Review Ideas

Here's for the first post of the Abecedarian B class :)

I hope you all have enjoyed the break. We had a great time with family and friends. Somehow, I didn't get as caught up as I had planned, though! One thing is for certain - my family should definitely know week 13 with all the practice we've had due to two cancellations :)

I'd like to encourage you to review with your children. Even if you just do two subjects a day, it is enough to keep it fresh in their minds. This will make review time during class go much more smoothly as well.

Here are some ideas we've done during Christmas break:

Concentration with the English Grammar - I listed each week's title (Ex: Nominative Pronouns) on one card and the corresponding list of pronouns on another (I, You, He...). I did this with all the pronoun lists we've learned. We turned the cards over and played concentration. Each time someone turned a card over, we all worked together to remember the pronouns that matched and then we'd turn over another card. This allowed for many practice attempts per pronoun group - and also helped the non-readers listen and learn.

Timeline cards - we'd review the week, then remove two or three and have them guess the missing ones. What really worked well, though, was reviewing and then seeing if they could list the first three or four without the cards present (for readers - I let the nonreaders see the cards). We worked up to them listing all eight for that week without many prompts. Challenging, but effective!

Geography - We'd list the items and then find them on our maps. What was interesting was that in this subject, sometimes the littles helped the older ones! What was also interesting was that I had COMPLETELY forgotten where some of the places were! (RIVERS?!?)

History - mine love to listen to the CD, so we rarely practice this separately. They're even learning some of the future weeks.

Bible - we have not done as good of a job with this as I would have liked. Do you guys have suggestions for memorizing the verses?

Latin - again, mine listen to the memory CD. However, I think I will make concentration cards for this as well. If mine hear the tune, they can finish. But for the Memory test, they won't have that tune to jump start their recitation!

Math - listening to the Memory CD over and over has helped tremendously. Glad I finally put it in the van! I also will stop them as soon as they are incorrect and point out the correct number and start the song over again. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I'll ever learn the cubes!

Misc - Mine also enjoy playing the Bozo game of throwing a beanbag into a bucket. If they get the question correct, they have a chance to toss the beanbag. Geography - two chances if they get both the list of items AND locations correct. There are three buckets spaced in a vertical line. It is interesting when the person getting all the questions correct has the lowest points because she can't make a bucket!

Each week, I will try to post the latest motions, tunes, etc. so you can come here to find the information. That way, you'll be able find past weeks in one spot instead of trying to sort through a bajilion emails.

Have a great week and hopefully I'll see you Tuesday!