Weekly Wrap Up: History Sketches

This week has been a fun one, we really enjoyed our week!  

ADVENT READINGS

We started each morning out with advent readings from Luke.  It has been such a blessing to learn about Christ's life and ministry from the chapters we're reading through.  The kids love to discuss what impacted them about the readings.  I am often amazed by their insights.  

BOOK CLUB

We began Monday with Book Club, which the kids were eagerly awaiting. :)  For the past 6 weeks or so we've been studying Shakespeare's play: Much Ado About Nothing.  The kids loved it and we will definitely be studying more Shakespeare in the years to come.  I usually do a Book Sharing Monday Post but when we have book club I combine the two. I run the Junior Book Club and it has been one of the highlights of my teaching year to do so.  It is a pleasure to watch all the kids' enthusiasm to share and participate.  If you are interested in reading more on our book club you can view the book club post here.

I was excited to pick up a wonderful used book for further Shakespeare study and group activities called: Stepping into Shakespeare.  I was so happy to get this book, as we will be studying more Shakespeare for the book club and it will be a gem of a resource book for teaching at home as well.  

HISTORY

We started in on Vikings as part of our History this week.  We are using a few resources in our study including the Discovering Canada Book: Vikings, along with Usborne's Time Traveler (gorgeous pictures and information in that one), and the read a loud :Viking Adventure.  The kids have been very excited about this part of the unit study.  They were fascinated to learn that the Vikings visited parts of Canada well before the typical Canadian Explores we hear about.  They were equally as excited to learn that a Viking Village was unearthed on the shores of NewFoundland. :)  I had them do some sketching of Viking Ships using an illustration from the Discovering Canada Viking book.  And of course the read aloud for this section is always a hit for them!  

PERSONAL READING

Heather began a new series of books for her personal reading time called:  Elijah Creek and the Armor of God.  She has been gobbling those books up and finished book one already, passing it along to me.  I confess I am having a hard time putting that book down! lol  Heather is on to the second one in the series.  I am so glad a friend of mine recommended them to us.  We love it when we find great reads.

MATH

We've had some struggles in math this week for my eldest.  She is accustomed to getting math concepts on the first try and with very little effort.  We were working on long division and she was having trouble grasping the  concept.  I reminded her that she doesn't have to get a concept the first time that sometimes it takes a bit to grasp something, and that's okay, but she was so frustrated with it that I stopped the lesson. It just wasn't worth it to continue with her that frustrated. I love that we can do that though, take a break when we need to.  Sometimes a break is all we need to refocus and come back with a fresh start.  This mornings lesson went fantastic and she was able to grasp the concept as we tried a couple more different ways to illustrate it.

Graham has been doing great with his math, getting perfect on nearly every work sheet this past week.  He has turned a corner in both math and reading over the past few weeks.  This has been such an encouraging week for him and he was excited to share his work with his Dad. 

Heather working on her Viking Ship Sketch.  She loves to add lots of detail!

Graham working on his Viking ship sketch.  He loves to add colour and create scenes.


SK LEARNING

My youngest has continued to work steadily through her Language Arts Program from Sonlight. (Beginner Sounds and Letters), her Right Start Math Level A along with one of her favorite books right now: The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Nature and Science.  She loves that book. :)  

She also wanted to do some Christmas Drawing and Cards.  She had me take a picture of that. LOL  I told her I would put it up on my blog this week.  She was pleased with that.

Esther drawing a Christmas card for her little friend next door. :)


This post is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up!