Weekly Report- TOG2, week 9

We've had a good week, very good!

BIBLE
StoryKeepers DVDs are a hit, but Camille wants to keep watching the 'next' one to know what is going to happen. I'm switching back to using Explorer's Beginnings II as our daily Bible lesson so the kids can fully enjoy the StoryKeepers on their own.

READING
We're making progress! Camille is reading Black Beauty (Stepping Stones, chapter book) and she's getting comfortable with books that have smaller words and less space in-between the lines. Just this alone has been a hurdle! She read and loved The Magic Finger but I couldn't get her to read any other Dahl book because of the format. We are 3 chapters from finishing The Door in the Wall and I'm not sure yet what we'll read aloud next. The Door in the Wall has been a challenge reading aloud but very rewarding.

HISTORY- TOG2, Week 9
It has been a light week of reading, coloring and mapwork. But it's been GOOD. The lower grammar selections are really working for us and dh is completely on-board about buying history books instead of using the library. United Streaming was a great help this week, we watched Animated Heroes- Joan of Arc.

SCIENCE
We combined Rainforests and Grasslands this week to compare them, watched a few United Streaming videos.

POETRY
Our new poem to be memorized is The Night by Myra Cohn Livingston (on the right sidebar with audio), and we discussed what 'lace' pictures on the wall meant. My brilliant little girl said, "there must be lace curtains on the window and the moonlight shines on them to create shadows on the wall," of course I was thinking that the moon shines through the trees and that's what the child in the poem thinks looks like lace but no, my daughter is becoming smarter than me.

LANGUAGE ARTS
We're spending much more time doing language arts than any other subject during the day, really reading and poetry fall under this category too. I'm adding Spelling Workout C back into our day if Camille doesn't revolt, I think if she does it in smaller chunks, it won't be a big deal to her.

This is what we're doing within a week:
- 2 pages a day of Grammar, Mechanics and Usage Grade 2, the focus right now is commas.
- 1 lesson a week in Explode the Code 5
- 1 page of Comprehension Quickies a week
- 1 book report from How to Report on Books Grades 1-2
- poetry memorization
- daily independent reading & reading aloud, 1 hour approx. a day if you count shared reading, 2 hrs./day
- copywork 1x a week (I'm decreasing this from 2x a week)
- I want to add: SWO C back in and journal writing with SWO's prompts

MATH
Camille loves multiplication, Whew! Her math facts have solidified and she has confidence now where before she was easily frustrated. How much time spent doing math is a whole other ballgame but mostly it's my fault for not sticking to my duties.

IN LIFE
We visited one of our homeschooling friends this week and it was great- Camille just hopped on a bike and rode without training wheels! This is HUGE, she's been afraid and timid about riding without training wheels and we haven't pushed her. She just hopped on the bike and took off! She spent about 2 hours riding around in circles, lol.

Danny's potty training is going well, he's speaking better too.

ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING
I want Danny to have a better start than Camille did so I've been looking at phonics programs and I think I have his PreK and K years figured out.

PreK- Horizons Preschool and tons of reading aloud
K - Sing, Spell, Read & Write K/1 Combo, Galloping the Globe, Horizons Math K, D'Nealian workbook, Leading Little Ones to God

then he will join us in the TOG journey in 1st grade and start TOG1 in lower grammar with Camille in TOG1 Upper Grammar/Dialectic.