Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Went Baking at the Nursing Home

We had so many plans this week but they kept changing at that last minute; mostly due to the weather.  It's been a dreary and cold week with rain threatening most days.  I didn't mind though; all that nasty weather and canceled plans allowed us to really focus on schoolwork this week.  We managed to get so much done and still have lots of fun.

Math:  Ian started book 3 in his Key to Decimals book and is just flying through the pages.  Alec has finished up his Math Made Easy 5th grade book and will start in his new book next week.  Evan is close to finishing up his Multiplication Facts Made Easy book and has been working hard at understanding multiplication.  For now he is using his multiplication chart to help him on facts larger than 5 and we'll soon focus on memorizing them.  The older two boys completed two more pages in Are You A Math Genius and all three boys worked on the next set of pages in Multiplication Games.  Ian and I played a few games of Clue and one pretty quick game of Monopoly.  He was a great banker and started out the game really well, but I came from behind for a quick win with a set of hotels.  Luckily he's a great sport and was all smiles anyway.

Reading:  Alec read A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter and started reading the Survivors series.  Ian finished up The Deadly Dungeon and read The Empty Envelope.  Evan and I finished up Night of the Ninth Dragon.  We all started reading Storm Warning together; the 9th book in the 39 Clues series.  We also started listening to the House of Hades in the car.

Physical Education:  We hosted a birthday party over the weekend at a place called Zoinks.  They have a room with a rock wall, laser maze, and air hockey table that my boys just love.  Alec climbed the rock wall at least a half dozen times.  Ian made it to the top three times-- his first time ever making it to the top!  All three boys were running through the laser maze trying to beat the scores of the previous contestants and occasionally teaming up with friends.  They had a great time!

Geography:  We read V is for Volunteer learning a bit more about Tennessee.  Evan and I are reading about water habitats so far we've read Rivers, Coral Reefs, Wetlands, Ocean Floor, and Beaches.  Alec and Ian spent a few afternoons playing Stack the States honing their facts about the 50 states. All three boys completed a page in our Maps and Geography book on South Carolina and we read What's Great About South Carolina finishing up our South Carolina unit.

Spelling/ Language Arts:  All three boys started working in their new spelling books.  We decided to try Building Spelling Skills and both Ian and Alec are working on grade 4 while Evan is working in grade 1.  I purposely picked books below their skill and grade levels so they'd have a nice easy review and we could ease into regular spelling lessons.  Evan knew all the words in his first lesson before even writing them once so we skipped over to lesson 2.  They seem to be enjoying them and don't complain so I am happy.  All three boys also worked on two more lessons in their cursive books.  Evan completed the next two pages in his 100 Words to Read, Write, Spell and Draw by the Thinking Tree while the older two boys each completed another page in their English and Grammar books.

All three boys picked another set of pages in our Draw Write Now and our Draw Through History pages to complete.  Ian learned about two point perspective drawing while drawing the castle and ended up working it all out on a completely separate page so he'd have enough room to draw all the details.  It came out amazing!

Socialization:  We met our friends at the park for a fun afternoon of playing on the swings and slides.  We also attended a birthday party and hosted two more parties ourselves!  It was quite the busy weekend.  We met up with some friends to go see Storks on Thursday; it was such a cute movie and made us laugh out loud.

We spent an afternoon at the nursing home with my grandmother.  They were having her participate in a baking class and asked the boys to join.  They made apple turnovers and had a great time answering apple trivia questions, singing along, and talking to all the staff.  Afterwards we took her on a walk of the center and found the resident cat to pet.  The boys made friends with a few of the other patients; many of them are retired nuns who taught at local area catholic schools and they just love getting to talk to the boys.

Science:  Ian completed his EEME kit on making a magnet.  Evan read through his latest Ranger Rick JR magazine and we learned about swamp animals.  Alec picked out a series of pages in his read and color books learning about puffer fish.  The boys all picked out their topics for our homeschool science fair and we requested a bunch of books about parrots, ocelots, and remote control vehicles.  Alec started reading about Ocelots reading both Big Cats and An Introduction to the Ocelot and Margay and Other Rare Wild Cats.  Ian started putting together remote control vehicles.  We have this kit that allows him to put together 10 different types of vehicles and he's going to work on putting all 10 together and taking pictures of them for his report.

We went apple picking this week and noticed a HUGE difference in picking apples this year compared to previous years.  We talked about why apple production might be down and how the late frost might have hurt the growing apples.

Life Skills:  Ian made us all waffles this week; I just love how quickly and easily he can whip up a double batch. He even washed out the waffle maker when he was done!  The boys helped us pressure wash the mats we had on the basement floor when it had flooded and Ian helped paint and seal the floor.  We found a few spots of mold and after treating them we wanted to try and stop more mold from reforming.

Art:  Alec finished up his Stained Glass Made Easy.

Evan finished up his last dragon watercolor painting.

All three boys worked on a fun fall art picture with leaves.  They could not decide on just one project so we agreed to do all three within the next week.  For this week's project we drew leaf skeletons using some super fine markers.