Weekly Report: Week Four

Twenty days completed means just one hundred sixty to go... a ninth of the way there.

Let's start with Eclectic Girl this week. We're all anticipating our upcoming trip, but she's managed to stay on task, a big difference from in years past. Math continues to go well - she passed the Bridge to Chapter 16 this week on the first try. Her daily work is usually completely correct as well. She didn't complete any new levels of drill this week, but since both were relatively new, that's not surprising. She also began working through Key to Measurement Book 2. Measurement is an area with which we haven't spent as much time, directly. It's been covered indirectly through numerous word problems, but I want her spent some time with it, so we're using the Key to... series over the course of this year.

Latin is going extremely well. We're so pleased with Lively Latin. Because we've attempted Latin previously, much of what she's doing so far is review of one type or another, but the amount of writing and layout of the materials makes it so much nicer to use. She finished Chapter 3 this week and will start Chapter 4 next week!

EG is nearly done with her electricity unit for physics. There are three remaining activities from the TOPS Electricity unit that she'll do next week. She read in the "Electricity" section of The New Way Things Work as well. I love our physics books this year!

History is the Civil War, which she'll continue to study next week. She read through chapter five in SOTW 4, as well as parts of THe American Story, The Children's Encyclopedia of American History, The Young Perpon's History of the United States, and one page from The Usborne Book of World History. Her biography is Sitting Bull, and she's reading through Gettysburg as well as a National Park Service publication about Manassas. Instead of writing a summary this week, she's working on adding to her memorization repetoire - the Gettyburg address and "O Captain! My Captain!" She's continuing to review "The Charge of the Light Brigade" daily.

In literature, EG read a "Great Illustrated Classics" adaptation of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. While well below her reading level, I wanted her to have some familiarity with the iconic stories from it before we tackle the real thing in eighth grade. She also read Gentle Annie, and she's started on A House Divided. The current read-aloud is Where the Red Fern Grows, and they've completed through chapter nine, well ahead of plans.

Language arts is the final area, and EG is doing well there, too. She's steadily working at cursive penmanship in the mornings when she first wakes. Spelling is proceeding as it generally does, in fits and starts. While both EG and I acknowledge the need to study spelling, neither of us particularly enjoys the actual study of it. I know that All About Spelling works for her, but it can be immensely annoying to both of us! She's still doing editing activities to cover grammar - later in the year, we'll tackle Junior Analytical Grammar. Finally, in writing, she's working with "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" as her model and studying adverbs. She'll finish her final draft at the beginning of next week.

EG is also working on logic as the spirit moves her, so to speak. She sped through Logic Countdown as well as several Mind Benders books over the summer and throughout the first three weeks of school. She's now finished book B3 of Mind Benders and has completed half of Logic Liftoff. My original thoughts were for her to finish at least the B level Mind Benders and half of Orbiting with Logic by the end of this school year. I think I'll have to figure something else out, or start rationing them!

Fabulous Boy is showing a little more attentiveness to his phonics, and is still speeding through handwriting. Math has taken somewhat of a backseat since it can be hard to find a time to complete the work when Purple Child won't interfere! I've also managed to lose FB's math CD somewhere between the living room and the dining room - ugh. I'm hoping it'll turn up soon.

Purple Child is working on improving her walking, and on dropping down to just one nap a day. Of course I'm glad she's growing bigger and stronger, but neither of these developments thrill me one itty bitty bit.

No pictures this week, the house and I are in a state of chaos. I may do a four weeks in - what's worked, what hasn't - post later today or over the weekend.