Week 11: Costumes, Pumpkins & Candy, Oh My!

The boys have been really ramped up this week.  They’ve been counting the days until Halloween.  We went to Party City to pick out costumes on Wednesday.  What was supposed to only take an house at most, ended up taking us ALL morning and part of the afternoon.  We drove over THE BRIDGE to Party City around 9:30am.  We spent about 30 minutes in the store trying to figure out which costume the boys wanted to wear.  They settled on Superman (Cam) and Batman (Ty).  GREAT!  I pay for it; we drive home.  The boys eagerly put their costumes on.  WRONG SIZE!  Too small.  So we load back up and head back over THE BRIDGE to exchange the costumes.  They don’t have the boys’ sizes in stock, so we have to figure something else out.  We find a different Superman costume (in the right size) for Cam, hanging on the end of an aisle.  Ty decides to go with Spiderman since that costume was just under the Superman costume.  GREAT!  We make the exchange; we drive home.  The boys eagerly put their costumes on.  Cam’s costume is missing the boot covers, and Ty’s is missing the Spiderman mask!  So we load back up and head back over THE BRIDGE to exchange the costumes.  By this time, I’ve invested $6.00 in BRIDGE tolls, and who knows how many gallons of gas.  Not to mention, our school day is shot.  After our THIRD TRIP to Party City we did manage to get each of the boys complete costumes that fit.  Thank God!

I should have made them go as ‘the two-headed boy’:

The reason I DIDN’T, was because this happy scene lasted about 20 seconds…then the fighting began.

Some of you have asked what the boys have been doing in school.  I’m going to attempt to give you a brief run-down what each of them did this week:

Camden:

Bible: The story of Joseph.  They also talked about what they should do if they are ever tempted to sin (talk to an adult, pray for God’s help, go away from the temptation, and remember a bible verse).  His bible verse this week was Isaiah 26:4:  Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal rock.

Language Arts: In composition this week, they focused on “describing words”.  This is probably Cam’s least favorite class because he gets irritated not knowing how to spell words by himself.  In an effort to cut down on that frustration, I will write his words on the white board and let him copy the correct spelling.  I figure, spelling will come later…it’s his imagination and use of words is what is important.

In Phonics he’s been learning about how to count syllables in words.  At first, I thought he was goofing around because he kept clapping during his lesson.  He wears headphones so I couldn’t hear that the teacher had TOLD them to clap out the syllables.  LOL

In English, they’ve been learning how to correctly spell words that end in -ed.  For example, the word “rip”.  When you add -ed to the end, you also have to add an additional “p” to make it “ripped”.

He finished his Reader B this week (his second reader), and has done very well with the reading comprehension worksheets for each story.

Finally, he took his Language Arts test and scored a 97.2. 

Science: In science this week they learned about sound and how it travels.  We didn’t get a chance to do many experiments with this, but next week looks to be more ‘hands on’.

Math: In math Cam learned about double facts, Zero Principle, Order Principle, and using a bar graph to add.  He got a 100 on his Math test!

Spelling: Cam’s spelling words this week were:  chat, hat, sat, math, bath, path, then, men, when, many.  He got “many” wrong on the final test.  He spelled it “meny”.  LOL  Is it horrible that I thought that was cute? 

Ty:

Bible: Ty has been studying 1 Thessalonians 5:18:  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. He also started learning about the story of ‘baby’ Moses – not just in Bible, but in his Reading class as well.

Language Arts: Ty continues to build on his phonics and learning how to read.  He has done amazingly well with this subject.  He only had one ‘Snack of the Week’ this week – “The Red Cord”.  He had to make a house out of graham crackers, then place a red cord on it.  While it wasn’t the prettiest snack, the boys sure did enjoy eating it!

Math: Ty focused on learning how to graph things this week.  He also built on his math basics (greater, less than) and practiced writing his numbers (which still needs work).

All in all, Ty is moving along VERY nicely!  I’d say his greatest strength is in picking up new concepts pretty quickly, and his greatest weakness is two-fold:  rushing through his work before the teacher is finished explaining it, and as a result, his writing skills are less than desirable.  We’re working on slowing that down though, and I have no doubt that he will begin writing more legibly soon.

We do our Unit Studies together, and one of the activities we did for our Halloween Unit Study was to write a scary story.  Prior to writing the story, we made “monsters” and a “boy” that would star in our story.  We discussed the five parts involved in writing a scary story, then I had the boys each dictate their stories to me.  You’ll notice that both stories take place in the woods and involve “monsters”.  That was the setup they had to begin their stories.  Here is what they came up with:

Monster Chase, by Cam Covington

Cam went hunting in the woods.  The monster sneaks in the woods.  His name was ‘Sneaky’.  The monster was hiding behind a tree, so Cam didn’t see him.

Then, the monster jumped out and scared Cam.  The monster tried to grab Cam, but Cam grabbed his gun and shot the monster.  The monster died.

Monsters, by Ty Covington

Ty went camping in the woods.  There was a monster in the woods named ‘Rattlesnake’.  He had snake teeth and he liked to eat people.

Ty saw the monster as soon as he went into the woods.  Ty was scared.  Rattlesnake wanted to eat Ty.  Ty ran away but the monster caught him.  The monster ate Ty.  Then the monster spit Ty back out.  Ty was wet.  Then the monster and Ty became friends.

We made several Halloween crafts: puppets (a mummy and a ghost), mini-flower pot spiders, painted pumpkins, “Mr. Pumpkin Heads”, and paper plate pumpkins.  Here are some pictures of our crafts:

And of course, we finished our Halloween Unit Study by carving a pumpkin and roasting the seeds:

So as you can see, we had a full week of fun and learning this week!  You can read about our Halloween night here.