4.3.11

Weekly Report: Week Twenty-Nine (days 141-145)

Every February, I have witnessed a brain-growth spurt in EG. Then I spend March and April scrambling to challenge EG rather than present her with busywork. This year is no exception. Yes, I know, I should plan ahead, but I never know exactly how she'll spurt. Sometimes it's more in one area than another.

The big news this week is that EG finished all of her art appreciation assignments for this school year! Otherwise known as "the end of the year is approaching," I tend to think of it as beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The algebra book from Art of Problem Solving arrived and I have to say that I somewhat wish we'd used it from the beginning. Live and learn, I suppose; I had good reasons for choosing Life of Fred at the time, but wow, does it feel like a waste of time now.

FB has been voraciously consuming the SOTW audiobook. I had managed to keep him just reviewing what we'd already covered, but I think he's sprinted ahead of us now. We're officially learning about Julius Caesar this week. In one of the books we're reading about Caesar, the beginning of the paragraph has a little sentence where his mother is calling him inside, using his first name, Gaius. The next sentence refers to him as Caesar. Unfortunately, I found myself reading "Baltar." Oops. Yesterday, FB grabbed the Miquon book and did six or seven pages instead of the scheduled one. Hopefully my Rainbow Resource order will arrive before he commandeers the Miquon book another time and finishes it on me--the next Miquon is supposed to be on its way.

PC has finally stopped referring to going to the bathroom as "ouch." This sounds like a good thing, and I suppose it is, except she went straight to the stage of thinking it's amusing to insert "poo-poo" into almost any conversation. She also managed to attempt to break the drawer on the crib. Not that she sleeps in the crib, but it makes an adequate toy box, given our total lack of space for anything that PC owns. (Some of her toys are in the crib, some are upstairs in the playroom, some are in the living room. Some of her clothes are in the same room as the crib, some are in our bedroom. You get the idea.)

I'm hoping that we'll get something more accomplished around the house this weekend towards the goal of moving. We did get the piece of fencing that needed replacing finished this week. The dog is thrilled. Next up: drywall estimates, and landscaping. In keeping with my theme for the month, this is how I feel about the house:

6 comments:

Melanie said...

I ordered AoPS Intro to Algebra a few months ago. I've been working through it myself, and I LURV it. My daughter is resistant to change and wants to stick with Saxon, and now I'm wrestling with myself over whether I should force her to switch to this clearly superior algebra book or just let it go. Either way, math at my house is going to drive me crazy.

MissMOE said...

Homeschooling while trying to sell a house and move is HARD. Kudos to you for getting so much school done.

Ritsumei said...

I can imagine how much of a mess having kids jumping ahead in your books must make of your planning, but what a lovely problem to have! Good luck getting it sorted out!

Mandy in TN said...

Actually, planning ahead beyond this is what I would like for us to do next has typically not ended the way I had planned!

Bummer that you feel LoF was a waste. Not that I currently have any plans to use LoF(see above LOL), but could you expand on why you feel that way now?

Also- if I were moving, I can't imagine that any formal schooling would be accomplished! So- way to go!

Kash said...

Re: Fred

EG has excellent conceptual understanding, which is good, but she doesn't recognize the standard form for algorithms. After she finished Beginning Algebra, I had her do some problems from other curricula and didn't notice a significant issue; after she finished Advanced Algebra, it had become a significant issue. It also failed to impress upon her the importance of order of operations. I think, ultimately, the lower number of problems in Fred let some things pass by without either she or I realizing that a missed problem was a sign of a deeper issue, especially since any missed problems, she got right on the second try. She does want to still use Fred as her review math, and I have no problem with utilizing it in that way for my others; I just don't want Fred to be their *first* exposure to new material or a new concept.

Kash said...

Re: Fred

EG has excellent conceptual understanding, which is good, but she doesn't recognize the standard form for algorithms. After she finished Beginning Algebra, I had her do some problems from other curricula and didn't notice a significant issue; after she finished Advanced Algebra, it had become a significant issue. It also failed to impress upon her the importance of order of operations. I think, ultimately, the lower number of problems in Fred let some things pass by without either she or I realizing that a missed problem was a sign of a deeper issue, especially since any missed problems, she got right on the second try. She does want to still use Fred as her review math, and I have no problem with utilizing it in that way for my others; I just don't want Fred to be their *first* exposure to new material or a new concept.

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