Wrapping Up Week 27 (2014-15)

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Deanna

This week had lots of ups and downs. Over the weekend Ian came down with a stomach bug and was miserable, especially when he had to miss his birthday party with our extended family. Thankfully he had lots of little blessings that came his way over the few days he wasn’t feeling well, which helped make up for his disappointment. Then just as we were getting back into the swing of things, my husband and I both came down with the bug. In other words, school didn’t look quite like I had planned this week, but we improvised a bit and still managed a fairly decent week of school.

During our down time we finally got around to listening to the latest Jonathan Park album (The Journey Home?) and were delightfully surprised when the Creation Response Team bumped into the Brinkman family (from one our our other audio favorites, The Brinkman Adventures).

Bible/Circle Time

I don’t usually mention our main Bible lessons, which come from our family devotions in Old Story New , but this week’s lesson fit well with our science lessons. We’re on Week 18: The Four Soils (a.k.a. the parable of the sower), which tied in nicely with what we’re learning about seeds.

We only managed to get through four chapters of Little Pilgrim’s Progress this week, but that means we should be able to finish up Part 1 next week, barring any disruptions such as we faced this week.

Math

I was especially thankful for our online math programs this week. Ian has made great progress with xtramath.org, and I think I’m going to start having him practice subtraction cards now that he has his addition facts pretty much nailed. Our subscription to CTC Math is going to expire in the next couple weeks, so I tried to have Ian complete a few more lessons there in addition to several lessons in the program we’re currently reviewing, GPALOVEMATH. I love CTC Math’s straightforward approach, which makes it very easy to see which concepts he needs to work on. GPALOVEMATH seems to be pretty thorough as well, however, so I don’t see a need to renew our CTC Math subscription at this point.

Literature

Our scheduled reading for Ambleside Online, Year 1 are pretty thin for the next few weeks (mostly because they’re a bit heavier in the history books, which we’re not using), so we didn’t get any farther behind despite our crazy week. We finally read the story about “The Law of the Wood” in Parable from Nature. We’ve been using Leslie Laurio’s paraphrase because many moms on the AO Forum had said this book was one of the most challenging for their kids in Year 1. I’m really glad I made that decision, because even with the paraphrase this book has been difficult for us, I think because the stories tend to be longer than most of our readings. I’ve pushed through for various reasons, but I think it’s both Ian’s and my least favorite of our literature selections.

I also read Noah’s Wife: The Story of Naamah by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso to connect with our study of seeds. It’s a beautiful story based on a traditional story from Hebrew midrash (which made for a quick lesson in and of itself). In the story, Noah’s wife, Naamah (also sometimes called Naomi according to tradition) is tasked with collecting seeds from all the plants on earth to preserve on the ark and scatter after the flood. Ian really liked the story, and it gave us a chance to review the meaning of alliteration.

History Cycle

We are almost finished with Series 2 of Friends and Heroes. These episodes have been set during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Even though we haven’t quite gotten to it yet, we spent some time talking about the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and its significance.

Science

Somehow in the midst of all the sickness we still managed to get through lessons 4-6 in The World of Plants. We also watched The Magic School Bus Goes to Seed.

We talked about monocots and dicots, dissecting beans and corn seeds and then putting some in jars to sprout. Within a couple days we had several sprouts, and I think we’re supposed to be using these in the next few lessons.

We also spent a day at the California Science Center, and Ian enjoyed a lesson on electronics from Daddy as they worked with the set of Snap Circuits he got for his birthday. Thankfully, Daddy knows a lot about that kind of thing, because I would be pretty useless! I’ve heard a lot of great things about Snap Circuits, and I’m so glad we gave them a try. Ian’s already figuring out how to create his own projects, which amazes me since I really don’t have a mind for this kind of thing. I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of things he comes up with.