Two Week Review: August 3 - August 16

If you've been following my other blog then you know why I haven't been posting lately. If you haven't, well, it's not a topic for this blog. However, I'm determined to start catching up, so here is a post that should of gone up weeks ago.

Our first two weeks saw some new things and some old things. New things? Religion lessons. We learned about Isis and Osiris. Sort of newish things? Some Sign Language. Okay, that's it, I'm out of new and newish things. I guess it was just one new thing.

For our Concept Week we covered Life Cycles. Hopefully there will be a post up about it tomorrow. Don't hold your breath. English was a bunch of reading comprehension. Math was reviewing numbers, shapes, counting by 5's and 10's, as well as basic addition and second grade addition. Optimus Prime insisted on doing second grade addition even though he wasn't ready for it, then was miserable and complained the whole time we did it. Fun. Not. Spelling has a bunch of new (easy) words. This whole year it'll be based on words that end the same or have similar sounds. They had some pages in one of their workbooks that I'm basing the entire years units on. It'll be easy units, but I think it'll be good for them. Art was a project, of course. Painting it was, though we are doing something neat soon that I look forward to posting about.

Then, of course, we practiced Handwriting, did some fun Logic (there was picture finds, mazes, and even hangman). We learned about farm animals in Science, prompting Bumblebee to beg me to buy a beef roast and some mutton. The mutton is in the freezer for now, and against my better judgement I bought and cooked a beef roast. They didn't touch it. Of course. I knew that was the way it would go down...

As for Reading, Optimus Prime has been switching back an forth between Level 1 and Level 2 books and he's doing great. Bumblebee is jealous and is working on Level 1 books while insisting he should be reading Level 2 books. However, he struggles so much with Level 1 I don't see that happening anytime soon.

What is Scooby-Doo up to? Numbers, Letters, Coloring, Logic (this week it was shapes). He's doing good. He's also turning into a little chatterbox. Soon speech therapy will start up for him again and I'm not sure he really needs it anymore... Which reminds me, Optimus Prime started physical therapy for his feet and right leg, which is longer than his left. It's for 4-6 weeks.

That's it for tonight.

2nd Grade Reading List Part 1 & Book Reports

Okay, this quarter we have some reading goals:

• Optimus Prime just learned how to read and is ready to move beyond Level 1 books, so he'll be working on Level 1 &2. I don't want to completely cut off Level 1 yet, I want to make sure he has it down a bit better, he still stumbles on a word here and there. I'm thinking a 1:1 or 1:2 ratio (Level 1:Level 2). He'll also work on reading completely on his own. Right now I hold the book, help him out, etc., but I'm going to hand the book off to him and see how he does all on his own.
• Bumblebee needs to work on getting Level 1 down on his own, but to be honest I don't see that happening this quarter.

Then, we also have our chapter book goal list. And, SOMEHOW, we missed a book AGAIN from our February-April goal list:

• Ballpark Mysteries: The Fenway Foul-Up

I would say we are doing that one first, but the problem is I just took the last two Ghost Detector books from the library, so clearly we will be doing THOSE two first. However, the Ballpark Mystery one will be next, I mean third, I mean... I promise... ?

Anyway, here are our book goals for this quarter:

• Ghost Detectors: Draw!
• Ghost Detectors: Don't Read This!
• Clue Jr: The Case of the Missing Movie
• Magic Tree House: Hour of the Olympics
• Magic Tree House: Tonight on the Titanic
• Magic Tree House: Buffalo Before Breakfast
• Magic Tree House: Tigers at Twilight
• Magic Tree House: Dingoes at Dinnertime
• Magic Tree House: Civil War on Sunday
• Batman: Arctic Attack
• Batman: Harley Quinn's Shocking Surprise
• Batman: The Man Behind the Mask
• Batman: Catwoman's Classroom of Claws
• Batman: The Maker of Monsters
• Wonder Woman: Creature of Chaos
• Wonder Woman: The Fruit of all Evil

Two things:

(1) We're still doing book reports. Right now it's really easy, just a sentence about the book and a picture from the book. I've written up 14 of those forms (each), then after those 14 are used up I'm going to change things a little. They'll have to name their favorite character from the book and their favorite scene in addition to what they already have to do.

(2) I've upped our reading goal. From Day 1 it's been 1 book a week for a total of 13 books, though we've always read AT LEAST double (and usually triple or more) that. I've added 3 books to our goal (raising it about a quarter). Maybe I'll raise it again next quarter, maybe not. Once they are reading chapter books on their own I'll be reading longer, harder books to them so I won't be reading as many titles a quarter. So it's not like 13 is a forever number or anything.

Two Week Review: July 20 - August 2

Final Two Week Review for this quarter AND for 1st grade!!! YES!!!

I'm just excited because I have big, big, BIG news! Optimus Prime just mastered reading!!! (It was a few days ago now...) He's got level 1 books down and is doing really good on level 2 books! Not so much for his VERY jealous brother Bumblebee, but, like I told Bumblebee, he's good at math, his brother is good at reading.

So, on another note, they had a week of fitness class, followed by a 1k race on the 2nd. Their first race! I didn't realize it would be so easy or I would of signed Scooby-Doo up too. However, they are having one again in September, so I'm signing up all three kids!

Final notes! No schoolwork for Scooby-Doo. I decided we'll restart Week 2 of next quarter.

In Math all we did was review money. In Spelling all we did was our review words. Optimus Prime did so good he didn't have Spelling for the last week! Bumblebee was jealous... again. In English we did a "Three Billy Goats Gruff" unit followed by riddles and periods. Finally in Dinosaurs we did the Cretaceous Period. I already covered reading up above, so I think that's it...

Second grade, here we come!