And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

So, it has been about 3 weeks since I last updated the homeschool portion of my blog, and during that time, we got back to our regular school schedule after our 2 week unit study on Colonial America and 1 week of spring break.  We are going full steam ahead to wrap up the remaining weeks of school.

Language Arts:


We finished reading Sentence Island, which ended with a lesson in misplaced modifiers and choosing your words carefully to make your written sentences sound nice.  We analyzed a few more sentences, and the kids are really starting to understand the construction of the English language.

We haven't learned any new poems, but we've been practicing all the old ones.

They've been reading Sees Behind Trees by Michael Dorris for book club.  We had a book club meeting today:

In spelling, they learned words with ei sounding like long a.  This week they worked on homophones and learning which spelling had which meaning.

I got a little bonus picture on Andrew's copy assignment:

In handwriting, they have learned upper case J, K, L & M.  

We are still listening to Inkspell in the car- haven't really gone on any long trips, plus this book is like 18 discs long or something!

Math:

We moved ahead in Math U See and have completed Lesson 27.  Only three more lessons left in Gamma!  We've also done flash card practice, Kumon Multiplication books, timed tests, Kumon Geography & Measurement books, and Multiplication Mosaics.

History:

Quite a lot of exciting stuff happening in the world during the times we are studying!  We learned about Captain James Cook's three voyages and the establishment of the penal colony on Australia.  We learned about the French Revolution.  We read You Wouldn't Want to be an Aristocrat during the French Revolution, which was a hit because of the drawings of people carrying around pikes with the decapitated heads of the unfortunate victims of the guillotine.  Boys!

Andrew's narration of the meeting of the Tiers États and the storming of the Bastille.

We learned about Catherine the Great becoming the Empress of Russia after many years of living with her husband Peter III and being controlled by her mother in law.

Science:

We read some library books about chemistry:  The Magic School Bus Gets Baked in a Cake, DK Eyewitness Chemistry, and we are still reading The Periodic Table: Elements with Style.




French:


We've begun to learn the subject pronouns and have reviewed numbers to begin learning to tell time in French.  They also have played some of the French in 10 Minutes a Day games on the computer.


Latin:


They learned latine dictum, historia est vitae magistra, and repetitio est mater memoriae.


Music:


They've been practicing "When the Saints Go Marching In" on their recorders, and it's almost recognizable!  They practiced a few other songs, too.




Health:


They did a worksheet on the parts of the digestive system.  Then, last week, I made them research something in the Usborne Science Encyclopedia.  They could choose any topic they wanted, as long as it had to do with human health.  Here's what I got:

P. E.


The weather has been so beautiful, that they've been playing outside quite a bit.  We also have gone to a couple of different playgrounds.

Art:

Last, but not least, we did Lessons 16, 17 & 18 in Artistic Pursuits.  They talked about mixing colors and drawing characters from imagination.  Here are some Super Mario characters the boys drew:

And here are some "cave paintings" that they did.  Ed had a whole story behind his, but I don't remember what it was.  Andrew's is of a wooly mammoth attacking some gorillas.