Queen Elizabeth, Shakespere, Ecology, and Birthdays!
Maybe I couldn't remember what we did last week, but this week it feels like we got a lot done, despite me spending two full days on the couch with stomach pains!! If you can help it, never develop gut health problems, it really messes your life up. Haha.
In Story of The World we had a chapter on Good Queen Bess. I love strong female characters and having my boys learn about them. Maybe I am turning them into little feminists, maybe I am just making it crystal clear we are not the weaker sex. ;) Either way I read Phillipa Gregory's book about Elizabeth last year so it was fun for me to see what they say is history vs. author indulgences. The boys were just still stuck on her father, and how he beheaded Elizabeth's mother. The second chapter of the week talked about Shakespeare. A lot of sayings we use come from his plays, something I did not know, and they had us read a version of Macbeth, which the boys enjoyed. If the libraries were open we would be reading more adaptations of his plays, instead we have started re-reading the first Harry Potter book. Next year I hope to incorporate more read aloud chapter books to correspond with history.
All About Reading we learned about Alliterations in lesson 38. For art and free writing I had them think of their own alliteration and draw it as a picture. Michael almost word for word did the example from the book, Emmet wrote one about a dumb-dumb, and Avery's is Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk jumping over lava. Pretty much sums up who they are individually right there. Haha!
For our second lesson of the week we talked about silent E and soft C sounds. We have said in the past that when E is at the end of a sentence, it gives its power to the other vowel, becoming silent and allowing the first vowel to say its name (for example in the word Cake, A takes E's power and says its name A instead of 'ahh'). So I continued that theme adding to the lessons explination saying when C blocks E's way it takes damage points, not being able to say the hard sound any more (example: Prince, the C blocks E from giving it's powers to I, so I cannot say it's name, and the C takes damage, becoming a soft sound instead of a hard sound). The boys resonated with that explanation well and Emmet said he wishes all his school was more like a video game. Haha. Avery finished All About Pre Reading this week too!!
We recieved our game Ecologies this week. It is really fun and full of amazing info. Did you know squirrels eat slugs?! The gist of it is you build ecologies, earning points for playing animals that live within food webs in those ecologies. Everyone plays a biome first, then plants, then animals that eat those plants, animals that eat those animals, etc. Each biome has scavenger or decomposers (think worms or vultures or coyotes) who can eat the top predators. The goal is to create biomes that reach 4 levels deep into the food web and to also score 12 points first. Michael really enjoyed it, the other two were not interested in playing yet.
We read our Spanish readers and did our math work books. Michael has moved onto a fraction and decimal book and really enjoys it. It seems to click really well for him! Emmet is almost to the end of his math book, and we have only a few chapters left in Story of the World. So close to summer, I can taste it!!
Over mothers day weekend I decided what I wanted most was a pool to occupy and wear the boys out this year. We found one on sale and was able to throw one together quick and inexpensively! Score! And the boys spent almost an entire day unloading and leveling sand. Double score! As we worked on the pool we also planted bean sprouts into 5 gallon buckets to work on our bean tent we want to grow this summer!
And, it was Emmet's birthday this week! He said it was the best birthday ever, which is good considering he was disappointed he couldnt have friends over. We made Mario decorations, gave him mostly clothes (he thought that was awesome!) plus a few fun games!
In Story of The World we had a chapter on Good Queen Bess. I love strong female characters and having my boys learn about them. Maybe I am turning them into little feminists, maybe I am just making it crystal clear we are not the weaker sex. ;) Either way I read Phillipa Gregory's book about Elizabeth last year so it was fun for me to see what they say is history vs. author indulgences. The boys were just still stuck on her father, and how he beheaded Elizabeth's mother. The second chapter of the week talked about Shakespeare. A lot of sayings we use come from his plays, something I did not know, and they had us read a version of Macbeth, which the boys enjoyed. If the libraries were open we would be reading more adaptations of his plays, instead we have started re-reading the first Harry Potter book. Next year I hope to incorporate more read aloud chapter books to correspond with history.
All About Reading we learned about Alliterations in lesson 38. For art and free writing I had them think of their own alliteration and draw it as a picture. Michael almost word for word did the example from the book, Emmet wrote one about a dumb-dumb, and Avery's is Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk jumping over lava. Pretty much sums up who they are individually right there. Haha!
For our second lesson of the week we talked about silent E and soft C sounds. We have said in the past that when E is at the end of a sentence, it gives its power to the other vowel, becoming silent and allowing the first vowel to say its name (for example in the word Cake, A takes E's power and says its name A instead of 'ahh'). So I continued that theme adding to the lessons explination saying when C blocks E's way it takes damage points, not being able to say the hard sound any more (example: Prince, the C blocks E from giving it's powers to I, so I cannot say it's name, and the C takes damage, becoming a soft sound instead of a hard sound). The boys resonated with that explanation well and Emmet said he wishes all his school was more like a video game. Haha. Avery finished All About Pre Reading this week too!!
We recieved our game Ecologies this week. It is really fun and full of amazing info. Did you know squirrels eat slugs?! The gist of it is you build ecologies, earning points for playing animals that live within food webs in those ecologies. Everyone plays a biome first, then plants, then animals that eat those plants, animals that eat those animals, etc. Each biome has scavenger or decomposers (think worms or vultures or coyotes) who can eat the top predators. The goal is to create biomes that reach 4 levels deep into the food web and to also score 12 points first. Michael really enjoyed it, the other two were not interested in playing yet.
We read our Spanish readers and did our math work books. Michael has moved onto a fraction and decimal book and really enjoys it. It seems to click really well for him! Emmet is almost to the end of his math book, and we have only a few chapters left in Story of the World. So close to summer, I can taste it!!
Over mothers day weekend I decided what I wanted most was a pool to occupy and wear the boys out this year. We found one on sale and was able to throw one together quick and inexpensively! Score! And the boys spent almost an entire day unloading and leveling sand. Double score! As we worked on the pool we also planted bean sprouts into 5 gallon buckets to work on our bean tent we want to grow this summer!
And, it was Emmet's birthday this week! He said it was the best birthday ever, which is good considering he was disappointed he couldnt have friends over. We made Mario decorations, gave him mostly clothes (he thought that was awesome!) plus a few fun games!
Enjoy the weekend!
The Dillman's
Comments
Post a Comment