Weekly Report -- Feb. 13

I keep presenting this in different formats because there's not a single good way to capture a homeschooling week. Having presented our previous weeks by subject or by highlight, this week we'll look at how our homeschooling worked sequentially.

From my notes:

Monday -- Thalia was sick with a cold. She still did Latin, Analytical Grammar, and watched the Algebra 1 DVD. She felt well enough to practice piano and attend a lesson, but not well enough to go to dance. Instead she worked on Perfect Pointe exercises at home, and also played chess, although she decided she was too stuffy for a "live" chess game with Rick and opted to play on the computer while Rick coached her.

AnnaBeth and I did RightStart math Level D, read about the sense of touch in science, read and narrated a chapter on the Minoans for Writing With Ease/Story of the World History.

Read aloud was E. Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet.

Tuesday -- 70F and sunny. The windows are open, and I'm shooing the kids out the door as much as possible to soak up the fresh air.

Thalia did Analytical Grammar, Algebra workbook, and began working on Classical Writing: Homer using the model for first week/older students of Aesop's The Sun and the Wind.; she read aloud, narrated and we discussed Theon's chart. She also read a book about Ancient Greece and worked on Latin for Children Level B.

AnnaBeth and I worked on RightStart D (doing a lot with subtraction this week, as well as drilling multiplication tables), copywork from Story of the World (still Minoans). We began Latin for Children Level A, much to her delight.

Both practiced piano. We visited the public library. We had an outdoors tea during which we read poetry, read about St. Valentine, read more history. We also read more of Nesbit's Amulet. Both girls worked on Perfect Pointe exercises. In the evening, they played chess against each other, then Thalia retired to her room to read a few chapters of 1 Samuel. (Both girls read quite a bit -- more than I can keep track of -- I'm leaving out virtually all of the "fun" reading and simply mentioning the assigned reading.)

Wednesday

AnnaBeth has decided she wants to learn to type so Thalia showed her how to pull up the Mavis Beacon typing program on the computer. We read more about ancient Greece -- the Mycenaeans -- using Story of the World and another book on Ancient Greece. We also pulled out our DK Geography book and looked at the globe to find out more about the area. We worked on RightStart D, still subtracting. We watched the Latin for Children DVD (should've done this the first day of the week instead of the 2nd), after which AnnaBeth spent 2 days wondering around the house chanting "In principio erat verbum" as a military call-and-reply (if you've seen the videos you know exactly what I'm talking about; also, does it strike you as a little incongruous to be quoting Latin scripture in Classical vs. Ecclesiastical pronunciation?). She also completed the first worksheet in Latin for Children. She also made a model (from a Scholastic book on the human body) of the nerve endings in the various layers of skin.

Thalia worked on Analytical Grammar, more Algebra workbook, read and answered questions in Prentice Hall Science, did the dictation exercise in Classical Writing, worked on Latin, read the DK geography book about Kenya (preparing for an International Fair next week), and read Facing the Lion, Joseph Lemasolai-Lekuton's book about his Maasai childhood in Kenya. Thalia also decided she wanted to do spelling, so we pulled out Spelling Power and started working were we had left off a few months ago.

More piano practice. More dance class. More read alouds: Nesbit's Amulet, and DAulaire's Norse Myths's..

Thursday

More Latin for Children for AnnaBeth -- we review all the chants, then she works on the 3 pages of games (crossword puzzles, word searches, etc). More typing. We work on 4-digit subtraction, using an algorithm that works from left to right (there are at least 5 algorithms for multi-digit subtraction, and RightStart likes to explore all of them). We do an experiment involving hot, cold, and tepid water, moving our hands from bowl to bowl (AnnaBeth points out that we've done this same thing at a museum, but using poles that were heated and cooled).

Thalia starts the day with her beloved Analytical Grammar -- she's working on infinitive phrases. In Classical Writing she is supposed to diagram sentences, and searches the model for signs of infinitive phrases. Alas, real-life models are somewhat harder to diagram than the canned sentences in her grammar book, but she still has fun (I, of course, have not a clue, since I never learned to diagram -- frankly, my English grammar instruction was pretty lousy, but that's a tirade for a different day). She also works on re-writing sentences using word substitutions. (She isn't doing the writing project for this lesson because I thought it was sort of redundant, given how short the passage is.) Another episode of the Algebra DVD, explaining in tedious detail the difference between a monomial and binomial. We also zip through the next lesson on a hyper-speed to see what graphing calculator the lecturer will be using -- do we need the same one? The instructor is using a TI82. Thalia and I agree we'd rather use Casio, since we're used to Casio and it seems sort of intuitive. Latin is also completed, and we work on spelling together. She finishes up the chapter of the Prentice-Hall Science Explorer that she's studying, other than an experiment.

Our read aloud for the day is Amulet. More dance. More piano practice. Thalia works on Perfect Pointe.

Friday

This will be finish-up-the-week day, where we complete odds and ends. Latin isn't done for the week. We have one more chapter to read in Amulet, then the book is done, as is the series (the series starts with FIve Children and It, then continues in The Phoenix and the Carpet). We may go skating. We may read more about Greece or Kenya. Both girls need to finish their writing programs. Frankly, the piano tuner just started working on our piano, and I'm sort of sitting here with a fairly blank mind while he tunes (gah, what is it about randomly played out-of-tune notes that stops all thought functions?), so this would be a good time to stop typing even though I know I'm leaving some things out ....