Friday, October 22, 2010

Wrap up week 10/18-22

Schnickelfritz is busy taking his Unit III test from Math U See Gamma--a whopping 56 questions.  It still won't take him very long.  He is determined to start MUS Delta before Christmas. 

We completed All About Spelling Level 1 this week as well.  This is a program we discoved as a member of last year's Homeschooling Crew.  I can't tell you what a difference it has made to ease the frustration levels of both student and teacher.  Fritz loves moving the magnetic tiles around rather than writing.  I love the step by step instructions--for some reason teaching language arts intimidates me.  We've had to move the tiles from our whiteboard to a new permanant home on the basement refrigerator.  Fritz was constantly using the whiteboard for drawing maps and pretending to be Mr. Demme teaching math.  He would just pick off the letter tiles to get them out of his way and it would take me a week to find them all again.

The weather has turned cool enough now that its difficult to find insects so we've returned back to the bird chapters of our Apologia Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  We made a field trip to the World Bird Sanctuary open house last weekend.  While it's always a thrill to see bald eagles, even flightless ones,  this weekend was special because we were given access to the clinic where they care for injured birds of prey and their breeding area.   To go with our bird study, I also started reading aloud E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan.

We've been reading our way through the Bible this year (I have chosen not to read certain passages containing more adult content like Lot and his daughters).  We started Exodus and by coincidence Fritz's Royal Ranger commander decided to show the boys The Prince of Egypt.  She had to divide it and show it over two weeks.  Fritz insisted that we read far enough in the book to meet up with the story so I had to read 4 or 5 chapters a day.  Fritz listened without complaint and even insisted I "Keep going," --words to a mother's ears.

I've really slowed down our Mystery of History because I want to tie in to our Bible reading.   Growing up I never understood the relationship between the things I learned in Sunday School and what I learned about history on weekdays.  I want Fritz to understand that what we read in the Bible were real events that we can add to our timeline.  I can only read so much in a day though, so history lessons will just have to go slow for now.

Tomorrow we have another Orienteering meet.  This will be our first in a state park rather than a municipal park.  I have  a feeling it will mean more compass work and less relying on controls being on paths or easy objects.  There's going to be a new training couse for junior members before the main meet.  I hope Fritz will be able to make some new friends that share his enthusiasm.

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