Friday- Homeschool Week in Review for Duncan

Here is Duncan's week!

Language Arts
Duncan continued his study of Christina Rossetti. He participated in Teatime Tuesday Poetry where we talked about imagery, personification, and paradox in Stars by Sara Teasdale.

I read aloud pp. 40-41 from Milo Winter’s Aesop for Children, How the Whale Got His Throat from Just So Stories, and chapter 3, the final chapter, in Merlin and the Making of a King retold by Margaret Hodges.

Duncan played some in his beginning cursive book, did Wordly Wise Book 2 Lesson 11, completed Easy Grammar 3 pp.69-73, Plaid Phonics C pp.78-83, and continued copying his poem that teaches the names of the Presidents through Wilson.

Math
Duncan completed Key to Fractions Book 4 pp.14-21 and Saxon 65 lessons 57-61. With the math tutor on Tuesday he began MEP 3! Because it is such a different approach, I started him where I was sure that he already had mastered the computation being taught and could just focus on how MEP approaches the concept. He finished MEP 3A pp. 1-6 and loved it!

Science
This week Duncan learned about volcanoes. We read about volcanoes in Lyrical Earth Science and Geology Crafts for Kids. Then, of course, we made a baking soda and vinegar volcano.

Some parts of a volcano- cone, crater, vent, magma, and lava. This is what Duncan repeated this week during science. It is primarily from an illustration in Lyrical Earth Science.

He also watched some science videos from the library: Magic School Bus Spins a Web (hunting habits of spiders), Magic School Bus Play Ball (forces and motion), and Magic School Bus Butterflies.

History and Geography
Duncan again played with The Seven Continents of the World Jigsaw Book. We focused on the countries of South America.

We studied King Alfred the Great. We read pp.214-215 in the Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History and SOTW2 pp.129-136

We learned that although Alfred is the only English monarch to be known as "the Great". In addition to defeating the Danes and protecting his people, he was a codifier of law, a promoter of education and a supporter of the arts.

Foreign Language
Duncan used Rosetta Stone Farsi twice this week for about 10 minutes each time.

Once he listened to Buenas Noches, Luna (Good Night, Moon) on audio while he looked at the book. I pulled out the old Spanish for Children from Passport Books and Duncan listened to the section on numbers and followed along in the book.

Arts
Duncan practiced violin about 20 minutes a day and had a lesson Tuesday morning.

We finished looking at Masaccio and listening to the music of Hildegard von Bingen.

This week Duncan did an abstract drawing from directions in Drawing with Children. This is fun and easy for children who can hold a ruler. It always turns out cool. He also drew a bird from the directions in drawing with Children, but he disliked this. The whole time he kept saying that he couldn’t draw, so he was irritated and thus sloppy while he colored it. I guess I need to go back to Ed Emberley’s books for a while.

He loved the volcano!


Abstract Exercise


Bird