Snippets of Our Week (for our 7-yr old)

This post is a long time in coming; it’s taken forever to get this posted! I wanted to share some of the curriculum choices that are working well for our 7 year old this semester.

MATH: These past five months or so, we have been using a math workbook for much of LD’s math practice.  Only recently have started back on our beloved Right Start Math curriculum. It was written by a Montessori trained teacher and you can read more about it here from the RS website or see some fantastic handouts written by the author that explains the value of visualizing math.   Right Start is very Mom-intensive and with the move I needed a bit more independence on LD’s part during these settling months. So, LD usually does a number of problems from the workbook, some Montessori style math worksheets (pictured below as well) and a bit from Right Start.

LD is just now working on the concepts of regrouping in addition and borrowing in subtraction. I really like these worksheets I found at Montessori for Learning because of the color scheme for units, tens, hundreds and thousands. Also it seems to help LD that the problems are quite large.  These sheets were under the “math” section rather than the “free” section if anyone’s interested. They were free to download and I just happened to stumble across them.

READING:  LD has been making his way through the Magic Tree House series this semester. He has to read at least three chapters, but he’ll often read more because he’s engrossed in the book.

Handwriting and writing in general are still not LD’s favorite.  Handwriting Without Tears has worked well for him and we’re making slow but steady progress.

We also added in All About Spelling this semester (I heard great reviews about it) and we’re almost to the end of Level 1 which starts with the basics.  Again, this is working really well for LD and I can highly recommend this especially if you have a child like mine, who struggles with writing because he doesn’t want to get ANYTHING wrong. Sigh…

MUSIC: LD started with the glockenspiel at age 5. Then moved to piano at age 6 using Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Since we moved here, LD has been ready for putting two hands together.  We are using one of MY old piano books called Play That Tune. If it’s available, it’s wonderful for that next step.  LD is also learning Jingle Bells from Merry Christmas! Complete Level 1 for the Later Beginner.

Jingle Bells

Mary Had a Little Lamb and A Tisket A Tasket (You probably can’t tell from this photo, but it is dated 1976–when I was assigned to learn these pieces!)

Geography just happens… We have this placemat at the breakfast bar where LD likes to eat.  As I’m cooking I often ask him to find 4 or 5 countries (particularly the ones we’ve covered in our world music class).

This was a really cute game for practicing reading coordinates.  It’s played similarly to the game “Battleship.”  I got this from mathwire.com.

PRACTICAL LIFE:  I stuck this in LD’s workbox and he has successfully learned how to open a combination lock.

We’ve started our studies of Ancient Rome — of course starting with a physical map of the Roman Empire (made with cornstarch clay).  Then we added blue water and talked about the seas surrounding the Roman Empire.

I loved how closely they were studying the map in the book!

I guess you can’t see it well in the photo, but LD wanted to add in Mt. Vesuvius.

We watched parts of the very old (but famous) movie Spartacus.  Quite spontaneously, LD and DD started playing “gladiators”!!

EXTRAS:
**Soccer season just ended on Saturday.  LD had lots of fun and liked his teammates and coach a lot.

**LD has continued with gymnastics (we did it overseas as well) and we’ll continue on with that through the winter.  We finally hung up our gymnastics rings down in the basement area and all of the kids are enjoying those!

**All three of the kids just started a session of swim lessons this week.

**Music class — and of course we have our group music class and the kids LOOOooove having their friends over for that!