This was a very good week of school.

Why?

No long division!

The beauty of a spiral math curriculum is that, after you’ve suffered through a concept for a while, (usually when you think you can’t take another second), you move away from it. Yes, we’ll come back to the long division, but we’re getting a reprieve right now. Actually, we really didn’t have any new material at all this week, we’ve spiraled around enough. And that was fine by me! Sometimes, it’s nice to just review things you’ve already mastered…I know Turkey and Bunny agree with me!

We did have a bit of a struggle in grammar this week, and I’m still a little confused by it. Turkey and Bunny know the difference between adjectives and adverbs, and do a good job of identifying them. usually. Yesterday, though, they had a fairly long paragraph, and they were supposed to circle the adverbs and underline the adjectives. For some reason, having to do both things, especially with so many sentences, confused them to the point where they couldn’t remember which was which. For now, I’ll assume it was a momentarily lapse, and not a true misunderstanding. I guess time will tell!

In science, we finished up the cardiovascular system. I think the children enjoyed learning about it as much as I did, or maybe my enthusiasm just carried over to them, but I was amazed by how many of the details they remembered! Our experiment (making a stethoscope), didn’t work out so well, though. We definitely heard how it amplified sound, but we weren’t able to hear our hearts through it. I seem to have bad luck with science experiments.

Ladybug’s reading is progressing well, and she’s adding in four and five letter words now. It’s fun to see her enthusiasm for learning the things her older siblings already know. I have to continue to remind myself that teaching one student in a class is different from teaching two–she has no one to fall back on if she doesn’t know an answer to something.

I’m working on putting together my plans for next year, and I’ve got most of the framework figured out (except for some L.A. stuff). I can’t believe I’m looking at school for two fifth graders and a first grader…it just doesn’t seem possible!