Week in Review: 6 January 2012

After about 2 weeks off over the holidays, we got back to "school" this week - albeit a very light week.  With Dan doing training at the hangar this week and so many other things needing to get done in preparation for our move in a couple of weeks, we only did a few essential subjects that took around 30 minutes or so each morning (not counting the Bible and reading time that is part of our normal daily routine regardless of whether or not school is in session).    Here's what we did:

Bible
- Scripture Memory: We are continuing to work through the section of The Catechism for Young Children about The Lord's Prayer (Questions 105-121) - memorizing the questions, answers, and a go-along Bible Verse for each, in addition to reviewing verses learned in the past. 
- Hymns: We are reviewing and adding the second verses to many of the hymns we learned last year.
- Bible Reading: We are reading from the book of Mark.

Opening "Circle Time"  (Read more about the concept of Circle Time here.)
Daily Readings:
 - Poetry: The Llama that Has No Pajama
 - Arnold Lobel's Fables (so Michelle can gain practice in the art of narration: telling back what she has read or had read aloud to her.)
 - God's World News: Early Edition

Calendar Time:  We started using doing our calendar time in French!  So, we are learning important vocabulary such as the days of the week, months of the year, seasons, weather words, and counting.  As we gain profiency in these, we will add in a vocabulary "theme" for the month to learn more words and phrases.  We are singing a little song to the tune of Mary had a Little Lamb to learn the days of the week which is now stuck in everyone's head.  I suppose this is a good thing (it was the point, right?) but starting to get a little bit annoying.  What did I start?!

Michelle adding the day's weather to the weather chart.

Table Time
This week we focused on just two subjects: Math (reviewing sums to 5 and starting sums to 6) and Cursive.   Michelle LOVES doing cursive and is doing amazingly well.

Projects
We started working on the "My Year in France" scrapbook we will continue throughout this coming year by coloring and pasting in a French flag.  

What the Littles Did
Top picks this week were playdough, coloring, and stickers!

Family Reading
- Picture Book Highlights: Obadiah the Bold by Brinton Turkle, a couple Anatole books by Eve Titus, Eloise Wilkin Stories
- Michelle's Reading: Michelle is reading aloud to me from More Days Go By, the third (and final) first-grade level Pathway reader.  We are on track to finish before we leave for France!  She is doing really well with these and is now reading full "chapters" (4-5 pages) in one sitting.
- Bedtime read-aloud: The Thomas the Tank Engine Collection.  This was James' Christmas present, but the whole family (including Papa!!) is enjoying it.

Some Goals and Plans for the Coming Week
- This week I'd like to add a couple more foundational pages to our France scrapbook as well as the framework events to our history timeline [if I have enough time to get it organized this weekend].
- I think we will also add spelling back into our Table Time.
- Michelle has requested that we do a nature walk sometime soon.

For more details about the specific curriculum resources we are using, please visit the Goals and Curriculum link at the top of the sidebar.

Hope you had a good week too!