Week 2

I haven't sent in my declaration of intent yet. Must do that. Okay, dust settling, time to think about places that need tweaking. I need to be more on top of getting ready the night before. Dave and I are both trying to keep up with Ari in Greek. So far this is all about the alphabet and diphthongs and whatnot, and Dave is much better at that than I am. The code aspect maybe. I think my brain isn't as good as it used to be. I took Russian for a year in college and don't remember having any trouble with that alphabet. Of course, Dave wasn't taking Russian with me; maybe he would have been better at that, too. And, since we're driving all over the place this year, I need to make better use of car time. We already listen to SOTW in the car, but I need to get all the poetry we're working on in a central place (like my ipod) so we can work on that without me fumbling around trying to change discs and killing us all. Also, it wouldn't hurt to do a little more lesson planning for history and science on the weekends. So far I'm very, very pleased with pretty much all of our curricula. No one's complaining about anything, and, in fact, everyone's enjoying most everything. Ari sighed deeply yesterday and told me that weekends are boring. Of course, he hasn't started Art of Problem Solving yet. There's still plenty of potential for complaining this year!

Random stuff about the week:

*Gus added drama and swimming in this week, on top of tap. He told me he likes drama class even more than drama camp so far, which I didn't really think was possible. Milo's taking swimming, too (it's just a 5 lesson thing right now, unless we sign them up for another session, which we probably won't until spring. Gus isn't swimming at all. Milo swims great until he needs to come up for air. There are no swim team aspirations--just get across the pool without drowning ones). Gus said swimming was "awesome" and Milo said it was "okay."

*Milo had his first guitar lesson. He has one chord to practice this week, and it's really hard. I tried it. So far he is still very excited instead of frustrated, though. Dave's plan is that Milo will teach him everything he learns in his lessons and they'll practice together. I think this is a very motivating plan.

*We're actually doing piano lessons and practice regularly so far this year! Last year I felt like we didn't have enough of an arts emphasis around here, and now, between piano, guitar, tap, and drama, we've tilted a long way in the other direction. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to music, but Dave is not, and all the kids seem to have inherited his competence. And height. I am pleased with this. Maybe I should learn piano, too. I could probably do it. Not guitar, though. That hurts my fingers.

*Ari finished Alice in Wonderland this week. I was counting on it taking a little longer, since Michael Clay Thompson tells me that I'm supposed to read it, too. I haven't read it all the way through since high school, so I guess I'd better do it. I also need to pull the teacher book for MCT lit out and refresh my memory on all of that. 

*Our first Science in a Nutshell kit for the year is about fossils, and it seems like mostly what we're going to do is...make fossils. Over and over again with various messy substances. Sigh. Science is messy.