Week in Review, 04/09-04/14

Duncan is my third grader. This week he finished reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord and Walking to Freedom by Richard Kelso. He also finished a chapter about the Civil Rights Movement in America's History: Land of Liberty Vol.2. He read some poetry from The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems and he finished his Spectrum 5th grade Phonics and Word Study.

In Time4Learning he continued working in the grammar section of the grade 4 language arts. He also continued working on the grade 3 language arts extentions and science.

On Tuesday, Duncan began Moving Beyond the Page: Age 8-10, Concept 3: Similarities and Differences. He read a book called Akimbo and the Crocodile Man by Alexander McCall Smith and most of Africa for Kids by Harvey Croze. He researched crocodiles and reptiles. He learned about some unique African animals and wrote a paragraph on crocodiles and a paragraph on the aardwolf. He wrote out food webs for the African rainforest, fynbos, savanna, and desert. He made a construction paper and paper towel tube crocodile. We read and he typed The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll. We discussed onomatopoeia, modifiers, and conflict. He edited a paragraph from Akimbo. He wrote a daily journal entry on Akimbo and the Crocodile Man in the form of a comparison between himself and Akimbo. He learned about the countries, cultures, and geographic regions of Africa. He compared some aspects of African and American culture. We discussed slavery in Africa today and he created an awareness flyer. He looked at the lives of three very different African children, wrote a summary of each, and compared them to his own. He started a report that was supposed to be on an African country, but instead he decided to focus on an African culture. After one week of MBtP, I can say that it is a very full program. It will take a good chunk of time each day to complete.

 
Outside the house or extras:
He practiced violin and had a lesson this week. He went to his math tutor. He worked on Kumon math and went to the center. He went to art and drama. Next week he has a dress rehearsal for their play. We went on a field trip to a working farm. I had thought that we would be there for perhaps a couple of hours at the most, but we ended up being there in the sun for four hours and I burned. :-( On Sunday my nose peeled.

Mei in black T and Duncan in green tie-dye

Oh, and last weekend my 18yo, Grayson, went to the anime convention.

Week in Review, 4/2-4/6

Duncan is my third grader. This week he finished reading Ultra Hush-Hush and Spying and the Cold War by Michael Burgan. He started reading In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord. He practiced violin, but didn't have a lesson this week. He went to his math tutor. He worked on Kumon math and went to the center. He read some poetry from The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems, completed some pages in his Spectrum 5th grade Phonics and Word Study, and finished a chapter about the cold war in America's History: Land of Liberty Vol.2. We had our last meeting of Classical Conversations.

Duncan finished his math section of Time4Learning. Previously, he completed language arts and started the next level. Since finishing social studies last week, he has been completing two language arts extensions in a sitting to work on finishing up that section. After he completed math, he began working through two science lessons in a sitting.

Next week Duncan will begin Moving Beyond the Page: Age 8-10, Concept 3: Similarities and Differences. At least this is the plan! I just ordered it on Wednesday and UPS tracking says that it should be here on Monday. I am excited that we will be starting something new! We did a little unit of MBP a number of years ago, but never a full concept. I can't wait to see how it goes.

The game plan is that he will work through the MBtP concept and then, the second week of July, begin a world geography and world cultures study using WinterPromise's Children around the World as a spine. :-)