Saturday, October 27, 2012

Show and Tell: 10-26-12 Readin' 'n writin'

Little Crew


   Faith finished the big yellow box set of BOB Books, and has put in her order for the red set, from Costco. Unbeknownst to her I have the long vowel reader set from Nora Gaydos and a collection of Wild Animal Babies waiting in the wings. It's just about time to hand her a Dr. Suess or Little Bear instead of a reader, but the official reader appearance still gives her some extra confidence.











   Valor still doesn't stay still enough for a clear picture, but he has recently discovered the board book pile isn't the only place to get fun pictures to look at. He's checking out the Lorax. Classic toddler lit right there!













Middle Crew


    Grace wanted you to see her cursive Z page. Why is Z significant? Because it means she knows how to write *every* letter in cursive now! She's not ready to do the rest of her lessons in cursive just yet, so her writing in the coming weeks will still consist of copywork to build fluency.









   Honor wanted to share some writing, too. He's very proud of this paragraph from an English assignment. He and I discussed each sentence as he went, but he authored and wrote it entirely himself. He's come a long way from the eyebrow he raised about writing paragraphs regularly at the beginning of the school year.






Big Crew

    Joy said the best part of her week was the Fahrenheit 451 study. This was a spur of the moment bunny trail. I was completely unprepared for it, but we ran with it anyway. Most of the material we're using has come from The Big Read | Fahrenheit 451. Many of the writing assignments from Big Read have made fabulous conversation sparks. Her favorite assignment so far was to write a portion of the story from a different character's perspective. The story is told as if we're following Montag; she wrote as if the main character was Clarisse.

 

   To keep with the reading theme, Justice chose his Tolkien study again. He was skeptical when I told him we'd be talking about the qualities of fairy tales as part of studying Tolkien. After spending a week learning about Tolkien himself, reading portions of his essay On Fairy Stories, and learning some of the vocabulary involved, he's hooked. His main project this week was learning and writing about eucatastrophes, and finding examples in common fairy tales and beyond.



   In math...
  • Faith reached the penny counting section. She can now proudly tell you that a penny is worth one cent, and the guy on it Abraham Lincoln.
  • Grace is multiplying! She thinks it's fun, too! Her addition and subtraction are rock solid. Twice this week she turned in a math lesson without a single mistake. 
  • Honor has been working with measurements, and some order of operations. He can whip through long division like nobody's business and sits there smiling when his family is surprised at how fast he does it.
  • Joy spent a week on fractions. "Easy peasy lemon squeezy." She could have easily tested out of the work, but the review was good for her, and the book we used explained things more intricately than she's covered before. And those fractions were in algebraic sentences, which made them even more fun.
  • Justice is still in a measurements chapter. The metric prefixes seem to have fallen out of his head. I used Google's image search to find a simple chart and put it on the wall near where he does most of his work. Off he goes again!
In science...
  • The middle crew wrapped up cells, and started skin. Honor was *very* interested in every detail of the cells, but the skin diagrams skeeved him out.  Grace's favorite part was the microscope picture of a skin mite. 
  • The big crew wrapped up the introduction to physical science, and read more history of chemistry. They're planning their next project from Backyard Ballistics and making a shopping list for it.
In history...
  • The middle crew read about Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Adams. 
  • The big crew are working through the Revolutionary War battle by battle.

2 comments:

  1. Looks like a good week! We're thinking about Tolkien for next year, after Narnia.

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  2. Fahrenheit 451 is definitely a great conversation sparker!

    I miss the Bob Books.

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