American Folk Music

The boys identified various instruments associated with folk music, and then Cooper requested his violin/fiddle. 

 

 We read/chanted Miss Mary Mack - Caleb's favorite part of the lesson.

Melody, Luther, and Grammar

We focused on melody in music last week. 

Here, the boys are experiencing melody as they walk up and down the stairs to the tune of Mary had a Little Lamb.

 

 Our church history book was supplemented by this great read:

Today, Cooper played "Who did What?" to work on subject/predicate. 

Thursday with Friends

We're now enjoying a weekly get-together with our friends, the Boltons. They are also homeschooling, but, at this point, we're simply playing and eating lunch together. Our Thursday outings have been super for teacher and students.

Florence and Alice (Can you tell they're twins?)

 Kirsty read to the gang.

 Almost everyone seems to be enjoying the story.

 Harry

All About Spelling

We started using All About Spelling at the beginning of this term. I've been pleased thus far. Anything that uses charts and flash cards (organized in a box with dividers!) makes me happy. Ok, maybe not anything. I do like the program's thorough, well-thought-out approach. We'll soon move on to manipulating magnetic letters...very exciting. 

Here's Cooper working on one of his phonogram flash cards:

 and here, he's adding a sticker (Thanks, Gigi!) to his chart:

 

After school activities

What goes on in the Reid house when the books are put away?

Caleb likes to relocate his barbeque (aka grill in America).

 He played happily while I washed dishes and tidied the kitchen.

 This may look like a lego creation. It's actually a very complicated machine that creates robots. Said robots must be destroyed by fierce fighters Cooper and Noah.

A Table for Three

Nearly all of our lessons take place at our dining room table. We've considered desks (and haven't completely ruled them out), but I'm not sure where we'd put them. I can't wait until it warms up a bit so we can move some of our activities to the conservatory.

Noah's beginning to read. We've been using magnetic letters for practice.

 Caleb creates masterpieces while I work with the other two. 

Our music lesson on melody incorporated the song "Tingalayo," hence the donkey coloring page.

School Post-holidays: A brief run down

We've been on a great schedule since the holidays, and school's going incredibly well. Here are a few shots from the past weeks:

A completed activity related to Doctor Desoto:

 Noah worked diligently:

 We're still working with color in art. This week's lesson focused on contrast:

 The British Isles in geography:

 Nick busted out the chalkboards for Greek:

 This is one of our new classroom additions. Subjects for the day are stuck to the piano (I hope to move them to an easel at some point) and removed after completion.

 Moving on to secondary colors in art: