We are studying History and Science on alternate weeks. This allows for a better flow of focus on our history/science topic and allows for more in-depth study of anything interesting that comes up, as well. Elaina has discovered the overlap between history and science these last two weeks.
Last week, our History week, we read about Copernicus and Gallileo. Learning that Copernicus is referred to the "Father of Astronomy" she took an interest in the planets. She's pulled some books off our shelves about them, googled them and is creating a poster display to hang on her ceiling following the activity in Story of the World. She's been working on this all week, our Science week, and so has put her animal study in Apologia aside.
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| I came down this morning and she had her work space all set up for herself. |
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| Her planets painted and labeled, ready to be hung. |
On Wed. the kids attend an art class for 1 1/2 hours. This is the highlight of our week. My mother-in-law graciously offered to take them to and from and then have them at her house for the day. (One reason is the class takes place close to her house and far from mine.)
Because their classes are at different times, one in the AM and the other in the PM, Mom-Mom decided to give Tara some cooking lessons on her stand-by delivered meals; i.e. Shepards Pie & Chicken and Rice. She wants Tara to write down the recipes and then print them out and create a recipe book, "Grandma's Cooking" or something like that. There are so many things I love about this! The Home-Ec., the special time with Mom-Mom, the creativity and the prospect of what the final result will be, and having all our favorite home-cooked meals from Mom-Mom in one place! This is homeschooling at its best.
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| This picture is actually Tara in our kitchen making caramel apples....but it fits, doesn't it? |
While they're at Mom-Mom's I put together some schoolwork for them to take. Usually it's just a math practice or a brain teaser puzzle with their library books or science/history reading. One of these puzzlers I packed used consonant blends as the focus. This was just a really fun way for Jake to practice his spelling using blends. He picked up on the pattern of the puzzle pretty quickly. It's like we unlocked a box with new ways to combine letters; str, skr, scr, spl, spr.
Now why at 11 1/2 years old is Jake just seeing these combinations? Because even though he has been shown these before he will still spell the word "spray" s-p-e-r-a-y. His learning difference is two-fold when it comes to writing. He's an excellent decoder therefore he can spell any word phonetically. He knows all the various sounds of the English language (ala The Writing Road to Reading). However, his dyslexic tendency is to mix up the letters when he writes them, for ex., "scratch" might look like s-c-e-r-a-c-h-t or "increase" might look like i-n-c-r-a-s-r-e. Though if he read them he would know they were incorrect. He could verbally spell them correctly, as well.
The other reason these consonant blends seem "new to him" is because his processing is such that he needs lots of model and practice of the same material over and over. However, once he "sees" it, once he knows it, it's never forgotten and always applied.
So, this silly little worksheet puzzle about 3 letter consonant blends did the trick...or at least all the stars were aligned and he was in a good frame of mind and he got it that day. So, I'll just give him more fun puzzles to practice other three letter combos and he'll notice it himself in his own writing. (Look Mom! There's a three consonant blend!)
While we've all been busy with these things Luke also wants to be busy, too. Making colored bubbles, suggested to me by my friend whose homeschool is Montessori-based, saved many of our mornings!
Not sure if I execute as she does as I am not trained in Montessori. But I put dishwashing soap into a bowl of water, he mixes it with a wisk to make bubbles then he takes droppers (I have pipettes) and transfers the colored water onto the bubbles.
This was so fascinating to everyone that as you can see in the picture, Elaina waited her turn and then I caught Jake in the kitchen at the end of the day:
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| uh....could you just ignore the mess? yeah, thanks.... |
That's our week and I'm glad to be back on track with my online homeschool record! (Please give me back Be Not Afraid, Google!!! Please????)
Linking up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Fun stuff!!!!
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