Follow up Friday: Constitutions and Cuneiform

We the people of the school of Sam, Elise, Claire and Anna, in order to inform you of a perfect Union (hee hee) of established Justice and domestic Tranquility (hee hee), do ordain this blog entry to all our family and friends who are curious about what we've done all week.

We celebrated Constitution day and we memorized the Preamble! The book, "We the Kids", by David Catrow, helped us. Our local News paper had a special section in Sunday's paper about the United States Constitution. We really enjoyed reading it. Also we watched the Peanuts version of the Birth of the Constitution (See Sam's site)

The weather is still warm. It's been so nice to be outside. I'm really wishing that we had planted a garden. We didn't because we thought we would be moving this summer. We do still plan on moving .... but, back to the garden. We planted some herbs in a little container and are watching them grow. Call me crazy, but I just get so excited to see the seeds grow! I tell the kids, "Isn't it such a miracle? They were seeds and now they are sprouts! Soon they will be plants!" Sam says, "Mom, it really isn't a miracle. That's what they are suppose to do."




Elise's dance class is so fun. They are doing the choreography now and I gotta tell you there is NOTHING cuter than 12 little girls in pink tutus trying to keep up with their dance teacher AND keep an eye on themselves in the mirror too. They just love it. Elise has the biggest smile.
Claire is also enjoying her tumbling class. We moved her to an earlier class so she is now with 5 other girls. They are working on handstands and cartwheels. Claire loves to practice these at home!
Samuel is still playing piano! (The exclamation point is an indication of my surprise and happiness) "Play it again, Sam..."--I love saying this. I've always known he has a good ear. It's great to hear him sing while he plays sometimes. We've even played some duets! I'd really like to get him going on the violin again. We still are trying to talk him into Tai Kwon Do. Maybe when we settle down.
Anna is saying more words; mie (mine), too (me too!), der (there), are some more of the words she's saying. She is climbing--on fences, on chairs and tables, out of her crib, out of the shopping cart, out of the stroller...nothing can contain her! She tries to do forward-rolls like Claire and loves it when Jeremy flips her.

This week's lesson plan included:
Alma 46-48. The Title of Liberty. Wow...when it comes to heroes, they just don't get any better than Captain Moroni. And when it comes to low-down, dirty rotten scoundrels, they don't get much worse than Amlikiah. It has been exciting times during scripture reading lately.



Samuel: Math Saxon5/4 lessons 15 - 18 and assessment test 2. We really worked on improving his time on the math facts tests.

Language Arts: Lesson 1 (a-d) syllables and meters. Studied, "My Country 'Tis of Thee"
Journal Writing: Practicing cursive, Started newspaper
Reading: "Farmer Boy" (chapters 1-8), so many library books.
Dictation: Practicing cursive, "Only as high as I reach.."
Spelling: oil, boil, coin, soil, join, point, moist, spoil, noisy, hymn, myth, system, mystic, syrup
Story of our World: Chapters 3 and 4. First writings and Egyptian Pyramids.
(see our cuneiform writing project)
Memorizing: Preamble
Art: painting tile and sculpting with clay.
Piano: "Young Hunter"

Elise: Math Saxon2 Lessons 10 - 15. Assessment 2. Doing well on math facts tests.
Reading: phonics groups 3 and 4.
Books read: "Biscuit Wants to Play", "Dancing Dinos", "Mouse Soup", "Owl's Visitor", plus we've read many books together. I'm so pleased with Elise's reading. Today she was reading a book to Claire. It made me feel so good.
Spelling: when, whop, which, whack, whip, August, September, October, Monday, Tuesday
Journal writing
Memorizing: Preamble
Story of our World: See above.
Piano: "Partners at C"
Art: painting on tile and sculpting with clay.

Claire insists on doing school work too. I've been teaching her the letters. Each week we cover a new one. This week was E. She wants to read though. So I've started "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" with her. She picked up the first lesson pretty well. We'll see how it goes. I don't want to push it, but I don't want to discourage it either.