Term B, Week 3 Report

This is going to be a really short report.

This week we did Wetlands for Science. There isn't a page for it in our science "text" (Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World), but I thought wetlands merited some attention. Plus, we had BOTH Bill Nye and Magic School Bus episodes about wetlands. We read a book, watched the shows, and made a page for our science notebook.

History this week was on the Assyrians. We learned about Ashurbanipal and the fighting strategies of the Assyrians. We "reenacted" their two-man basket shield & arrow-shooting technique with markers and a laundry basket. We also built an Assyrian Siege Tower out of Legos (I'll add pictures later today, hopefully.)

Other than that, Noodle made good progress on reading Ruby the Red Fairy and was delighted to be able to create her own fairies on the Rainbow Fairies website. She and I also had a drawing together time, where we both drew pictures of fairies. I freehand drew my version of Ruby from the cover of the book. Since I'm not an artist, I was pretty pleased with the result, and I think I might enjoy drawing more fairies. Lately I'm finding that I can do okay if I have a picture to look at, and as long as it isn't supposed to look real. Cartoonish style is much easier for me.

We had a really full non-school week. We ended up taking Tuesday off, as we had some errands that we had to do and we also needed to get a present ready for Spud's friend's birthday on Wednesday. We checked out both Dollar Tree and Robert's Crafts looking for gift ideas (being on a very tight budget). We ended up buying a recipe box (as both kids thought the friend would like to have a box) and then making him a very cute Sculpey clay dinosaur and painting a peg doll like a caveman for him. We also made a little clay fire and Spud made a snake. Spud also painted a dinosaur magnet for him. We cut a piece of green fabric and put that in the box also. We also made him a necklace out of a circle of wood (we painted his initial on one side and a cool pattern on the other) and some beads and strung it on a leather string. I wish I'd have taken a picture. It was fun to work on together, and great because we had all the supplies already at home. I'd like to get more ideas for homemade birthday gifts and try to do that more often.

Noodle had Imagination Club on Wednesday, also, so we spent a lot of time out on Wednesday as well.

Thursday was a nice, regular day. Very productive!!

Friday Noodle took her Math test (100%) and spelling test (missed one, but easily fixed the mistake when I had her look at the word again), and did her reading and writing assignments. We hosted a Halloween Party for our homeschool group, which was fun. I wish I'd have planned things a little earlier, though. I think it went well, but I felt a little frazzled trying to do too much prep at the last minute. C'est la Vie!

Oh, we started on the subtraction chapters this week, and Noodle did so well on the first subtraction chapter on Monday that she wanted to take the test Monday, too. She did and didn't miss any. She has her addition facts down very solid (and is getting quicker as we keep doing the flash cards--she got 18 cards in a minute this week!) so I think that makes a big difference. I think we'll do two chapters a week for a while if she keeps sailing through them.