Week in Review - February 7, 2011

I'm just going to hit the highlights of last week.

BamBam finished Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie. I wish we lived near some real lighthouses, because he found the lighthouse in the book quite interesting. He knows what they are for, but I know that seeing one in person would really help his understanding.

I just realized this week that I can order only the reading guide from Sonlight. It's in the $5 range and will cover the reading books and guides for the whole year. I'll be picking this up next month for both BamBam and Primpress.



Primpress is continuing with the Elson reader. She really enjoys the short, simple stories. Her reading is taking off - she's made that magical connection in her brain and is starting to read everything. I love this special moment. I wish I could bottle it and keep it forever.

Daddy Jayhawk took Friday off to work on replumbing his Mom's house. That's a whole other story, so we'll skip to the homeschooling tie-in. We headed down to Union Station to see the Solar System Tour on their Planetarium 360-Dome screen. The 40 minute show was informational, but probably could have been jazzed up a bit. Every planet's info was similar, and left quite a bit to be desired. For example, they would mention that a planet was photographed by such and such probe, but they'd never show the real images. Perhaps it was a copyright issue? Still, the kids enjoyed the novelty of the 360 dome.



We managed to squeeze in Meet the Masters this week. This week was on Van Gogh. MtM is such a hit! I'm soooo glad I spent the money on it. We worked on feeling/seeing texture with our eyes (and this came up quite often in conversations throughout the week). We practiced drawing texture using shapes. We made our own version of Starry Night. The pictures really don't do the artwork justice. They did a fantastic job.









Favorite conversation of the week:

Baby Bear: Mom, can I read library books?
Me: Yes, you can read library books.
Baby Bear: Woo-hoo!

Why he thought he had to ask, I don't know. The fact that he was so excited to look through our new library book basket thrills me.



So, what's in the new library book basket, you ask? Lots and lots of books from Tapestry of Grace. We got close to actually finishing everything we had planned for the week. There is an abundance of great resources in TOG, and I just couldn't get to it all. I love it!

We read Pharoahs and Pyramids together.



We started our unit-long lapbook.
We practiced vocabulary for Week 1.
We reviewed the definition of nouns.
We named nouns and played noun games.
We review the continents and learned the major oceans and mountain ranges.
We worked extensively on labeling a world map.
We colored response sheets for the week.

We didn't get to the salt map. I'm not too heart-broken. We WILL be making sandpaper pyramids this week.

We didn't our Word Bank started. We'll get it started this week.

We haven't finished our world maps (labeling the major rivers). Nor did we get to our Egypt maps - we will this week.

We didn't receive some of the books from the library that I put on hold yet, but I was able to supplement so that's a step in the right direction.

What do I think of TOG so far? Love it. I've planned through the third week and I really feel that I'm thisclose to hitting a groove. I still haven't incorporated much of the Bible into it yet, but I'm baby-stepping my way through this - we'll get there.