ECC 2nd Edition: Week 8

Our final week in North America.

This week Bible time consisted of learning about the people of Greenland, reading about George Muller in Hero Tales, and continuing on in Matthew. Taking the Sermon on the Mount in small chunks has been good.

Geography was learning more about North American industry, and trying to pronounce a few French words. The kids definitely know their North American countries.

Science was learning about relationships between living things. My kids didn't really notice the animal reproduction pictures in Living World Encyclopedia, but some kids might. I kind of glossed over some of those things. We did do the celery experiment. I think it is the third time we've done it. I didn't do as good a job as before getting all the xylem out of the celery stalk. And we used blue water so the kids could see the water getting up to the leaves.

Rabbit finished up Anne of Green Gables early, so has started on Bruchko. I am having her write up a short summary on each chapter after she reads it. After doing the detailed analysis of Anne of Green Gables, I thought it was important to at least keep up a little writing on each chapter.

She is doing great with her Country Summary reports, though often having to do a little homework on the weekend to finish them. She is getting better at summarizing. She wants to interject her own opinions on some of the topics, though. For example, the Mexican tradition of putting stuff on the graves of dead relatives so they don't come back and haunt them. She really felt like this was an unusual superstition and shouldn't be done. I had to work with her to keep her country summary report to the facts. I told her when she did her Country Report later on, she could put in a little more opinion.

Rabbit is doing pretty well on her science. She even got an 84% on her first quarterly test! I was very proud of her, because that was a hard test. And, her Applications of Grammar tests are improving. She got an A on her last one.

The boys have finally got the hang of long division. I was concerned, but it is really sinking in on the steps to do. Tigger really enjoys Writing Strands, and writes his lessons himself. Pooh is doing okay with it, and we're starting to get the hang of me scribing with him dictating. English seems to be going well.

Oh yeah, I've been having Rabbit do The Easy Spanish with the boys each day. Her Spanish is really improving, and she tries to use it throughout the day. She even occasionally will get on Rosetta Stone and work on it for a few minutes. Not sure if it is helping the boys any. I'm also considering looking into Duolingo - a website some people on the facebook page have mentioned as a good way for the children to learn. 

I know some people say learning a foreign language can be difficult for dyslexics, but Rabbit is really doing well. Now, Pooh's dyslexia is a little worse than Rabbits, so we may have to do something else with him - like American Sign Language. 

Looking forward to South America now.