall. "By royal command the pastry chefs have worked all night in the half bakery to make sure that -"
The half bakery?" questioned Milo.
Of course, the half bakery," snapped the king. "Where do you think half-baked ideas come from? Now, please don't interrupt. By royal command the pastry chefs have worked all night to - "
"What's a half-baked idea? asked Milo again.
"Will you be quiet?" growled Azaz angrily; but, before he could begin again, three large serving carts were wheeled into the hall and everyone jumped up to help himself.
"They're very tasty," explained the Humbug, "but they don't always agree with you. Here's one that's very good." He handed it to Milo and, through the icing and nuts, Milo saw that it said, "THE EARTH IS FLAT."
"People swallowed that one for years," commented the Spelling Bee, "but it's not very popular these days - d-a-y-s." He picked up a long one that stated "THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE" and hungrily bit off the part that said "CHEESE." "Now there's a half-baked idea," he said, smiling.
Milo looked at the great assortment of cakes, which were being eaten almost as quickly as anyone could read them. The count was munching contentedly on "IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS" and the king was busy slicing one that stated "NIGHT AIR IS BAD AIR."
"I wouldn't eat too many of those if I were you," advised Tock. "TheY may look good, but you can get terribly sick of them.
"Don't worry," Milo replied; "I'll just wrap one up for later," and he folded his napkin around "EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR THE BEST."
As I look at the massive list of what I wanted to tackle for 4th grade, I can't help but wonder if I ask too much or is it that we go with the flow and I'm quick to drop and change things up. While both true, the latter, definitely has more to do with what we finish and what we don't.
Writing
We finished WWE2. Yes,that is a lower level writing. At this grade they should be into or finishing 3. I use WWE as supplemental to Bravewriter Arrow and Killgallons. Right there I have 3 different writing programs going. Why? I like WWE for its ease of use and selections. Bravewriter Arrow is more of a literature program that includes copywork and points out literary elements. Though I don't see it as super writing intensive. We do like the book selection. One Arrow a month is the norm. Lastly Killgallons Sentence Composing for Elementary is a new favorite. I had used the middle school version with my oldest and decided it would give us more opportunities for copywork and practicing sentence structure. See...not a slacker at all.
Spelling
Check those off! Hermione will be finishing level 1 of Sequential Spelling in a few weeks.
Jibber Jabber will be finishing Book A of Apples and Pears and working on Book B through the summer. He needs constant review and repetition.
Grammar
We've touched on grammar in so many ways. The only actual curriculum we finished was Evan-Moor's Grammar and Punctuation. We used Grammaropolis, Scholastic's Grammar Cop and No Boring Practice Please: Funny Fairy Tale Proofreading, but did not complete them. We'll keep those around as we work on more of the skills in those books. WWE also touches on parts of grammar and punctuation in the copywork.
History
Done! We finished SOTW1. We keep repeating this one. They love it. We didn't do a lot of the activities from the guide. Instead it was a read aloud and narration session. Hermione loves to read and even though I splurged on the Jim Weiss audiobooks, she prefers to read them out loud. There's no way I could say no to her! We'll probably continue with SOTW2 through the summer so we can reach American history for 5th.
Science
RSO Chemistry labs were a hit. The element book was not. That became a stumbling block to me not getting to the labs and it all fell apart. For summer I plan to rework this so the book is out or done for them or something and we can focus on the fun labs all summer.
Math
At the beginning of the year, I dropped Math Mammoth and decided to focus on math fact fluency and reviewing what has been learned so far. I felt like I was helping them too much and needed to take myself out of the equation. I signed them up for Reflex Math, which they LOVE and Khan Academy, which has been a huge success. They are gaining more independence and self-confidence in math. I started them at the bottom in both. They are both already at 75% fact completion in addition/subtraction fluency in Reflex Math. It is not easy to move on in that program. Hermione especially needs lots of work on her +/- facts. JJ, I'm not so worried about and I might advance him onto multiplication/division in early summer. I don't really want to pick MM back up until they have moved onto multiplication and division. I think it will help them accelerate through the book quicker to get those solid. In fact, I'm considering dropping MM altogether because Khan Academy has been such a huge success here. They both like the way it is setup. I feel like they are doing more math on their own without my help. And in 5th grade, they need to start working more independently. It's forced them to practice reading the direction, finding what's important and what the directions are asking them to do and they double check their work before submitting the answer because they don't want to have to do another 5 in a row. All really good habits to be working on.
As an alternative, I might supplement KA with Beast Academy. Those are great for deeper thinking and the comic book style doesn't hurt. I know some use only KA, but I'm not sure if that would work for us.
Mythology
All over the map here. We started the year reading Red Pyramid and then The Lightning Thief to match history. I was hoping one of them would hook JJ and he would read the rest on his own. He liked them, but picked a different series to start reading independently. Then we moved onto Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes. Even though Hermione struggles with pronunciations, she loves how he writes and they crack up reading those aloud. So we're not National Mythology Exam ready yet, but we're getting there.
Philosophy/Critical Thinking/Reading Comprehension
We have worked on these monthly and will continue to work on them. They liked the Reading Detective books and nearly finished Inference Jones. One of those that we just keep plugging away.
Literature
My plans were to read:
Percy Jackson - We've read book 1 and Greek Heroes
Chronicles of Narnia - can wait
Redwall Series - on my to do list
The Hobbit - summer lit session or wait til middle school or both?
What did we read instead?
Fortunately, the Milk
The Red Pyramid
The Lightning Thief
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Cricket in Times Square
Gilgamesh: The Hero
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The BFG
The Witches - did not finish
Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
Matilda
Flora & Ulysses
I really like reading non-series books. It makes me feel like we are accomplishing more or something. So I don't know what we are going to do with all of those series books I want to get to.
Plans change. Rabbit trails happen. They still learn.
Summer is nearly here and while we homeschool year round (well sort of..you'll see) we are finishing up some of our subjects and others we will finally be getting to. And I'm just fine with that. No reason to panic about being "behind".
Wait what?
We will do science in the summer. It has almost become a tradition. You know all of those so-called household ingredients for labs that I really don't have on-hand make me put it off for the next shopping trip. I thought I had a plan, but it just didn't happen. No need to panic or call the authorities. We still watched science documentaries and studied the weird critters that end up in our backyard. We went to the wetlands and the planetarium. Which means this summer we can focus on chemistry and possibly, though not likely, move onto physics.
Math was halted so we could focus on math fact fluency and review using Reflex Math and Khan Academy. I started both my 3rd and 4th grader on Early Math. Just shameful right?! Nope. Filling in gaps and building confidence was the plan. My 4th grader finished it in 2 months, which I believe is the fastest you can go because of the mastery challenge timer. We agreed to celebrate every completed level with a mommy date to the ice cream shop. My 3rd grader took 3.5 months. I still have their second semester math books sitting in a drawer unused. They will get to them and we will accelerate through it using their ninja math skills they've been working on. I do not doubt that.
Summer is also a time to work on individual problem areas. My 4th grader needs to continue on with his spelling. He needs to work on it daily and requires constant review. I bought the entire Apples and Pears spelling set so we could move from one book to another with no down time. My 3rd grader needs to work on her math. She needs constant review in that.
We also read some fun literature and poetry.
Sound like a lot? How can I get my kids to work through the summer?
Easy.
All this takes 2 hours a day. Not bad right? And when cousins come over or we take a trip, we cut back to listening to audiobooks. School doesn't have to slow us down. And I don't have to worry about them falling behind. It's almost like they don't even feel like they are doing school at all. Kind of like those people that sneak veggies into food thinking the kids won't notice. They know it's there, but it doesn't seem so bad.
Coming up I'll list what we did and didn't get to. Plans change. Rabbit trails happen. They still learn.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
