Weekly Report: Week 24

This week was Spring Break for Daddy, so we only did one day of school, but I didn't blog about last week, so this post will just combine them both.

This week, Grandma took the girls to Turpentine Creek, a big cat refuge about an hour from where we live.  Grandma was watching the girls while Tyler and I were in Houston so Tyler could take the Step II medical exam.  The girls had a lot of fun seeing all the animals and told me several of the ones they saw.  I don't have any pictures, although I'll have to see if Grandma took some and maybe I'll share them later.

This week included the first day of Spring!  The girls have been very interested in the seasons the last few months and we talk about the seasons every day as part of calendar time.  They knew Spring was coming up and were looking forward to it.  We decided that to celebrate Spring, we'd put a bird feeder up in our backyard.  The girls really enjoyed that, although we haven't seen any birds at it yet.

Math:
We started subtraction in Essential Math.  So far, so good.  Lately Lydia has wanted to color every page we do, so school has been lasting a lot longer, but it is fun and she enjoys it more.  She seems to be understanding the idea that "minus" means "take away," which is definitely an important concept to start with.

Reading:
We will finish up "sh" words tomorrow.  There were two "sh" lessons in OPGTR and a lot of sentences to get through, but she seems to have a pretty solid grasp on it.  We'll be starting "ch" this week.  Oh, and we've been doing almost all our work on the whiteboard the last while, instead of the iPad.  For some reason it is working better right now.   I'm all for whatever works, though.

Memorization:
Lydia is still working on "The Rainbow."  She is also learning even more geography.  The countries that she can identify on the map number in the 30s to 40s now.  She is almost to the point of being able to identify more than me, which is both sad for me and awesome for her.  It is amazing what a geography puzzle app will do.  I also bought her the Barefoot World Atlas App in an effort to help her learn more about the different countries than just their locations.  It is probably a little advanced for her, but she enjoys playing with it and it is a very well-done little app and I look forward to using it in the future.  Now if only I could find a good children's anatomy app...

Handwriting:
We're working through HWT every day we do school now.  So far, Lydia has learned E, L, and F.  We also practice the letters of her name every day in capital letters.  Eleanor has been doing handwriting most days with us, although instead of the HWT workbook or letters, she is doing pre-writing pages from ebooks I own that I print off for her.  Oh, and she plays with Lydia's HWT chalkboard a lot too.

Now that Eleanor wants to be included, school is lasting almost two hours between the two of them.  They have fun, but I'm starting to see what it will be like to juggle my teaching between my girls.  It is going to be an interesting challenge that will keep me on my toes, I have no doubt.