Weekly Review 9/3-9/7

Blogger is being really stupid about that picture up there (what else is new?)  Anyway, this was our first week of our five day a week schedule.  I had planned on doing 4 day weeks year round, but with the charter school, we have to get our 180 days between August and May.  And I have several long breaks scheduled for Christmas, New Year's, and Pigby's birthday.  Actually, it's all one long break.

Last week we got our big Amazon and Rainbow Resource orders.  Part of the Amazon order was a hanging wall calendar.  I stuck it on the wall and now we do circle time with the littles in the morning.  We just look at the date, sing the days of the week and months of the year songs that Pigby learned in Kindergarten last year, do some memory work and sing some fun songs.  Then Chuck goes down for a nap and I do school with the boys.

Mon-Thursday we do math, spelling, and cursive.  On Mondays and Wednesdays we do history and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we do science.  Friday is our project day.  We'll do any projects from history, experiments from science, and do an art project.

This week in history, we learned about Sargon and his empire, Akkadia.  I got the Timeline CD from RR and printed out some things and once I get our timeline book all ready, we can start posting in that.

This week in science we learned about koalas, kangaroos, and beavers.  On Thursday, I was so wicked tired that after we did the first part of school, I put Bill Nye the Science Guy in for them and went and took a nap.  That totally counts right?

Today, we just did the art project and skipped the history and science projects. Lame, I know.  I'm not very good at the crafty and fun side of school.  I'm learning and getting better though.

I took some pictures today of our art time.  We got Artistic Pursuits and I am so in love.  I read through the book a few days ago and it is exactly what I wanted.  Open and go, easy, fun, creative, not too difficult for me.  Pigby really seemed to like it.  I also messed around with angles on the camera.  It's just a point and shoot so it doesn't look spectacular, but I thought it was fun.

Our first lesson was on composition.  He was supposed to draw a scene of something we did yesterday or today.

He drew an ice cube melting.  Pretty good, I thought.

Then he drew a zebra in the cage at the zoo, a lion in a cage and a treasure chest.  Ummm...We didn't go to the zoo recently, nor do we have treasure chests lying around.  But you know, whatever

Meanwhile, Digby was doing his thing

This is Pigby drawing streets.  Not sure I understand that one either.

Digby wanted to take a picture of his creation.

Pigby remembered that we went to the library yesterday, so he drew the scene.  Ok, I *may* have reminded him that we went, but all the composition was all his idea.  I just kept asking, "What else was there?" until he wanted to stop drawing.

There's the trees at the top, the castle looking library on the left. Underneath that is the parking lot with cars in it.  Our car is next to the gate.  I was pretty impressed at all he remembered and all the detail he added in.

It was a fun week and I'm enjoying this homeschooling thing.  I think we're having a good time learning about all kinds of stories.