On a cheerier note, we leave for Disney in 6 days! My goal for the weekend is to get the house completely cleaned so that I can focus on nothing but school and packing next week. To this end, I'm going to be a little more...efficient in my updating than usual this week :)
We were slowed down somewhat this week by labor day and head colds, but we managed to be relatively productive.
Ari: worked a lot of word problems in Singapore. Hey--we might actually be getting the hang of these things! I think he's better at them than I am, actually. Still trying to figure out math supplementation plans. After a conversation with Kash at soccer this week, I'm leaning toward adding in Life of Fred Pre-algebra as a supplement. He got about 2/3 of the way through the fractions book last year, but then we decided to let it go because he found the bridges so frustrating (he wasn't doing poorly on them; he just couldn't stand getting even one question wrong on a single bridge). But he really love the humor in the book and the story aspect of it, so I'm thinking if we can keep it very low key, low pressure, it might work well. And, Kash pointed out, it would go along well with the biology class he's doing this year, too.
He's still working through Summerland, slowly but surely. It'd be nice if he could finish it up this week so that we could start fresh with a new book when we get back, but I don't think it's going to happen. At bedtime, he's been reading Andrew Clement's Things Not Seen.
We didn't get around to doing an Elementary Spanish lesson this week, but his Spanish class at LEO and associated homework is going well. And if I weren't trying to keep things brief, this is where I'd mention my college freak out last weekend, partially spurred on by thoughts about how to progress from here with languages. But onward!
His biology teacher was out of town this week, so no class. He worked on his homework, though. He was supposed to research Louis Pasteur, so I gave him some stuff to read and asked him to take notes. Instead, he went ahead and wrote a paragraph long summary of what he read. Well how about that? Okay then.
He got lots of smiley faces on his Caesar's English and spelling quizzes. He wrote a nice summary from Story of the World and did some dictation and copywork from Summerland.
Milo: has been practicing addition facts with flashcards, and I think there's improvement there. He did a review section in Singapore this week, and all went smoothly.
We did a section in his Aesop book, he started ETC 5, and he did Week 33, I think, from WWE 1. It was on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was nice since that's what he's been reading at bedtime. He finished up Beezus and Ramona and is ready to start Sideways Stories from Wayside School.
He and Gus watched a lot of Puertas Abiertas. They're nearly finished with the DVDs now, and I'm sad that it doesn't look like they'll ever actually make Level 2. We'll probably go back through it when they finish and do more of the workbook exercises this time through.
In science, they learned about physical and chemical changes and watched a Magic School Bus video about molecules.
History: We read about the Assyrians in SOTW and the Usborne Encyclopedia. We read Ludmila Zeman's Gilgamesh trilogy (I remember Ari being incredibly bored by this 4 years ago, but all three of them were very into it this time), "You Wouldn't Want to Be an Assyrian Soldier," and watched a Horrible Histories video about ancient Egypt on Discovery Education (I was not especially impressed with it).
Homeschool soccer went well. It was not quite as hot this week. Gus seems more satisfied with the rigor of the 4 year old program, and Ari read up a bit on the rules and seems to be feeling more comfortable.
And now...off to clean my house. Because I'm going to Disney World! (I always want to quote 3 year old Milo the first year that we went. He kept telling everyone: "We're going to go to Dis-a-ney World, and I'm going to be excited!")
Oh, I should probably put a picture of something happier than my dead cat. Let's see....
Oh! I forgot....we started our Mark Kistler online drawing lessons this week....BIG hit:
And homeschool soccer has inspired lots of front yard soccer practice:
2 comments:
I'm so sorry about Norman. It sound like a good week, though. Enjoy Disney! We hope to go in January. It is one of our favorite places!
Mark Kistler is great - Rocket Boy went to one of his art camps last week. We have always enjoyed his lessons and it was a treat to see him in person.
I am so sorry to hear about dear Norman. Animals are so hard to say goodbye to when they are so deeply in our hearts.
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