Term Four: Week One ~ The Basics and LOTS of Books

Term Four has officially begun.

This school year had FLOWN by.

This is a short (9 week) term too so the year will be over before we know it.

We stuck to the basics for the first week back as we had a time change and a public holiday the weekend before and were still adjusting.

For spelling the boys caught up on missed episodes of The Great Australian Spelling Bee online.  We focused on our maths textbooks and some writing, as well as LOTS and LOTS of reading.

Monkey was really pleased to see some hands-on maths pages that required manipulatives. They are his favourite pages to tackle.  We don't use anything fancy (or expensive).  Basic Lego and the wooden shapes out of an old educational game from my childhood work just fine. 

Monster diligently finished his IEW paragraph about Roald Dahl that we started last term but struggled to finish.  I was pleased with his completed work (see photo below).

Both of the older boys are LOVING the Beast Quest books.  The library has squillions of them too so this should give them plenty of "free, fluffy" reading through the term and into the summer. 

For literature we've been (sort of) focusing on Greek myths, fairy tales, and other important stories.  The library has a LOVELY collection of these stories in early readers (that are WAY below the reading levels of Monster and Monkey) but they are quick and easy read alouds that all three of them enjoy - and if nothing else it gives us a taste and sends us searching for meatier versions of the stories. 

I finished reading Ramona and Her Father aloud to Monkey and discovered that I don't seem to own Ramona and Her Mother (next in the series) nor Ramona's World (the very last book in the series) so we paused while I ordered them from Book Depository.

The Usborne Alexander the Great book was a read aloud with Monster.

I think we have decided we need to read more about him before we finish studying Ancient Greece.

More independent reading... 

Monster and I finished up the last two books of this series as part of our evening read alouds. 

I LOVE that there are GREAT picture books now for history and geography. We have read this particular book about a little girl's trip to Antarctica many times, but we never get tired of it, and always seem to learn something new. 

 Munchkin's favourite book found its way to our house from the library again...

More Ancient Greece read alouds with Monster... 

We are still slowly working our way through this wonderful series of book... given the boys' ongoing interest in Antarctica, it was no surprise that they found the Alaskan tundra fascinating. 

 More wonderful history picture books... we'd read the one on the left a couple of times, but the story on the right was new to us and it was AMAZING.

Munchkin loves this cute little book about a baby elephant trying to decide what job to do.  I love that a cute little picture book tells a beautiful story about realizing our strengths and gifts. 

It seems to be the week for stories about morals and lessons... a touching story about a little girl who gets teased at the swimming pool because of her weight, but rises above it all and succeeds. 

 Just thrown in for fun is the book on the left, a silly little book about a boy running around the house naked before bed.  Munchkin thinks it's hysterical.

Meanwhile, the book on the right is a lovely story about being different.

And it wouldn't be a "normal" week in our house without reading a book about dangerous animals!!