Week 33 - Weekly Report

This week went by too fast - again.

Here are some first grade highlights.

Math - We finished up chapter 7 on double-digit subtraction with borrowing. We also tweaked the way we do lessons by doing one page of BJU math per day and one page of Singapore Intensive Practice everyday. SP IP is setup topically so I chose a different topic than we are doing in the main math - measurement. I think this will challenge CC and provide her with a steady source of word problems.

Science - We dissected sheep brains, hearts, and kidneys this week in the co-op science class. All of the kids thought it was amazing. I tried having CC read from one of the Kingfisher science books this week. Here is how that went.

Me: "Please read a chapter from one of these books today and then talk to me about what you learned."
CC: "I don't want to."
She read it.
Me: "So what did you learn."
CC: "I learned these books are way below my reading level and that I already knew everything in the chapter about the earth's crust."

I think I will be hitting the library this week to find some new science books. Until then, we are both enjoying Endless Ocean. She is learning a lot about fish and coral reefs and the game requires a lot of reading.

Not-preschool is great fun. We were playing with the Melissa & Doug spelling puzzle this week. She knows her letters and thinks that it is cool to spell. I also used her fingers to demonstrate some math problems this week. She loved "helping" her sister with math. Today she came to me with seven fingers held up and said "Is this how old my sister is?" I said that it was. She responded "5 plus 2 is 7" and showed 5 on one hand and 2 on the other while she was saying it. What do you say when you find that your 3yo who was fingerpainting in the kitchen floor has taken off her clothes and is making prints with the rest of her body? "Wow" was all I could think of.

BB is finding that the end of the semester can be painful. He had a project due in philosophy this week. In addition to that he is playing two parts in a Japanese play this weekend. He has an oral exam in Italian Monday, a research paper due Monday for philosophy, a group project due in Italian Wednesday and three finals are squished into the next two weeks. I was a bad hs Mom and allowed him to push his British Lit. papers to after his finals.

We are still waiting to hear from the college in Tokyo and finished the application for school number 5 this week. The current college score is:
Applied - 5
Accepted - 3
Rejected - 0
Waiting for decision - 2
Registered in - 0
Longest elapsed time between application and answer - 5 months
Shortest elapsed time between application and answer - 3 weeks