Weekly Report: Week Seven (through day 035!)

Purple Child
PC has managed to pee in the potty reliably about 60% of the time. She has yet to poop in the potty – she clearly has the idea but seems unwilling to sit for the necessary length of time. We'll keep working on it. Her verbal skills are improving rapidly lately, too; her pronunciation of FB's (actual) name has gotten so much clearer just in the last two days. If she knew I was writing this, she'd want me to mention that she doesn't really like being dragged hither and yon with her siblings, but she does put up with it.

Kash
Here's the $20,000 question in my mind: do we go for a house that is move-in ready, but more expensive, or buy a house that's cheaper where I could literally construct my dream kitchen (but, you know, be without a kitchen until it was done) and landscaping (ditto)? It's an academic question at this point, since we're still 4-5 weeks away from our house being on the market, but I think the answer to that question will necessarily eliminate some possibilities when we are looking, especially if we decide definitively against anywhere that needs more than paint.

Starbuck
Starbuck nearly had a feast on Labor Day. She and I came around the corner of the house to find a couple of rodent bodies. I initially thought they were mice (albeit with slightly fuzzy tails, but really, I didn't have time to run in and get Animal to check the species), and so we thought they had been poisoned. So then Spousal Unit and I had to work together to get her prey out of her mouth. I did the jaw-squeezing part, not the grasping the body part. Then SU did some research online (thank you, youtube?) and we realized they were young squirrels who had likely fallen (hence the strange slow movements), and we also realized there was an additional dead body nearby. Poor dog couldn't figure out why we took her prey away. For the record, it was all I could do to keep hold of the leash until my screams brought the cavalry, especially since I thought they were mice.

Fabulous Boy
I've decided to add a few things to FB's line-up, which I'll detail in a bit. In phonics this week, we covered three lessons in OPGTR, did some review, did a lesson in the McGuffey's Primer (at his request), and he read a Bob book to me daily. I think I'm going to add in the cards from AAS for the vowels (he's started the short-e/short-i switching just like EG did) and digraphs. I'm also looking at Memoria Press's Classical Phonics and the Victory Drill Book to hopefully come at it from a slightly different angle. He's also doing Explode the Code, but just finished Lesson 6 in Book 1, so it's serving more as a review than covering new material.
We also covered four lessons in FLL and a week in WWE 1, plus two pages in HWT (and lots of practice). I think it's so interesting that 'everyone' says reading and writing skills shouldn't be linked, with the implication that it would be holding reading skills hostage to writing skills that are lagging. In FB's case, it would be the opposite. Besides, he's getting quite good at figuring out words in context, which isn't a horrible skill to have alongside phonics.
Among the books he read or had read to him this week: A Fish Out of Water, Miss Rumphius, The Snowy Day, Looking at Maps and Globes, several Bob books, Gilgamesh the King, The Revenge of Ishtar, The Last Quest of Gilgamesh, Oopsie Otter, and The Life and Work of Michelangelo Buanorotti.
FB finished through lesson sixty in Right Start A, which means he'll finish it the first full week of October. We'll probably take a week or two and do Miquon alone, and then continue with Right Start B. My goal is to be doing both daily (or, at minimum, each four days per week) by mid-November. I just love Miquon too much to give it up. :)
In history this week, FB read about the Assyrians. He seems to retaining history as well as I could expect from a five year old, so I'm pleased with that. In addition to the sections of SOTW, we read You Wouldn't Want to Be An Assyrian Soldier and in UBWH. He did one or two more experiments in the Colors lab (Spousal Unit helped with that), and the goal is to finish that kit (for now, anyway) over the weekend. FB continues to love his Oceanography class on Wednesday afternoons. This week they talked about fish anatomy.
We listened to the Classics for Kids episodes about Beethoven this week, and there was no Master's Academy. We also didn't explicitly add any new memory work, although FB did progress in poetry to the next poem, "The Swing," and in FLL, he worked on "Hearts Are Like Doors."

Eclectic Girl
EG seems to be thriving on her coursework this year. The big news is that she's officially on an every-six-week 'check-up' schedule for vision therapy, instead of hour-long sessions weekly. Hooray!
EG finished chapter three in LoF this week, and did some problems from Real World Algebra. She also went to a Math Circle meeting on Saturday morning, and continues to do, yes, more math in the evenings.
EG continued to work on her assignment for Essay Voyage, even though technically she has an additional week, since I staggered the starting weeks for it and Caesar's English II (they loosely correlate). She completed Lesson I in Caesar's English II, sentences five through eight in Practice Voyage, and together we read chapter five in World of Poetry. She attempted to craft some oxymorons and metaphors as instructed. It's actually pretty difficult to come up with new and unique ones, as the assignments directed! Once or twice, she'd come up with one that was, in fact, new to her, and I'd have to inform her that it was actually not, in fact, new and unique. She also read The Children's Homer and we discussed it.
EG continued reading about ancient mesopotamia this week, and wrote her summary on the gods and goddesses thereof. We had another issue with her injecting judgment into the summary, so we had to have two important clarifying conversations. The first, of course, is that just because people in the past (or in another part of the world) believe differently, it doesn't really state anything specific about their relative intelligence or sanity. The second was the difference between summarizing or reporting versus analyzing versus judging, at least as far as writing goes. I suspect the second one will require more repetition over the years than the first will. We also started working at refining her outlines. I'm glad she grasped the concept so quickly, so now it's time to make her outlines the best one-point outlines possible. ;)
EG wrapped up the fourth unit of PLATO life science and completed the remaining worksheets for the third unit. She also did three projects (she refuses to call them experiments; I don't entirely blame her) about various systems in the human body. In her history of science class, discussion centered around Eratosthenes.
She continues to work through chapter four of Latin Prep. There's not really much else to say.
Her online class for Critical Thinking 1 started this week. Last Friday afternoon was the orientation webinar, and she received her first assignments (read three sections, answer a poll online, post to the discussion board) to be completed before the first webinar today. She told me at dinner last night that she should "get back to doing Mind Benders, too" to "improve [her] logic skills." "You could even assign them to me, if you want," she added generously. In other words, she likes doing them, and wants an excuse to find time to do them. I won't tell her I figured that out, though.
She read a bit more in Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and of course listened to the Classics for Kids episodes about Beethoven along with FB. No Master's Academy also meant no piano lesson, but trumpet went well, and band begins for the school year today. She also read about "Ancient Near Eastern Art" in Art and read chapter one in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
In her spare time, she finished My Side of the Mountain and The Yearling, read more in the young readers' edition of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and started making lists and plans for our winter Disney trip. I think she also worked on a Girl Scout badge or two?