Bible: "Rupert" had 3 Bible verses to memorize for J-Force (his play practice) this week, and I think he's going to get them all down! He has an incredible memory. He only has to hear something a couple of times and he's got it. I wish it were that easy for ME.
Speaking of his play, well, technically it's a musical, this week he found out that he got a small solo part and he gets to play the parts of Paul and Jesus at a couple of points in the play. Add to that the ribbon dance that he gets to do, and you've got one excited little boy! This will be a great experience for him and he is having a lot of fun with it.
Spelling: Whew! This week's list was HARD! He got half of them down, and we'll work more on the other ones when we come back from spring break.
Math: Now that "Rupert" has a pretty good handle on addition, we're starting to be more purposeful about subtraction. This is a harder concept for him, but amazingly, it helps if I put things in terms of money. "If you have 7 dollars and you spend 4, how much do you have left?" works a lot better than "What's 7 minus 4?" We also use his
Funtastic Frogs
manipulatives to help him to understand and visualize the problems.
History: This week we were introduced to Alexander the Great. "Rupert" had fun pretending to be Alexander while riding around on his stick horse, "Bucephalus", and conquering the Persian Empire. We also learned how to tie a Gordian knot.
On Saturday, we had family over for an ancient Greek feast and Olympic games. We had Greek pilaf, cheese, olives, grapes, apples, pears, bread, honey, almonds, spinach, Greek pasta salad, traditional Greek Easter cookies and cheese cake.
We did not follow the ancient Greek protocol for our Olympic games as we allowed girls to participate and none of the contestants competed in the nude. The events we competed in were long jump, discus throw (frisbee), wheelbarrow race, foot race, and for the grand finale, a foot race with armor on! The winners got the traditional wreath of olive leaves, fame in their home towns, and room and board for life (okay, maybe not for LIFE...that's up to their parents).
Our Greek name tags:
Science: We learned about our sense of taste and hearing. We'll do more with hearing after spring break, but this week we watched Bill Nye and did a couple of fun experiments with sound. In one of them, we made a model of an ear drum, sprinkled salt on it and then made loud noises (beating a pot with a spoon) to make the salt dance, showing the vibrations of the sound waves on the "ear drum".
Social Opportunities: Play practice, overnight at Grandma's (with a little Grandma schooling thrown in), kung fu, playdate with my friend's girls, art day, and our Greek feast/Olympic games.
and LOVED it! I am so excited that he is reading books with more words on the page AND he's enjoying it! Thank you so much for letting us borrow this book, Morgan!
. We also tested the audio version of Story of the World
. It seems to really work for us. "Rupert" really enjoys listening to audio books in the car when we're out and about, so why not do our history studies in the car? He seems to get a lot more out of it when it is read by someone other than his fumbling, bumbling, checking pronunciation mid-sentence mom. :-)
They actually showed a real human heart that was having bypass surgery. Really cool!
). Then, mix the nuts, oats, wheat germ and sunflower seeds in a baking dish with sides. Toast them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring every few minutes so they don't burn.
Seeing the book I made in the 3rd grade not only inspired "Rupert" to make his own book, but also to use the same type of writing I had used in mine...cursive. All on his own, he got out his cursive practice book and went to work. After doing a few practice pages, he decided it would be easier to just print, and that is what he is doing. He is currently writing chapter two of his own book! :-)
