Weekly Report: Week Four (days 014-018)

Our main accomplishment this week was that we got a dog! Technically, we are fostering her for a period of thirty days to ensure that she's a good fit with us. She's a young (just past a year old) Siberian Husky; her name is/was Skyler, but we're planning to rechristen her a different name. The cat is not so sure what to think. So far they appear to tolerate each other, but where they go from here remains to be seen.

Purple Child continues to be crazy and stubborn. Really, what more can you say about twenty-one month olds?

Fabulous Boy had a good week. He finished three lessons in OPGTR plus ten pages or so in ETC. He told me he was tired of the short-a sound in ETC today. He finished five lessons in FLL and completed week four from WWE 1. I also started him doing the exercises from ReadyWriter, since I have them on CD-ROM already. Why, yes, I am trying to give him a few things that give me a minute or two to check on EG or PC. We finished Egyptian Myths this week, and are close to finishing Tales of Ancient Egypt. He also listened to I Am the Mummy Heb-Nefert, Millions of Cats, The Berenstain Bears' Thanksgiving, Bronto Eats Meat, and Jackalope, amongst others. He didn't learn any new poetry, but continued to improve his recall. The next poem is long ("Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore").

He also did five lessons in Right Start A and we read Give Me Half!. I could probably move a little faster than we are, but it's working for now, so why mess with it? He's got the memory work of parallel & perpendicular well-memorized, even if he does sometimes forget what a right angle is.

In history, he learned about mummies & pyramids. We read chapter four in SOTW 1, after which he narrated each section orally. He also did the mapwork & the coloring page from the activity guide. We read the corresponding pages in the Usborne Book of World History, plus Mummies Made in Egypt and You Wouldn't Want to Be A Pyramid Builder. He played with the Building the Pyramids sticker scene and colored three pages he selected from Life in Ancient Egypt. In theory, we're going to do two history projects tonight or this weekend: a sugar pyramid, and start mummifying a chicken. He's memorized the periods of early history quite well and is working on memorizing some of the most important/most commonly mentioned gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. He's also memorized the seven continents.

FB did two more experiments from the "Colors" Little Lab, one of which involved making our own sidewalk chalk! He keeps wanting to make more. He played with a prism again, and we read What Makes A Shadow? His recall of the colors of the spectrum/rainbow appears to be regressing rather than improving, oddly. He also had his second oceanography class where, he reports, they talked about crabs.

We listened to the Classics for Kids' recent segments on Benjamin Britten, and I'm trying to convince myself to drag out some paints later, just for fun.

To further my goal of having kids with strange skills, FB began memorizing the names of some of our elected officials this week. I started with the federal level, as the elections won't bring any substantial change there. Then we'll work on governor, state senator, and state representative after November. He finally has our telephone number memorized!

Eclectic Girl also had a good week. Together, we went through some of the remaining material in Grammar Voyage, as well as the second chapter in A World of Poetry. My tentative plan is to revisit the poetry book periodically throughout the year after this initial go-through. I also had her re-read chapters three, four, and five from Paragraph Town Her literature this week was Aesop's Fables followed by Ludmilla Zeman's Gilgamesh trilogy. She also read The Devil's Arithmetic and is reading both The Yearling and Mara, Daughter of the Nile. She appears to have finally mastered "Sea Fever" in poetry, so I think it's time to move forward next week for her as well.

EG finished her turn through Ancient Egypt, and started today focusing on Sumeria. She'll get further adventure in Egypt for a few weeks yet, though, thanks to her little brother. She read The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt this week, and evaluated a primary source (in prior weeks, I had just required her to read them - easing her into it, I suppose). Her art appreciation tied into history this week, also, as she read "Egyptian Artifacts in History" from her history book and studied it. She also has memorized periods of early history (though I required some dates from her) and ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, as well as periods of Egyptian history.

Latin went well. She's nearing the end of chapter three of Latin Prep. I'll be very interested to see how she does on the cumulative exercises in the workbook next week.

Math continues to go very well. She finished four lessons in Life of Fred, did one chapter in Real World Algebra, and beat both levels of drill. She had Math Olympiad last night and enjoyed it.

EG finished the second unit of PLATO Life Science and did two worksheets from the first unit. I'm deliberately spacing these out so I can check her recall a bit! She also read chapter two in CPO Life Science and Eyewitness Science: Ecology. She continued her general science overview with chapter four ("The Atom") in Science Matters, and is memorizing a few things for biology.

Her fine arts work continues to go well. She read about the brass and percussion sections of an orchestra and took notes for music appreciation, and I mentioned art above. This was the last week of driving to her piano instructor's house; next week she will be doing her lessons at Master's Academy in the mornings (same instructor). I'm excited about not having to drive as far! Trumpet lesson went well, and her teacher suggested that next year, when she's eligible, she audition for All-State Band!

EG is memorizing our current elected officials also, as well as the current justices of the Supreme Court.

Me? I'm feeling frazzled. Two students this year versus always only one before, a new dog that we can't yet leave unattended unless she's in her crate, plus all the other various and sundry responsibilities that tend to plague me... yeah. But hey. The kids are all right.