What did we do all day?

In our homeschool this week:
We read Another celebrated dancing bear and learnt about Russia. We found some Russian items around the house

and looked at Elder Daughter's Russian/English Bible. 

The Azerbaijanian lamb and lentil stew disappeared before it could be photographed but I haven't got round to making the borscht as yet. OK, I know Azerbaijan isn't Russia but it is close.

Younger Daughter has been learning about mapping although Russia seemed particularly difficult, in this respect. Youngest Son turns all maps into treasure maps and was happy to cover his with a large number of "X"!

Youngest Son is enjoying numbers, at present, and wanted to play Pop to the shops on a couple of occasions. He hasn't really got to grip with different coins, yet, but this has been great for Younger Daughter who managed to play and be banker. All three children have been working on IXL maths, this week, but of course, at different levels. Expect a review in the next few weeks.

Places we are going
We can't keep away from conker (horse chestnut) trees, at this time of year.

 I was grateful that the children only found a couple of conkers today-we have quite enough! Certainly enough to be useful for counting practice. 

Younger Daughter arranged the bowls of conkers herself. I was really pleased with the way she worked at this.

Things I'm planning
One week to go to our half term break and I'm looking at what is and isn't working for us. With the younger two, we are spending most of our time on literacy and numeracy although we manage to fit in history, science and art. Whilst this is probably the right balance, at present, there are other areas that need attention. Youngest Son did a small piece of free sewing on hessian, at a home education group recently. This is something that it would be profitable to repeat and helpful for my little left hander's fine motor control. I've also realised that whilst Younger Daughter has spent a fair amount of time drawing and painting, we have neglected any work with fabric, with her, recently. 

Middle Son has some ideas for altering the way in which he does his work and I need to look at how these would look in practice.

Links to share
Marianne Sunderland has a helpful post about teaching phonemic awareness to her children with dyslexia but it has useful ideas for anyone whose child is in the early stages of learning to read.

Reading
Reading aloud is an enormous part of the day. This week, I've been reading some of the book of Job to the children along with a biography of Patrick of Ireland by Michael McHugh. Younger Daughter, now often joined by Youngest Son, are enjoying On the banks of Plum Creek and later in the day, an Enid Blyton, Six Cousins again. Of course, there are the many picture books but generally, there are just to many of these to record.

My current reading is The Pilgrim Church by EH Broadbent which I'm enjoying but rather slowly due to the large number of names unfamilar to me. Leon Wood's Survey of Israel's history is my Sunday evening read. A review copy of At home in Dogwood Mudhole arrived this week and I've been tucking in.

What are you reading? I'm always looking out for new ideas.