The Week(s) of World War Three

Ahh.. the joys of having children!!  

I have a bit of catching up to do, so this post covers a few weeks.  As you can see from the lines that RockerDad set Robbie (above), we have been facing some discipline issues.  Things are progressing (albeit at a snail's pace) on that front, however, so let's move on to the educational bits.

All things on the wordy front are going as smoothly as they ever have.  He is doing more spontaneous independent reading (but still not as much as I'd like).  He's worked very hard and is on track to finish everything on time (which is saying something, considering how long we had to stay with my parents).

Reading aloud from a McGuffey Reader.

Robbie's thoughts on Language Arts:
Grammar... "dull"
Reading... "I like to read, but not everything."
Writing...  "Why do I have to write?"
Spelling...  "Fun!"

It's interesting to hear what a six-year-old thinks.  I am working to find ways to involve him (and let him own) his education, while still meeting my goals.


Books Robbie Read:

I thought things would slow down when we hit the regrouping and renaming for addition and subtraction, but he grasped both concepts immediately and wants to move on.  I think I will do that, but give him a problem or two to solve each day as practice.

Robbie has mastered regrouping and renaming.  Sorry I don't have pics of both.  

I'm trying to make sure that we play at LEAST two math games per week.  Robbie likes to keep score when we play "Corners".  He also likes to play "Go to the Dump" by making different numbers.  (In the photo below, we were making 12's.)

Robbie's score sheet for corners (with our Greek names) and some shots of games in action.

Overall, I'm very happy with all he's learned.  He's great with mental math and is getting better at showing his work when paper and pencil are required.

We've wrapped up our study of Ancient Egypt.  It was a really fun few weeks.  Here are a few more of the projects Robbie enjoyed...

Using an action figure from The Dollar Tree, some spices from the pantry, a paper towel, masking tape and a quickly drawn mask, we made a "mummy".  The sarcophagus was made from a box (also from The Dollar Tree.. in the wedding/party section).  This was a fun, easy-clean-up project and we discussed the steps in mummification (and acted out the ones which were not physically possible.. like removing the organs).  He still remembers the steps, so I consider this one a success.

Some Dollar Tree items, spices, masking tape and a little creativity yielded a fun mummy project.

Robbie loves to dress up (as any regular reader will know), so we pieced together a simple Egyptian costume for him to wear.  He loved it!!

Two t-shirts (one from RockerDad and one from Robbie) and strips of cloth made a fun costume.

For weeks, I've been wondering what to do with the mud bricks we made.  I'm so happy to report that we found a way to re-purpose them in our history studies.  They formed the "stone" blocks of Robbie's pyramid.

We used our mud bricks to construct a pyramid and covered it with a salt-dough clay.

Books Used:

The science topics were insects and arachnids.  Robbie read many books and watched even more videos.  We did a few projects... pollination demonstration with Cheet-os, a white glue and pastel spiderweb (art), etc.... but I was just lazy about pics, I guess.

Creepy crawly science was fun for Robbie.. not so much for me (they have too many legs!!).

Books Used:

 

Videos Watched:

	Butterfly and the Bog Beast Ants in its Pants In a Beehive Spins a Web
	Insects (youtube) Spiders (youtube)

There's not much to say about Robbie's Greek Alphabet studies.  He still loves them (and even requested his Code Cracker book last weekend... for fun!!).

Greek... it's still the favorite around here.

Robbie has been grounded from any and all electronic devices for a few weeks due to temper-control issues, so I have none to report on at this time.

Ants and Egypt in his Doodle Book and and some Egyptian(ish) architecture with unit blocks.

Robbie is doing better at basketball, but he still only half pays attention.

We had some REAL snow in TN.  Robbie pelted RockerDad relentlessly.

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