Unit (as in all the units) Review #1

I've gotten in the habit of reviewing each of our homeschool units on here but it occurred to me that I hadn't considered reviewing them with the kids.  Scott asked a while ago if the kids were retaining anything they were learning.  That got me thinking...so this week we conducted our first review week.  It seemed like a good time; after all, it's our tenth week of school!  I can't believe we've already completed ten weeks.  Wow.

Anyway, if you haven't read about what we've been up to, here's a rundown:
Libraries
Monuments and Symbols
Healthy Living: Food, Fitness, and Fun!
Space/Sky
Sea Monkeys

And, now, on to the review of our review!  We continued with our regular math lessons for most of the week.  They're going pretty well.  I think the biggest problem is currently Tyler.  He's become much more active in his play and keeps gaining the attention of his brother and sister.  After all, they'd much rather be playing Legos with him than adding and telling time.  Who wouldn't?

We read some books I had checked out still about space and lots of other books too!  Boy, do the kids love listening to me read! 

Jace borrowed a movie from a friend and we watched that on Tuesday...How to Train Your Dragon.  Even though it's not at all related to what we've been studying I figured it would be great to watch since Jace just read the book.  Gracie only lasted through part of it, but Jace and I enjoyed it a great deal.  Good movie, "even though it's fiction," according to Jace.

The bulk of our actual review was done using our growing dictionary and making a scrapbook.  The scrapbook can be not only a fun memento, but serves as a record of sorts if anyone ever wants to know what we've been studying...and my blogs aren't enough for them.  The growing dictionary is a 3x5 card file box where we add words as we come upon them.  Ideally we'd be adding our vocab words each week, but I kind of forgot about it until Gracie asked about it a couple weeks ago.  Good thing someone's on top of things!

Thursday, we had a rare beautiful fall day...almost 80 out!  So after math, we packed lunches and snacks and went on an urban hike.  There's a great trail that runs through Silverdale.  We walked part of it, talked about salmon spawning and the importance of wetlands, and also walked through some of town.  And, to Tyler's great excitement, we stopped twice to play with trains at Toys R Us and Barnes and Noble.  It was a great day. 

And today...today we played Monopoly off and on all day.  The kids have wanted to play it so I figured we'd give it a shot.  Jace won, by a lot!  But they both agree they don't really want to play again anytime soon.  Too bad, I think we made some strides with addition.  Jace still counts on his fingers to add but he improved throughout the day.  I guess we're going to have to find some other games that involve quick math in order to move.

And, that's that, folks.  We had a good, relaxing, and wonderful week.  I found out that the kids did actually learn during the first nine weeks of homeschool.  They didn't remember everything, but usually if one of them couldn't answer my question, the other one could.  We've got some lovers of learning on our hands.  I'm so thrilled I get to share in that love and learn right along side them.