18 weeks makes halfway. We had holidays in the middle, but are doing pretty good at schedule. Joel does pretty well on most subjects and has a bit more free time than his siblings when he finishes each day.
For bible, we do family devotions first in the morning, a few minutes of journaling, and prayer. Joel is reading a devotional book called Starting Strong for school as well as a daily selection of scripture and memorizing a passage each week. He had a whole chapter over this unit and did well.
As usual, continuing with our spines as our primary teaching books: The Landmark History of the American People, Vol 2 and The Children’s Encyclopedia of American History. We are getting some patriotic songs each week in Wee Sing America. We added a book called The World Wars which is a great encyclopedia of information about WWI and WWII. We also do a timeline activity and current events each week.
Read alouds during this unit were Little Britches, A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt, and we started Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. We also have a couple of poems a week from How to Eat a Poem.
Joel does well in math. We are working through Horizons 5 and using Prodigy for supplement.
In Language, we have spelling with Sequential Spelling 2, a cursive assignment each week, vocabulary with Wordly Wise 3000, Book 5, and a creative assignment each week. This unit Joel read Helen Keller, The Wright Brothers, All of a Kind Family, and Hero Over Here. He started George Washington Carver.
Our main book in science is How to be Good at Science, Technology and Engineering with selections from National Geographic: How Things Work and our experiment book Discover and Do: Level E.
Extras! Regular events include playing the drums every other week for church, children’s class, and Royal Rangers. Joel gets to go to a lot of Benjamin’s basketball games. During this unit Joel went to the zoo with friends, made gingerbread houses with mom, and participated in two VBS days. Gram broke her arm before Thanksgiving so we had Tday at her house and then Joel and Ginny got to stay some extra days to be helpers. We also had November birthdays at Center Point. We had Christmas party and caroling at church, Christmas at home, Christmas in Bandera, and Christmas in CP/Kerrville. Uncle Justin, Rhiley, and Lilly got baptised and the Schaders were home. The kids stayed in the area and had a trip to the San Antonio zoo and the River Walk, then had New Year’s Eve with the Washington Moehrings. At church we had NYE bingo and worship. Joel got to start practicing on the 6th grade boys basketball team and we’ve had one game so far. He also got a digital drum set for Christmas and is supposed to be working through some free trainings. He stays pretty busy but finds time to play video games and jump on the trampoline. He also still takes care of the chickens.