Friday, July 10, 2015

Weekly Wrap-Up - The First Week of School!

Weekly Wrap-Up
 
Well, this week we started our school year.  We're trying out schooling year round so we'll be schooling for 6 weeks and then take a week off.  My oldest was so pumped today when he realized in 5 weeks he gets a week break! LOL
 

Our first activity was coloring our first day of school pages and doing our first day of school interviews.  I love seeing them all working together around the table (without fighting ;)) and having fun being creative.
Job is in Totschool.
Gabe is in Kindergarten this year.  That's hard to believe!
Jadyn is in 2nd Grade.  She's been begging me to start school cause she wants to be a 2nd grader!
Mj is in 7th grade - Ummmm...... I'm having a hard time with the reality that my boy is in 7th grade!
Seriously, the days are not easy. But I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to homeschool these crazy kids! I really have just been enjoying them this week, watching them learn, just soaking it all in. They are my mission field. I sometimes struggle with feeling like I'm not doing enough, that being a homeschooling stay at home mom isn't important enough. I see so many other women being used and able to do things that I just can't do because of the stage of life I'm in. I've had people say hurtful things, but you know what?! If I fail these 4 kids, then I've failed at the most important role I could possibly have. So I really have enjoyed this week with my kids and being their mom!
So here's what our first week of school looked like:
 
MJ - 7th Grade
 
English:  I use BJ Press for English and really like how it is set up.  So far this has been review for Mj - subjects, predicates, types of sentences, comma splices, fragments, and run-on sentences.
 
Job thought he could help MJ with his English. I love when I walk in on moments like this. =)
Math: I use BJ Press for Math as well.  Lots of review for him, which is good.  He tends to be in a hurry when it comes to math so I made sure he was checking his answers and being neat and orderly. He may not have been very happy about it. ;)
 
 
Literature: Again, he uses BJ Press for Lit. He read two stories this week.  His favorite was about a boy who was scared of the dark and his friend wanted to have a camp out.  It was pretty funny!
 
Science: We are using BJ Press' Life Science this year.  The first chapter has been an introduction to what science is, the importance of world view, and why it's vital for Christians to study life science.
 
World Studies: And, yes, we are using BJ Press for this, too. Mj started looking at Creation through the birth of Christ this week.  He's not a big history fan, but he told me that he thought it was interesting.
 
 
Jadyn - 2nd Grade
 
Jadyn started every day this week with swimming lessons.
English: We are using... you guessed it... BJ Press. Jadyn loved her first week of English.  She learned what a sentence is, that a sentence has a subject and action part, and she learned about telling sentences, commands, and exclamation sentences.
 
Can I give a shout out to technology? I love that when Jadyn says, "Mom, please take a picture of my good handwriting and my sentences and show it to daddy" I can take a pic and text it to him! So awesome!
Math: We are using BJ Press for Math. Jadyn reviewed addition.
 
 
Reading/Phonics: We are using All About Reading. Jadyn struggles with dyslexia and I had heard some great things about this program so we're trying it out this year.  She's using level 1, because I wanted her to feel confident in her reading.  So this week has been very easy and she's so excited how easy it has been for her to read!
 
Feeding the monster the word bones.
 
Spelling: We are using All About Spelling.  We are using Level 1 and I'm excited to see how this will work.  Already, I can see her thinking differently about how to spell and really listening for all the sounds in the words.
 
Job had an bathroom emergency, so I asked Mj if he would help Jadyn with her spelling lesson. They had so much fun doing this together! Proud Momma Moment! =)
 
Heritage Studies: We are using BJ Press. Jadyn learned God creating the world and sin entering into the world.  She also learned about cause and effect.
 
Jadyn had some spare time on her hands and really has gotten into Legos. She worked a whole afternoon on making a store for her Lego friends. I love watching kids play with Legos and letting their curiosity go wild!
 
 
 
Gabe - Kindergarten
I have an overabundance of pics, since it was his first week of Kindergarten! =)
 
Working on his calendar notebook. He loves tracing the month and the day of the week.
Phonics/Reading: We are using All About Reading. I'm having Gabe do the pre-reading level. He is a slower learner and so I just want to take my time with him and give him a good solid foundation. No need to rush! =) (You can tell he's my 3rd child and not my 1st. lol - I've learned from previous mistakes!)
This week we looked at letters A, B, C, & D. We watched a Sesame Street podcast each day for each letter.  He loved those.
He loved the poems in The ZigZag Zebra book.
Using Ziggy Zebra to help him find the letters we learned in the alphabet magnets.
Working on making blueberries for his "B" paper.
Reviewing his letters with the ABC's of God app.
Gabe really struggled with learning "C" so I had him find all the C's in the rice bin and say it's name and sound.
Stamping the letters.
Math: I'm using BJ Press Math for Gabe. This week was learning shapes and sequence.
He was so proud of himself for find the circle on the book he was reading!

 
Job - Totschool
With the busyness of swimming lessons, and getting the older ones lessons in, Job got an easy week.  He'd rather be playing anyway! He did a lot of coloring with us, though and when I pulled the alphabet magnets out, he wanted to find letters, too.

 
Learning Together
We will be doing Confessions of a Homeschooler's Road Trip USA this year.  We learned about the regions of the United States and Washington D.C. this week.
The kids watched a virtual field trip of Washington D.C. on you tube.
It was shark week this week - a highlight at our house! So most afternoons you could find the kids watching some shark documentary! Their favorite was the Ninja Shark one.

 
I love when free time involves Bananagrams and Rummikub! I loved that Gabe started taking out the A's and B's since he had learned them and I didn't even ask him to do it! =)

 
Our friend stopped by this week and dropped off fun activities for the kids since we had started school this week. They loved the silly string and had a fun silly string battle in the backyard!

 
So that was our first week back into the school groove. If you want to check out other homeschoolers' weeks check out the Weekly Wrap Up.
 

 

 

1 comment:

Dawn said...

Happy first week of school. We have one more week off before we get started.
Blessings, Dawn

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