24th and 25th Week of School Report

The Lambs were sick last week so I didn't post our weekly school report. Here's what what we did.
Week 24: We had school every day besides Tuesday. On Tuesday our babysitter came and we went to ECFE. The ECFE theme was St. Patrick's Day. On Saturday we went to a Sports and Leisure show in the town 7 miles away. We accomplished a lot in school this week even though the Lambs were sick.
Week 25: We did not have school on Monday when we went to the dentist or Friday when Ewe went to the doctor. I took school books along, but we didn't feel like doing school in the car after all the sickness the week before. Lamb 1 went to ECFE without his brothers because they were ill. The ECFE theme was gardens/planting. The Lambs played outside a lot both weeks as we finally have some warmer weather. Our babysitter did not come this week because we were sick.
Math: Lamb 1 finished lesson 15 in MUS and began lesson 16. I finally watched the DVD for the last few lessons-I got behind. Lamb 1 has become very stubborn about math recently. I know he is capable of doing this math and I wonder if it is too easy for him and that is the problem. I'm learning to sit by him so he doesn't have to be alone but not say hardly anything while he works so that he can be independent. This is VERY difficult for the former classroom teacher in me. But when I do this, there is a lot less frustration during math time. I know some of my friends would say he's only 6 and I shouldn't do formal bookwork with him. But Lamb 1 likes the challenge of math and last fall he was ready for math bookwork. I am the one that needs to learn how best to work with Lamb 1.
Handwriting: Lamb 2 finished his prewriting activities. I have not printed off what I want to work with him next. He's still not ready for letters or numbers and needs more practice with prewriting activities. I may work on dot to dot with him next as I think this would be very helpful for him.
I continue to work on letters and numbers that are giving Lamb 1 problems (especially a and 8). After Holy Week I think we'll begin another round of working on one number or one letter individually each day to fine tune them.
Reading: We continue to read My Book House volume 3. FIAR-We read Clown of God and Grandfather's Journey, but we did not do any activities with them. We reviewed the poetry we have memorized but we did not start any new poems.
Phonics: Lamb 1 has reached a point in The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading where it is getting too difficult for him. I decided to take a break for a little while. We are focusing on other things in school and in a few weeks I plan to resume again by using alphabet magnets and just see what I can teach him by "playing" with words and letters. Lamb 1 can already read better (just from what we have done in TOPGtTR) than most of the 1st graders came to me when I was teaching in the classroom. I plan to try again with TOPGtTR in about a month.
Religion: We did the stories of Jesus Heals the 10 men with Leprosy, Jesus Feeds 5000, The Prodigal Son, Jesus is Anointed (and we did this twice because once was the Sunday School lesson they missed at Sunday School). We memorized Luke 19:10 and 1 John 4:19. We continue to review the commandments. We have not learned any new hymns recently.
Latin: The Lambs continue to do well with the vocabulary from Prima Latina.
Science: 2 out of the 4 goldfish that Lamb 1 received for his birthday have died. We have been reading a series about life cycles including frogs, kangaroos, and sunflowers and we have a few more to read. They did a science experiment and also planted seeds at ECFE. We began learning a song with the order of the planets (it includes Pluto).
History: We haven't done much history recently.
Music: We have read from The Story of the Orchestra every day and listened to the CD section that goes with it. The Lambs know far more about the orchestra instruments than I did before we studied this! I bought some flash cards and after we complete our study of the Orchestra then we are going to begin learning the music notes. I had printed off some flash cards but I was trying to decide if I should do them on cardstock or laminate them or what to do. It was a lot easier to spend $5 and get a set already made. I plan to teach them to read the music notes in the next year before they start piano lessons.
Art: We painted and did potato printing at ECFE. Lamb 1 made a picture with seeds glued to paper at ECFE. He really enjoyed this and I plan to do it with Lamb 1 and 2 again soon.
I am pleased with the progress the Lambs made and the school that we accomplished daily in the last few weeks. We will take a break from school the end of this week and the beginning of next week for Holy Week and for a visit from Ewe's parents and to celebrate Lamb 3's birthday. We will still have school the beginning of this week and resume after Easter. Lamb 1 and 2 will attend Spanish class once a week in April too.