What We’re Up To

After almost two weeks off, we’re back to full-speed-ahead style school. 🙂  Here’s what we’re up to this week…

Language Arts:  Grace has started reading Ender’s Game this week…she’s also testing out a Nerd in the Brain literature guide to go along with the book.  She’s just getting started on a compare and contrast writing unit.  Of course, grammar is also in the line up.

Math:  We’re still working on charts and graphs this week.  We may finish up the topics in this area and move to statistics before the end of this week.  As always, we’ll also be playing some games and practicing with XtraMath.  Grace will also be doing some math for fundraising for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, but we’ll post more about that in just a few minutes.

Science:  We will carry on with Middle School Chemistry and begin a new unit on life science.

Social Studies:  We have finished up all of our ancient Greece resources, and we’re moving on to ancient Celtic, Roman, and Viking cultures.  We’ll start with a focus on ancient Rome with History Pockets and Hands on History.

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what she’ll choose?  Right now she’s watching a documentary series about oceans for fun…she’s not showing any signs of stopping in the near future. 😉

Field Trips:  Grace has a science class at the Science Center this week.  Other than that, our field trips will likely be taking place in our back yard. 😉

Have a fantastic week!

What We’re Up To

What we’re up to this week is chaos. 🙂  Add together a short school week (Grace’s Spring Break starts Wednesday), a trip to the Literacy Council to help mail out newsletters, an orthodontist appointment, and a late start to the school week (Grace spent the night with Grandma last night, so we’re squeezing in a half-day today)…well, you get chaos.  That’s okay – we adapt to nuttiness pretty well here.  So, here’s what we’ll try to squish into our school time this week:

Language Arts:  We’re going to try to finish reading The Book Thief (fingers crossed) and Grace will complete the final draft of her descriptive essay (to be posted later this week).

Math:  Grace finished her unit on coordinate graphing and has started on charts and graphs.  We’ll keep working on that…and, I hope, add in some Math Doesn’t Suck.

Science:  I think all of our science for the week will take place in the garden/yard.  (We finished up Spectrum Science last week, and I hate to move on to something new just before a long break.)

Social Studies:  We will be finishing up our study of ancient Greece.  Grace put the finishing touches on her History Pockets last week, so this week we’ll be diving into Hands on History.  We’ll also be making ambrosia and nectar. 😀

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what she’ll choose?  Last week she watched documentaries on deep-sea life, went to a new park, and researched her recipes for ambrosia and nectar.

Community Good:  As mentioned earlier, Grace will be helping the Literacy Council with their newsletter mailing.  She also has a Math-a-thon coming up to raise money for a great cause…more on that after Spring Break.

Grace will also be co-authoring(with me) a guest post to appear in the near future on  The Budget Maven (an excellent blog of a wonderful friend).

I think that should certainly keep us busy. 🙂  Have a great week!

What We’ll Be Up To

Last week was full of so much awesome stuff!  Not necessarily the stuff we planned, but awesome stuff nonetheless. 🙂  Because of that, we didn’t exactly get everything on the agenda for last week accomplished, so you may notice some repeat information here. 😉

Language Arts:  Grace is still reading The Book Thief.  (She doesn’t seem particularly impressed at this point, but she’s only about halfway finished.)  She also has some descriptive writing to work on and the ever-present grammar.

Math:  Grace is working on graphing equations.  She’s doing a great job with it, and I predict she’ll finish with the topics this week.  She may be moving on to all sorts of charts-and-graphs-y fun.  Math Doesn’t Suck and XtraMath are also in the plans for the week.

Social Studies:  If all goes according to plan (hahahahaha!), we’ll finish our History Pockets for ancient Greece this week.

Science:  We never quite got to Middle School Chemistry last week, so we’ll be working on that this week.  We’ll also finish up the Spectrum Science that we didn’t quite finish last week. 😉

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what she’ll choose?  Last week she did a lot of painting (birdhouses and pictures).

Field Trips:  We don’t have anything specific planned, but we do know we’ll be working on our decomposing-cardboard garden…that took us to lots of new places where we learned tons of new things last week, so who knows where we’ll end up??? 😀

What We’re Up To…

Here’s what we’re going to be up to this week…tons of fun stuff ahead!

Language Arts:  Grace has started reading The Book Thief…I’m thinking that one will take us through the end of the week.  She’s also working on a new writing unit about descriptive writing (one of her favorites).  Always, always, always with the grammar, too. 🙂

Math:  We have finally worked our way through our algebra topics, so we’re moving on to a review of coordinate graphing and graphs of functions.  Grace has also started reading Math Doesn’t Suck.  So far, she’s enjoying it, and it seems to be a nice little review of some basic concepts.

Social Studies:  We still have quite a few activities with our History Pockets for Ancient Greece, so we’ll be working with those all week.

Science:  We’ll be starting with chapter 4 of Middle School Chemistry…all about atoms and bonding.  Grace will also be tackling the last chapter in Spectrum Science (History and Nature of Science).

Field Trips:  We don’t have any official field trips planned, but we do have some actual work in a field we’re planning.  Grace and I have started a little garden with some unusual methods.  We’ve got some of our seeds started, and, today, we laid out the first layer of our “soil”…which is actually cardboard.  This could be a pretty interesting project. 😀

Grace’s Choice:  Who can say what she’ll choose?  Last week she planted seeds, watched a documentary, a Pi Day celebration, and playing Silly Sentences.

What We’ll Be Up To Next Week

Well, we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t goof up our plans for the week last week…add a full week, a sick teacher, and a sudden inspiration for a card game and you get some strangeness in the schedule. 🙂  And we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t have a ton planned for next week.  Here’s what we’ll be up to:

Language Arts:  Grace has started reading The Alchemyst.  She’s enjoying it quite a bit, and I suspect she’ll finish it early in the week.  If so, we’ll be moving on to The Book Thief.  Grace will finish up her how-to writing unit and begin a new unit on descriptive writing.  As usual, grammar, grammar, grammar.

Math:  We’ve (finally) finished reading I Wish I Knew That Math, so we’ll be trying out Math Doesn’t Suck.  Of course, that’s in addition to our regularly scheduled algebra.  It’s IXL and XtraMath all the way for us.

Science:  It looks like we’ll be wrapping up chapters in two different science resources this week: Middle School Chemistry (density) and Spectrum Science (science in society).

Social Studies:  We have tons of fun History Pockets for ancient Greece to do, so we’ll be on that for a while longer. 🙂

Field Trips:  Grace has a science class at the Science Center this week.  Other than that, our travel plans look pretty quiet.

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what Grace will pick?  Last week she worked on creating her new game, puzzles, and reading.

Have a fantastic week!

What We’re Up To

Wowzers!  We have gotten super behind on the blog again.  No worries…we should be back to our regular speed this week. 🙂

If all goes as planned, I’ll be posting our pictures from last week later today.  For now, enjoy a little rambling about our academic plans for the week ahead. 😉

Language Arts:  Grace finished reading Doomed on Friday, so she’ll be starting with The Alchemyst this week.  She’ll also be working on her How-To Writing Unit.  If all goes as planned, we should finish that up this week or early next week.  And, of course, grammar, grammar, grammar.

Math: Grace is still working her way through algebra topics.  I think some of the frustration with the material is starting to dissipate…we’re just tackling things slowly and calmly. 😉  We totally failed to read any I Wish I Knew That Math last week, so we’ll get that wrapped up this week.

Science:  We’ll finish up a chapter in Spectrum Science about science in society.  We’re also still working with Middle School Chemistry.  It looks like we’ll finish the chapter on density this week.  This means that next week begins a chapter on “The Periodic Table and Bonding”…I’m so excited! 😀

Social Studies:  Grace is off to an awesome start learning about ancient Greece.  (Look for pictures later of some of her activities.)  We will keep working with our History Pockets and material from World Civilizations and Cultures.  It turns out there are way more  History Pockets for Greece than I realized, so we may be working with those for two or three weeks yet.  Fun!

Grace’s Choice: Who knows what she’ll pick?  Last week she did some reading, writing, and game designing.  We also did some work with goal setting and journaling. 🙂

What We’ll Be Up To…

This past week turned out a bit strange for us.  Between having an Orienteering class cancelled due to rain and Grace having tummy trouble and me having a gazillion things going on, plans got turned a bit sideways.  As usual. 😉  So, here’s what we’ll be attempting to do in the week ahead:

Language Arts:  Grace finished reading Starters and began Doomed.  (Doomed also wasn’t in the original plan.  We were going to read The Alchemyst next, but Grace has been longing for Doomed, so I picked it up for her.)  After she finishes up with Doomed, we will, indeed, begin with The Alchemyst.  Other than that, we’ll continue working on how-to writing and grammar.

Math:  Grace is still plinking her way through algebra.  We’ll get there, we’ll get there. 😉  We’re almost finished with I Wish I Knew That Math, so I suspect we’ll be moving on from that this week.  I’ve picked up a copy of Math Doesn’t Suck to supplement our other math activities.  I’ve heard good things about it.  I’ll let you know more after we’ve worked with it a bit.

Science:  Grace finished up a Spectrum Science unit on “Science and Technology” last week, so this week we’ll be moving into “Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.”  This chapter seems to be a bit scattered and includes health, science careers, and disaster safety.  Strange.  We’ll also continue working with Middle School Chemistry.  We’re smack in the middle of the density chapter at the moment.

Social Studies:  We have completed our study of ancient India, so we’ll be getting into ancient Greece.  We  have some lovely reading from World Civilizations and Cultures.  We also have History Pockets and Hands on History to play with.  The Hands on History won’t come into play for a few weeks though…we always save that for last. 😉

Grace’s Choice:  Who can say?  Last week she chose math puzzles, a trip to the used book store, science videos, and writing.  She also tagged along with me for some volunteer hours at the Literacy Council.

Field Trips: Nothing on the horizon for next week.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t go anywhere. 😀

Have a fabulous week!

What We’ll Be Up To…

So, here’s a shocker: we didn’t finish up everything we planned on last week.  Imagine that! 😉  Next week promises to be all full of good stuff, so we might just stay “behind” for a while.  So be it. 🙂

Here’s what we’ll be doing:

Language Arts:  Grace finished reading City of Bones and Glitch last week.  She’s got a good start on Starters, and when she finishes that one, she’ll be reading The Alchemyst.  She’ll also be doing a little bit of work on How To Writing and a grammar/writing unit about vocabulary and word structure.

Math:  Grace is still working on algebra, algebra, algebra.  She finally made some breakthroughs on those two-step equations. (Yay!)  I think the rest of our topics in algebra will go much more smoothly. 🙂  We’ve also got some games and books to add to the mix.

Science:  Grace finished up her Spectrum Science unit on Earth and Space Science.  Now it’s time for Science and Technology.  We’ll also be moving into chapter three of Middle School Chemistry…it’s all about density. 🙂

Social Studies:  This is the subject where we really fell behind last week.  We still need to finish up the Ancient India Folder and Hands on History for India.  When we get those all completed, we’re moving on to ancient Greece.

Field Trips:  Grace has her last Orienteering class and a Nature Explorations class next week.  Other than that, I doubt we’ll leave the house. 🙂

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what she’ll choose?  Last week she made homemade pudding (that’s where dinner conversation will get you!), extra reading, researching how to become an FBI agent, and writing.

 

What We’ll Be Up To Next Week:

We have had an awesome week with lots of quick and nifty science experiments, math games, and book reading among other things.  Next week looks pretty promising, too.  Here’s what we’ll be up to:

Language Arts:  Grace started reading City of Bones this past week, so she’ll continue with that.  She’s really enjoying it, so I suspect she’ll finish before the week is over…if so, she’ll get a start on Glitch.  Grace will also be finishing up a grammar unit (mechanics) and starting a unit on word choices.  She’ll also be continuing with her how-to writing.

Math:  We are slooooowly making our way through some algebra topics, and we’ll keep plodding along with that.  We’re still reading I Wish I Knew That Math, and I think we’ll finish up with that this week.  We’re having a lot of fun testing out math games that I’m creating, too…next week promises some exciting rounds of “Crazy Halves.”

Science:  Grace will finish up her science unit on Earth and Space Science.  We’ll also be completing a Middle School Chemistry chapter on changing states of matter.

Social Studies: We’ll be finishing our Ancient India folder and cooking a little Indian food.  We had planned to do part of that last week, but the best laid plans and all that. 😉

Field Trips:  Class at the Science Center is in store.  That’s our only planned outing for the week.

Grace’s Choice:  Who knows what she’ll choose???  Last week she went with watching a documentary, practicing guitar, and writing.

A full week, indeed!  Have a fabulous week!

What We’ll Be Up To…

Oh, so many plans!  Let’s see if we can get all of this accomplished in the week ahead:

Language Arts:  We are all finished with To Kill a Mockingbird, so we’ll be back to some of our regular language arts fun.  Grace will be working on a grammar mechanics unit and a ” how”-to writing unit.  Even though we were still working on To Kill a Mockingbird activities, Grace got a healthy start on Crossed last week, so she’ll be finishing that up early in the week.  Then we’ll move on to City of Bones, the first book in the Mortal Instruments series.  Fun!

Math:  Algebra, particularly solving two-step equations, is not coming easily, so we’ll be working on that pretty hard this week.  If all goes well with that, we’ll move on to some more algebra concepts.  Of course, we’ll also be playing some games, solving some puzzles, and reading I Wish I Knew That Math.

Social Studies:  Due to an unplanned trip out into the world, we didn’t spend quite as much time on Social Studies last week as I would have liked.  We got one very short intro assignment about ancient India accomplished, and that’s all we did for ancient India.  This week, however, will be all full of the ancient India!  Grace will be completing a history folder this week and we’ll be whipping up some Indian food.

Science:  Grace finished up her unit on Life Science, so we’ll be working on Earth and Space Science this week.  We’ll also continue with our Middle School Chemistry activities.

Field Trips:  We did make it out to a local park this week, but it looks like the weather won’t be friendly enough for that again next week.  Other than a trip to the library, we’ll probably do the homebody thing this week. 😉

Grace’s Choice:  Who can say what she’ll pick?  Last week she focused most of her attention on writing.

Have a fabulous week!