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September 29, 2007
Weekly Update
This week, folks, we chucked our medieval history for Civil War history. We watched Gettysburg, read a few books, and then hopped in the car and drove out to the battlefield. We followed that up with a day at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and then a day at Mt. Vernon.
Much more fun than the normal school week :-)
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September 21, 2007
Weekly Update
Or, "What the heck did we do this week?"
Er ...
Okay. Well, let's see. Griffin has taken off in math. You see, Right Start wasn't working for him. Yes, Right Start, that math program that I think is better than sliced bread, that I think presents concepts more clearly than any other math program ever, only confused my third son. Doesn't that figure? However, if I sit him down with Singapore he zips off five pages in no time flat. Funny kid.
Connor is still plugging along in Singapore 6B, doing problems that I have to dig out the answer key to check. Here's an example: A tank measures 50cm wide by 80cm long. It contains water to a depth of 15cm. Six 5cm cubes of metal are placed into the tank, raising the water level to the brim. What is the height of the tank?
Um. Yeah. Singapore gives nearly a whole page of white space for the child to work out the answer. And do you know what? All that white space is still there when Connor is finished with the problem. This kills me, folks.
Aidan and I got bored with the geometry part of Right Start D, so I had him take the final exam and pronounced him finished with the book. I pronounced him finished with Singapore 3A, too. So he's starting 3B, and one day I'll order Right Start E.
Latin - only Connor is doing Latin right now. We're waiting for new materials for Aidan, and I haven't started Griffin yet. Connor is still in Lesson 3 of Henle. We are inching along. But inching along and learning is better than ... not.
Classical Writing is a bit of a struggle in that neither Connor not me wants to divide the story into scenes, and make the @#$&* outline. Ugh. But this week I made us sit down and do it together. I think it's a good exercise, I just think it's boring.
Not much reading this week. We read a little more of "By the Shores of Silver Lake," and "Our Island Story" up to the coming of King Arthur. But that was it. Aidan is reading a Horrible History (and more Timothy Zahn novels), and Connor is reading "A Door in the Wall" (and "Red Storm Rising").
We forgot copywork, frequently.
BOTH sets of kids did science this week. Wow! The little boys and I collected earthworms and studied them. Can you believe I did not take pictures of that? The big boys did the chapter on density in Interactive Science, and Aidan nearly melted down again. I am ready to throw in the towel and order him a more age-appropriate program, but I'm going to hold out for the next chapter, which has no math. We'll see. It's not at all a problem if he uses something else instead, or even if he uses nothing for a couple of more years.
We couldn't do the experiments, because I have not yet ordered our scale.
We also had piano lessons, drama class and karate. And three children had Scout meetings. And half the family was sick, including me, so there.
Oh, art! We drew, and I do have pictures of that. I can't deal with them tonight, but will post those later in the weekend. And we picked apples.
And I did a couple of exercises in Henle II, practiced piano, and drew with the boys.
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September 19, 2007
Whew!
I scored an 83.33% on this civic literacy quiz.
Go ahead, Jeff - I expect you to make a perfect score. What I'd really like to see, though, are my parents' scores.
Hat Tip to Chris
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September 16, 2007
This Is Really More of a Practical Matter
Asked Griffin, after realizing how high he'd climbed: "Uh, Mom? Have you read any books about getting down from trees?"
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September 14, 2007
Weekly Update
Okay, we'll try something new here, since I haven't been blogging about homeschooling (or anything), and since my parents kind of subtly mentioned that my blog no longer let them see what their grandkids were doing.
So here is a synopsis of our week.
In terms of academics, we, ah, didn't really get much done. This was the first week our activities were in full swing, plus there was a doctor's appointment, half a day at the mall to get glasses fixed, and the car in the shop.
On Mondays we have piano. With four kids, piano lessons consumes nearly three hours of our day.
On Thursdays we have karate and drama, and I took no pictures. I did take a picture of the "nature walk" the little boys and I went on while the big boys were in their class. "Nature walk" means trying to identify and avoid poison ivy, right? We did also see an actual caterpillar that I could, actually, identify. Kids never give you kudos for that because they assume you can always identify whatever it is.
Although History Odyssey was a flop last year, I purchased it again for this year (I liked the program, Connor didn't.) So far it's going better this year, although we did not forsee the cat's interest in history, or his desire to "help."
Connor wrote a retelling of "Peter Rabbit." Aidan wrote a retelling of "Bruce and the Spider." Neither retelling involved either Borg or Klingons, which I think is progress. However, Aidan did write his story in a Klingon font, switching to Helvetica only when the spell checker told him he had a problem.
Both of them read Rober Nye's "Beowulf: A New Telling," inbetween Timothy Zahn books. They also read a few Horrible Histories - Romans and Celts, I think - and suffered through me reading some of the real "Beowulf" to them.
I did, of course, speak too soon about science. The math involving speed and rate went quickly over Aidan's head, and he dropped out of those lessons. That's fine. Connor can learn the math, and Aidan can tag along for content. The little boys can't do any more science until we get a jar and go dig up worms.
In history we're studying the medieval period this year. We've already read the first couple of chapters of Story of the World. However, we break there and study Arthur for awhile. Along with Story of the World I am reading aloud a book of Irish fairy tales, Kevin Crossley-Holland's "Arthur: The Seeing Stone," and Laura Ingalls Wilder's "By the Shores of Silver Lake."
This week we also discovered that Griffin's eyes are terrible. Gosh, maybe that's why he has a hard time with learning to read? Yep, I am an idiot. But hey! We went to a well-child appointment. This is big, for me. I hate taking the kids for checkups. Hate it. But we went. One down, three to go. And now ophthalmologist appointments all around. Whee!
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September 13, 2007
Some Kids Say "Yes, Ma'am"
My kids say either: "Yes, Lord Vader!" (to which all the other kids yell out, "Lady Vader!")
Or: "Yes, Scary Mommy Bird!"
Actually, barking out an order and hearing the response "Yes, Lord Vader!" is not bad. Not at all.
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September 12, 2007
Music
Jeff exported our iTunes library to html, if you're interested in seeing what we've got.
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