Week 30

We got our new Singapore books a couple weeks ago.  We're doing everything but the Extra Practice.  I've always thought the biggest drawback of Singapore math is the constant switching back and forth between books.  We actually switched to Math Mammoth for several months because of it, but I missed it so much I just couldn't stay away. 

So I took it to the print shop and had all the binding hacked off.  I put all the pages in the order I wanted them in and had the new books spiral bound.  It took about an hour to arrange each level.  I had to make two workbooks for each kid because it wouldn't all fit in one.  These two books will last one semester for Emily.  

 Each workbook contains pages from the textbook, workbook, Challenging Word Problems, Intensive Practice, and test book.  The pages are in the order suggested in the Home Instructor Guide and, for the first time, we've been doing all the extra activities too.  These new workbooks have made all the difference and once again, I'm in love with Singapore.

Emily had lots of fun doing rock labs this week for science.  She researched and classified nine kinds of rocks. 

We also did a pretty cool experiment that demonstrated how the same minerals can be changed into different kinds of rocks depending on how they're formed.  First we made two identical piles of crayon shavings. 

We held one over a flame for a few seconds, and the other we smashed under a block of wood.  The smooshed crayon shavings showed how sedementary rocks are formed and the melted shavings represented metamorphic rocks.

In history we learned about how the Romans separated the Jews and sent them to different countries to stop them from revolting.  We learned about Passover and Purim and made three different kinds of Charoset.  Cami thought the one with hard-boiled egg in it was weird and wouldn't eat more than a bite.

Cami's been having lots of fun with All About Spelling.  She's on Step 12.  She seems to be a natural speller, like Emily.  Cami loves doodling, drawing hearts and spirals all over her papers, and she always goes back and colors all the pictures in her math book once she's finished her assignments.  So every day we have a spelling test on the whiteboard.  I give her a word, then she makes up one for me.  By the end of the lesson the board's usually full of Cami's hearts and flowers.  She also likes to illustrate the words I give her.  She gets pretty creative with my spelling words.  Yesterday she gave me antidisestablishmentarianism, the longest word in the dictionary. 

We started La Clase Divertida last week.  The girls both love languages.    I got a couple fun Spanish workbooks to go along with what we're studying.

Books we read this week: 

Queen Esther Saves Her People 
Dance, Sing, Remember: A Celebration of Jewish Holidays
My Side of the Mountain