Weekly Report -- Nov. 14

I'm here to tell you that this week we did science experiments. Yes, finally.

We finally did that experiment where you put different things on a person's tongue and see where they taste them. It's not the greatest experiment, partially because taste buds simply aren't that specialized, but it was in the Brownie Try-It book, and it was also in the Young Scientist Kit we got from Noeo science (although the only thing we ended up using from it was the cotton swabs and the sugar because it saved me the trouble of finding ours -- that kit is really sort of useless, but then again I think the entire Noeo BIology 1 is pretty useless, but that's another post for another day). AnnaBeth had really, really wanted to try it, and now we have.

And we managed to come up with fizzing antacid tablets (which we don't own) and steel wool-ish things for Thalia to do some experiments from the Prentice Hall Science Explorers. She was also supposed to put small pieces of limestone in water and in vinegar, but decided not to -- she pointed out that she knew exactly what was going to happen in that experiment. Coincidentally, I think there was something like it in the Junior Girl Scout badge book that I remember working on last year. (Interesting how handy those badge books can be -- too bad GSUSA has decided they aren't "hip" enough, or maybe, heaven forbid, involve too much perceived work on the part of the girls and leaders. But that, too, is another post.)

In the meantime, AnnaBeth is learning French words for school-related subjects in Ecoutez-Parlez. She has been learning about quarters and halves in RightStart D. She has been learning about direct quotations in First Language Lessons. She has been learning ... something ... in Minimus Latin. Somehow I've never been around for Minimus, and she's been working independently on that this week. She has narrated passages, done copywork and dictation from Nesbit's The Phoenix and the Carpet.

Thalia has been learning irregular verbs in Spanish for Children. She has been learning more about Latin pronouns in Latin for Children B -- the ever popular ille, illa -- as well as the various forms of present tense. In Lightning Lit 7 she's still exploring Lewis Carroll. And in Life of Fred I'm really not sure what's going on since she does that totally on her own (well, actually she does most stuff on her own, but I generally sort of have a clue what's happening). I do know that we've discussed the volume of a sphere more than once this week, and we discussed whether .5 pi over 3 is the same as pi over 6. You know, sort of veering off the subject (once again), I was thinking about getting the Teaching Company's DVD on Algebra 1 since it's on sale right now and it would give another view of the material.

Both have heard read alouds from Nesbit's Phoenix and the Carpet, Roger Lea MacBride's Little Farm in the Ozarks (Little House - the Rose years), Spyri's Heidi, and D'Aulaire's Norse Myths. I had purchased that last book years ago to read to Thalia when she was the appropriate age as per Waldorf schooling, had stuck it on the shelf (still in its plastic wrap) and forgotten about it. I was flipping through the latest edition of The Latin Centered Curriculum, looking for ideas for read alouds, and noticed it listed for Grade Two literature. Great! We're past grade 2, but that's okay -- we've read the grade 3 suggestions (Black Ships Before Troy and Wanderings of Odysseus) recently, so it seemed a good time to read this.

Mostly, though, the focus this week has been on counting down days and hours until later this morning when THE BRACES COME OFF. I don't expect to get any school-type-stuff done today, although I'm sure we'll all learn things, especially about brackets and teeth and gums.