TOG Year 4 Week 5

This week we continued learning about WWI.  This was also the first transition week to our new schedule.  It is beginning to help.  Princess E still, however, has an attitude about doing school work on the weekends.  And she refuses to do it.  I explained to her that she is in middle school now, and if she were going to a PS, she would have homework every night and on the weekends.  She doesn't believe me, however.  It doesn't help that one of the neighborhood girls (who was held off on K until she was six but is also a very gifted student) finishes any and all homework before she ever leaves school, and the other (who is ten months older but in the same grade) has a study hall at the end of the day and has so far finished all her schoolwork during that hour.  With our new schedule change, however, she will not be able to get away from it as she will have to tackle some of her reading on the weekends, or else do some of her other subjects in order to have her history reading and AQ/TQs done for a Wednesday discussion. 

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic
McCrabb:  Book A Test 10 - her ten test average came in at 4.92.  She wasn't very happy, and I explained that it showed me that she is still trying to speed through her reading.  She finished most tests with 30 to 40 seconds left.  But she would make silly errors on the questions.  So I told her she needs to slow down a little and make sure she understands what each sentence is saying before going on.
Latin For Children Primer A:  Lessons 11 and 12.  In two more lessons, we will change our pace from two days per lesson, to four days per lesson, as there is a bit of new material mixed in with things she learned last year.
Math-U-See Delta: Finish lesson 22
IEW: We skipped lesson two, as both girls seem to understand the process of writing a KWO quite well.  We went on to lesson three, and did a KWO, rough draft and final draft on a fictional short story.  They were assigned another story to begin the process with again.
MCT Language Arts:  Continue Grammar Island.  We took a quiz on labeling the parts of speech for four sentences and they did quite well.  They are really enjoying this series, as am I, for it's humor and originality.
Spelling: Did our first spelling bee during group time.  Earned two skittles for each correctly spelled word out of ten words.
TOG Yr4 Wk5: Timeline; Student Activity Pages (SAPs); AQ/TQs; Reading - Anne of Green Gables, Home Run to Heaven, Usborne Intro to WWI, Complete Idiot's Guide to 20th Century; Read Alouds - Pollyanna, The Story of the World Vol. 4.  We finished Pollyanna and I broke down and purchased the DVD at Sam's Club.  The girls were so excited to watch it, but were very disappointed because of all the changes to the storyline.  I reminded them that, "That's Hollywood for you."
Science: God's Design for Heaven and Earth Our Universe - lesson 27 and quiz on planets

Princess S - 4th Grade - UG
McCrabb: Book A Test 10.  Her ten test average was 5.01.  This was a big boost to her (especially when here older sister got a lower average.) I'm hoping that it helps her to see that she can do well when she applies herself.
Math-U-See Gamma: Finish lesson 21 and begin lesson 22
Growing With Grammar 4: 1.13 and 1.14
TOG Yr 4 Wk5: Quizlet vocab; Important People; SAPs; Read Alouds - same as above; Reading -  Fanny Crosby, Where Poppies Grow, WWI, The Railway Children, War Game
Spelling, IEW and MCT: same as above
Science: same as above

Princess L - K - LG
Winter Promise Adv K: play Memory game with -an, -ap, and -at; Handwriting practice with sentences; Read - Jack, Crab Trap; Explode the Code - pg 9-16
Math-U-See Primer: Lesson 19F - Lesson 20E; flashcards - on Friday she reached her goal and earned a trip to the prize bucket, we'll be adding in new cards in another week or so.
Spelling: same as above
TOG: Read alouds - same as above; Reading - The Velveteen Rabbit.
We also began teaching her to load the dishwasher.  Each morning from 8:15 to 8:30 she will rinse and load the breakfast dishes, then start the dishwasher.  Then she has to wipe down the counters around the sink, rinse our the sink with the sprayer, and run the disposal.  For now, she is excited to do it. I hope to have her master this task by the end of the year so that we can start 2011 with three kids able to load the dishwasher.  Then she will be the loader for every meal and her sisters will split the unloading and putting away task.  Princess L is too little to reach up and put them away.

Princess M - PreTOGger
Fun and games with big sissies.