This Week at Harmony Heritage Academy

Sarah and Rachel had a good week for home schooling.  Last week was filled with many projects that we were trying to get finished up, so we didn't advance too much in our studies.  Some highlights of this week were:

*Starting a new elections unit.  I thought Sarah and I would do well to study a little bit about how our government was formed and works, specifically what an election is all about.  I decided to do this unit through creating a "lapbook," an interactive project where little informational booklets are pasted onto a file folder that has been folded into a book.  Sarah has done these in the past, and has enjoyed them.  We are also going through several books on elections as well.

*We are gearing up to start a new unit in math.  Sarah will be graduating to a new level soon and spent the week doing a review of skills.  I was pleased that she actually did these reviews with little help from me.  Usually she wants me to "hold her hand" and has all sorts of questions.  She didn't get every single problem right, but she is definitely making strides in being a more independent learner.  I was also pleased with her progress in figuring out her word problems.  

*One more highlight for Sarah is that she is almost finished reading through Treasure Island.  I am doing something new this year in regards to literature.  Every quarter we are taking a book and reading through it slowly and then will analyze it when finished.  I have taken Sarah through some basic "literature analysis" steps during our literature times on Wednesday in order to prepare for talking/analyzing Treasure Island.  We will be filling out a story chart and talking about story elements such as characters, plot, and theme.  

*Rachel's highlight is that we finished up our rainbows theme this week!  We took 2 weeks to cover rainbows, mostly because last week was so busy with special projects and we didn't devote too much time to our Letter of the Week curriculum.  She has had LOTS of fun painting watercolor rainbows as well as making a rainbow mobile.  She also learned the letter "F" and the number "6."

Sarah was able to finish another art project this week that she started last week.  Her watercolor is called "Autumn Candle" and is the actual centerpiece of the dining room table at her Art teacher's home.  I hope you enjoy it!