Weekly Highlights - Week 28

Sticking with the weekly HIGHLIGHTS plan, lesseeee....

The younger three learned about bats this week - microbats and megabats. Do YOU know the difference? My kids should be able to tell you. Did you know a mama bat can find her baby by smell even amidst thousands of other babies? We practiced identifying our "babies" by smell. (OK, so the babies were cotton balls soaked with various scents. Cut us some slack.) I am going to post a couple videos separately for your viewing pleasure.

David has been working on the physics of motion. See my earlier post for some specifics. He's also been continuing his study of the Civil War. A local storyteller visited one of "our" libraries to talk about The Underground Railroad in Michigan, so David and Emily and I went to hear her speak. (All the kids in the admittedly small audience were homeschooled!) David finished his book The Red Badge of Courage (on audio).

Emily finished her book Hero Tales. Harriet Tubman was one of the heroes, thus Em's interest in attending the Underground Railroad presentation. She is working on her new level in Math-U-See and doing very very well in Spelling! I have the movie Anne of Green Gables that I hope she'll like since she recently read that novel.

James is plugging away at Pilgrim's Progress. He remembers the movie version we saw a while back (starring Liam Neeson) and that's helping him get through it. I have a Pilgrim's Progress game that we've never played that he's asked for, so I'll drag that out. James has memorized all his multiplication facts! Go James! He also amazed me by using the art techniques he's been learning at his monthly art class. I had assigned the 3 younger children to write or draw the differences between microbats and megabats and James worked very hard on his picture, using a pencil lead "smudging" technique. That's what you see in the picture of him at the table; off to the left is the pencil scribble that he's smearing the cotton balls in.

Suzy has been reading little books that came along with her Alphabet Island phonics - practicing her short vowel sounds. She's working on long vowel sounds in Explode the Code and in Alphabet Island, she's working on beginning blends. Doing well, but she gets frustrated OH-so-easily.

Monday's weather was nice but Tuesday's was just lovely and we took some reading outside on Tuesday afternoon. I'm reading aloud from Soup and Me by Robert Newton Peck (the sequel to Soup, which I read to them just a couple weeks ago). They laugh uproariously throughout! I fear nothing else will compare!