This Week's Lessons

So, I've been a little busy...last week was a rushed, but thankfully we've caught back up. This month, we've been studying Washington State in History class. I realize that a lot of folks do weekly units on states, but our curriculum has an entire month of lessons for each state that we study. So we're getting to do a LOT more projects. Trey has done internet research projects on the state facts of Washington; he will be making a Washington State Flag, and we downloaded a Washington State Ebook that I'm using to supplement the curriculum. We also have plans to discuss the other areas of significance in Washington, such as the Space Needle and Mount St. Helen.

We are doing an "apple" tie-in as well, since Washington is the top producer of apples in our country. Lindsay is getting involved as well and loves helping Mom make homemade applesauce for snack time.

In light of Veteran's Day today, we wrote a letter to the soldier we "adopted," and sent a care package to him, thanking him for his courageous service to our country. Trey read The Memory Box by Mary Bushong, which worked alongside our Veteran's Day mini-unit for today.

For Science, we are studying the different parts of plants and their functions. We discussed how temperature affects plants and what happens when a plant gets too cold. We are growing plants from seeds, and charting the different stages of growth.

Because our boxed curriculum does not include any definite vocabulary words for Trey to be tested on, I have started putting a list of 10 words together that include different words from each subject: mostly History and Science. I have also decided that I don't like the Spelling Words they give him each week, and believe that he can handle a little more difficulty in that area.

Trey began learning upper case cursive letters last week, and is continuing that this week. He's doing pretty well! Lucky for him, his spelling words are extremely easy this week, but there is a method behind my madness. I chose this weeks spelling words based on short vowels becoming long vowels when you add an e. So his spelling words this week will be: at, fat, cut, cap...etc. NEXT WEEK they will be ate, fate, cute, cape...etc. I decided to do this after I noticed that Trey is still having trouble spelling these types of words. That's the glory of homeschool!!! I can adjust our lessons to fit HIS needs.

Reading List This Week:

The Memory Box by Mary Bushong (Veteran's Day tie-in)
The Space Needle by Shannon Jackson
Fire Mountain by Joyce Furstenau

Arts & Crafts This Week:

Make a Washington State Flag
Apple Crafts

For Lindsay Only:
Color: Red
Letter: "A" is for Apple
Apple Unit Theme Coloring Pages
"5 Little Apples" song/fingerplay with felt finger-puppets

Poem: Red Apple
A little red apple
Hung high in a tree
I looked up at it
And it looked down at me
"Come down, please" I called
And what do you suppose---
That little red apple
Dropped right on my nose!