Monday, October 17, 2011

Our Week In Review

We had a good week of school last week. Our older students learned about the the Hundred Year's War and the complex relationship between England and France toward the end of the Middle Ages, while our younger ones focused on individual people, such as Joan of Arc. I read a Joan d'Arc picture book to the two younger boys, and then Little Man drew a picture of an event in her life, while son C wrote in this mini book what he remembered from our reading. I love this lapbooking/notebooking method for assessing how much he has remembered and internalized from our reading! He is the perfect age for this... still loves cutting and pasting, and not too much writing to tire his hand.


We have used my Kindle quite a bit this year for school. A couple weeks ago it really saved the day for daughter G. I had forgotten to buy one of the books she needed for her online literature class, and I realized this at the start of the week she needed it. Our libraries didn't have it, no time to inter library loan it, and no time to purchase it and have it sent to us unless I paid for expensive overnight shipping. I checked to see if it was available in the Kindle version, and it was! I purchased and downloaded it, and in less than 5 minutes our daughter was busily reading. Love modern technology when it works well!




What was different about this week:

We were blessed with a "Chaos Tower" which is like Marbleworks on steroids. Super fun to build, and super fun to watch the balls go through the gauntlet!



What worked well this week:

Our schoolroom!!

Having access to all our educational materials is such a JOY! We re-instituted activity time with son C and Little Man this week. Each morning right after Bible time they get to do a learning activity. It is a nice change of pace from bookwork, and nice for them to spend time together. One of their activities was Boggle Jr:




We are wrapping up our studies of the Middle Ages during this current week and will soon turn our attention to the Renaissance and Reformation. Such a fascinating time period to study!

1 comment:

Beth in Texas said...

That Kindle comes in handy doesn't it? I am reassured to know I'm not the only mom who does things like this (as in forgets to order books).