Weekly Report for the week ending April 23

Finished k12's 1st grade math. Nathan has hated this program over the course of the last few months and it's been a big struggle to get him to do math. I hear they are rolling out a new program and I asked if he wanted to give it a try but he was quite vocal about not doing math from k12 again. So I ordered Singapore Math for him. I was so confused about where he'd be in the program so I decided to order 1b and then we can move quickly through it if it proves to be to easy. I was tempted to start him on 2a. After finishing the k12 math we worked longer on the numerous math workbooks I bought to help him review his facts since k12 didn't seem to review at times.

We also finished k12's science this week. We learned about the human body as the final group of lessons. I have to say out of all the science lessons we've done this year the human body has been a hit with all three kids. We made an outline of the human body and added the organs and systems as we learned about them. We also had a quick lesson on germs and Elizabeth Blackwell. The kids loved doing the cornstarch as a germ and seeing where they could leave germs. Noah has now been washing his hands at a more frequent interval than every 30-60 minutes after the lesson. Right now the plan is to stick with k12 science since it works well for us.

We are using Voyages in English for grammar and writing. We just finished with adjectives and pronouns. Fun lessons and I found some great books to supplement, which I have posted reviews to a few so far. I've decided we will continue with VIE next year.

Spelling is continuing to be a pain. I bought the game What's Gnu? and we've dumped the Spelling Workout and are just practicing spelling words with the tiles from the game. Seriously I need a not expensive spelling program that actually teaches spelling.

We are almost done with k12 history. We finished ancient India and started on ancient China. Again this is another program we aren't doing again next year. Once he finished ancient China he is done with k12. I'll be piecing together a unit on ancient Rome since we plan on using Story of the World 2 in the fall and it starts with the fall of Rome.

I also have a bunch of random workbooks that Nathan loves working in. Some are for reading comprehension, phonics, handwriting, and just random other things. It works for him and he likes them so I let him do it.

Mr. Popper's Penguins has been a huge hit for the kids. They have enjoyed reading the book and look forward to our reading every day because of it. Hopefully we can find another book they love just as much. Nathan has also been enjoying the Nate the Great book.

All three kids have been learning about lines in art. I've been using the Evan Moor book How to Teach Art and it's worked well so far.

Nathan also has been learning about Delaware. I've been using the book Cantering the Globe. Love the ideas in the book however for Delaware the lessons were dry. Maybe because our library didn't have many of the books suggested.

The twins started Galloping the Globe and have enjoyed it so far. We are just learning about the basics of the Earth right now. We made paper mache globes and that was a huge hit for them. I blogged about that yesterday if you want to see what we did.

The twins also use Rusty and Rosie, a free program through our state. There are days the love it and days they hate it.

I also started the twins on Wordly Wise 3000 for K. So far they have really enjoyed the program but whoa nelly it wasn't a cheap program. Unless life changes things we will also use the program for 1st grade.

Sometime in the next few days I plan on posting what I think we will be using for Nathan's 2nd grade year and the twins Kindergarten year.