I didn’t initially plan on taking this long with the animals unit but it seems Mieke is enjoying it so much that I really don’t want to rush it.

Our Bible verse for the week was actually the AHG memory verse she needed to learn. It comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength.

On Wednesday we got together with a friend from the American Heritage Girls. Mieke and Cassandra are the only girls who are Pathfinders and since the Pathfinders and Tenderfoots are in the same group they’re mostly doing the older group’s work, so Carey and I decided to get together and do the Pathfinder work with the girls. They did a couple of crafts like a “He is Risen” craft and made some adorable bird feeders with seed & pine cones...it was a bit messy but lots of fun.

For Science we focused on Reptiles and Amphibians and Insects. We also made a mural with animals from these 3 classes on it. We also learned about birds, bird’s eggs and how birds are useful to people (food, eggs, clothing). We learned about who John James Audubon was and how his study of birds helped to answer some questions about bird behavior specifically migration patterns.

The math this week was subtraction with borrowing (regrouping) and I cannot say enough good things about the Math-U-See program. I was not looking forward to teaching this concept. I thought for sure we were going to get stuck here and we’re going to have to stay on this topic for 2 or 3 or even more weeks but we watched the video and Mieke snapped it right away. The light bulb went on and I’m so proud of her and so giddy with this program :-) On Friday she scored 9 out of 12 on the test. She made some silly mistakes, not specifically with the new work we learned.

In LLATL the new spelling words were: their, weigh, from and for.These are so easy compared to the sequential spelling. On Friday she was evaluated in Sequential spelling and the words she needed to spell were: shoving, show, drove, blowing, robe, exploded, enjoy, delayed, loaned, soaking, crime, unguarded, starring, marching, home, soap, understanding, depends, demanded and exciting. She scored a perfect 100%. We had just completed day 80 of book 1.

I decided that we should also finish the Success in Spelling program since we are already halfway through and we only have 17 more tests to go for 2^nd grade level spelling....but instead of doing 1 test per week, we’ll do about 3 or 4 tests per week until we’re done. so on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday she wrote a test per day. The words on Monday’s test were: a, are, and, as, at, be for, from, have, he, his & I. Tuesday’s test words were: in, is, it, o, on, that, the, they, this, to, was & with. Wednesday’s test words were: you, all, an, but, by, can, do, each, had, how, if & not. Thursday’s test words were: one, or, said, she, their, there, use, we, were, what, when & which. As you can see it’s a lot easier than the words learned in sequential spelling.

On Monday Mieke went to MAFA while I came back to clean the house. They learned about Thomas Jefferson and his accomplishments, the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812. In Art they colored some flags and learned about the story behind the US flag. In music they learned the history of the national anthem and listened to the music and lyrics. In drama they reviewed stage directions, learned about speaking their lines clearly and loudly and then they practiced some scenes from the play.

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