Weekly Review: Week 18

We had a good school week.  School got done in its entirety 4 days and a few extras other than that as well.  The weather got nice enough that we even had a play date at the park for a few hours on Thursday.  Lydia, especially, had a lot of fun at it and wouldn't stop telling me about all the things she did with her friends all the way home.

Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time cleaning the house deeper than I usually do.  And for the whole three hours, Eleanor was by my side "helping" me with everything.  She washed windows and counters, put away toys, and helped do laundry.  Lydia never went through the "my do it" phase and I'm enjoying it most of the time.  I'm trying my best not to push her aside because it is easier and faster to do it myself.

Math:
Lydia did pages 52-58 in Essential Math B.  This week was slow going because several pages had more problems than average.  This week we focused on "counting on" as a way of doing addition.  Lydia is almost grasping that concept, but we have a little way to go on it.  We also did several pages of Miquon, focusing mostly on patterns like ABABA and figuring out what comes next.

Reading:
We finished reviewing and are back to doing the lessons in Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.  Lydia is now in lesson 51.  I am noticing that she is decoding the words quicker than she was before.  She is still struggling a bit with words that have several blends in them like "smells."  But I think that will mostly come with practice.

We also kept reading Winnie the Pooh, which the girls are loving.  Both Ellie and Lydia have been good about reminding me when it is time to read the next chapter

Memorization:
Well, Lydia has already memorized "Who Has Seen the Wind."  That's the fastest she's ever memorized a piece, so I'm impressed.  This week we'll start on Amos 3:7.  As always, we continue to review all the memorization she's done this year every day during lunch, which is becoming a longer and longer process.  I'm very impressed with how much information she's retaining.

Handwriting:
We started back on Handwriting Without Tears today.  I let both Ellie and Lydia play with our "wooden" letter pieces.  I even made them both mats to place them on for correct formation.  They had so much fun that they didn't want me to put them away when it was time for lunch.  Ellie has been watching LeapFrog's Letter Factory dvd in the car after we drop Lydia off at therapy most mornings, so she has begun to learn many of her letters.  She made an "O" and when I asked her what "o" says, she told me and was right!  She also got "X" correct after Lydia made one.  It makes me happy to see her learning too.

Miscellaneous:
Finally, I don't know if I mentioned it, but for Christmas I got the girls Story of the World: Ancient Times on CD.  It is seven disks long, so I thought it might be possible for them to listen to them several times over the next year or two while we drive around town.  Well, the girls really enjoy them and Lydia asks to listen to them most times we're in the car.  Last time we were in the car, we listened to the story about Romulus and Remus (disk 5).  I've even been learning some things!