Homeschool Diary: 24 Adar 1, 5771

Other “weekly challenges”:

• Six Word Saturday
• Homeschool Diary

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I do want to keep it up, so I figure I’d better get into the habit before Purim and Pesach run everything completely off the rails around here. 

We’ve had a couple of “field trip” weeks, and it’s amazing how just one outing in the middle of the week can throw things totally off for the entire seven days.  They were good trips, though – one to the fire station, and last week, to the Museum.  Naomi was playing Museum today – by making her own “coprolites” (ie dinosaur poo) out of cardboard, coloured grey and brown.

I love how people online sometimes name their homeschool.  There must be a philosophy that recommends it.  If I ever do, which I probably never will, I would call our homeschool “The Smile Factory.”  Mostly because we have so many tears and screaming around here.  Luckily, most of the tears and screaming have nothing to do with homeschooling.  But still… welcome to The Smile Factory.

It just sounds sinister, you know?

WEEKLY PARSHA: 
פְקוּדֵי / Pekudei

SCIENCE THEME: 
Supposedly finished with Respiration, but I think we’ll take another week to do this in more depth.  The next unit is Skin, and the books haven’t come in yet anyway.

And here’s what else we’re up to!

Sunday:

• Preschool stuff home alone with Gavriel Zev
• PHYSICAL/RECREATIONAL:  The aunts took Naomi Rivka & YM skating

Monday (Ted off):

• MATH:  Monday math – homemade dinosaur math worksheets; ordinal numbers, graphing – whoops, forgot to practice our skip counting (see below for how we’re doing it these days)!
• HEBREW:  Reading/writing in Kriyah v’Od
• HEBREW READING: New “Hebrew Reader” from our Mirik Snir set:  קבלת שבת/Kabalat Shabat – Mommy reads alone
• * NEW!  ART:  Began Draw Write Now, Volume 1 (a most successful hen-drawing lesson!)
• CHAGIM:  More from the Purim section of the Migdalor “Chagim” book.
• PHYSICAL/RECREATIONAL:  Park walk with Abba – taking advantage of semi-decent weather!
• PHYSICAL/RECREATIONAL:  Ballet for Naomi, swim for both kids

Tuesday:

• WRITING:  Handwriting Without Tears
• PHONICS:  Explode the Code, post-test – we’re just about DONE!!!
• READING ALOUD:  BOB Books, Winter Fun Readers / Dick & Jane
• HEBREW READING:  Mirik Snir book, read together & listen to it on the CD
• SCIENCE:  Continue with Respiration; reading, colouring page, maybe watch an animation if I can find a good one online / narration – must not forget narration
• CHAGIM:  Begin homemade Purim worksheets
• PRESCHOOL/SOCIAL:  Gavriel Zev’s weekly preschool program
• PARSHA:  Begin weekly Parsha review (today or Wednesday)
• CHAPTERS:  Continue reading Matilda; we’re almost done, and the kids are loving it.  Naomi gasped last week when it was revealed (gasp – spoiler alert!) that Miss Trunchbull was Miss Honey’s abusive aunt.  She tried announcing it to everybody in the family, but – pitfall of being Child #3 – everybody else knew already from having read it years ago.  Drat!)

Wednesday:

• PRESCHOOL:  Same/different on homemade Purim worksheets
• MATH:  Continue with JUMP Math
• HEBREW:  Reading/writing in Kriyah v’Od
• READING ALOUD:  BOB Books, Winter Fun Readers / Dick & Jane
• ART:  Draw Write Now, Review Lesson 1
• CHAPTERS:  Continue reading Matilda
• SOCIAL/RECREATIONAL:  Playdate at the Barbara Frum drop-in gym
• PARSHA:  Begin weekly Parsha review (if not done on Tuesday)

Thursday (Ted’s late day – eek, and I just realized I’m out most of the morning, so I don’t know how much learning will take place around here… :-o):

• MATH:  Continue with JUMP Math
• WRITING:  Handwriting Without Tears
• PHONICS:  Begin Explode the Code, Book 2!!!
• SCIENCE:  Read/experiment/activity
• READING ALOUD:  BOB Books, Winter Fun Readers / Dick & Jane
• HEBREW READING:  Mirik Snir book – Naomi on her own
• CHAPTERS:  Finish (?) reading Matilda?  Begin next Little House Book – probably Farmer Boy; it’s about time we read about a boy, for a change.
• SOCIAL/RECREATIONAL:  Weekly Thursday Homeschool Drop-In
• Library run in the evening???

Friday:

• MATH:  Continue with JUMP Math
• PARSHA/Narration / illustration
• G-dcast weekly parsha video
• …And that’s ALL!

Sunday (alone with Naomi Rivka):

• Building a paper Mishkan project from Pillars of History

 Resources we’re loving this week!

A couple of added math resources that are FREE and WONDERFUL:

Skip Counting Drill Sheets from Lilliput Station (free on CurrClick.  Yeah, I know this one seems like busywork of the worst kind.  But it’s NOT. 

To prepare for multiplication, I try to review our “weekly” skip counting number every morning.  We’ve done 2’s, 3’s, 5’s, 10’s, and last week, we started working on fours.  I  have a plastic binder protector taped to the big mirror so I can slide in one of these cute skip counting charts (a different link from the Drill Sheets) and leave it up as long as we want.  There are dozens and dozens of drill sheets in the free, downloadable PDF (I think you have to register).  I print as many Drill Sheets as I want to work on at one time and store them on Naomi’s clipboard.  Then, before we sit down to “do math,” I pick one sheet and she fills in just ONE row – of 2’s, 3’s or whatever (ie multiples from 1 to 12).  Then, she picks a skip counting sheet and fills in just ONE row.  Then, we’re done, and move on to our regular math.  Fours is taking longer than 2’s, 3’s and 5’s… it just occurred to me that I should show her on the 100 chart that counting by 4’s is the SAME as counting by 2’s – just skipping every other multiple.

Plus, there’s also…

 

What’s going on in your  homeschool this week???