Weekly Report -- Feb. 20

Latin

AnnaBeth is still excited about using Latin for Children A. We watch the DVD together early in the week, then she spends time on worksheets as the week progresses.

Action shot of the Activities book. Note the pajamas and uncombed hair. This is what homeschool looks like, folks.



(Comatose cat in the sun is an optional homeschool accessory.)

We have the old version of the DVD -- I think they re-did it and made it more professional. We like the quirkiness of this version.

In the meantime, Thalia continues to work through Latin for Children B. The end of the book is in sight!

Math

Thalia continues to watch Teaching Company Algebra DVDs. This week she entered the realm of the graphing calculator. We ended up purchasing a Casio instead of the TI81 the instructor is demonstrating -- we tend to like Casios. And it's a good thing Rick is okay with the Casio, since when the instructor started discussing "the f of x" my eyes started rolling back in my head ... wow, I haven't heard that phrase for years and years, and have a very dim memory of having a clue about this. It may be time to hand Algebra over to Rick. I'm sure I could revive my knowledge, but Rick is a little fresher on this stuff since he has actually used it since learning it in high school.

In the meantime, AnnaBeth forged ahead in RightStart D, learning about using check numbers. I'm not really sure what application check numbers have outside of the realm of RightStart -- it's interesting, to be sure, but does it come up again later? Is it just some quirky little math thing that no one other than math majors cares about?

English

Classical Writing Homer Do-Your-Own-Thing-Version is working well for Thalia. Each day I look over what the various lessons and skill levels are, and then come up with lessons that suit her abilities. I think this is how the program was originally intended to be used. I have the Instructor's Guide for the Student Workbook, and I use it for the models, as well as the Theon chart (the Theon charts are foreign territory for me, so it's nice to have a guide). We had tried Classical Writing Aesop a year or 2 ago with the workbooks, and it was annoying; using CW without the workbooks really suits us better.

Thalia also continues Analytical Grammar (another reason not to use the CW workbooks -- they're tied to a different grammar program working at a different level).

AnnaBeth has done Writing With Ease-style work using a passage from The Story of the Greeks, handily combining history with writing. I plan to also use Famous Men of Greece in these projects.

Other Stuff

We watched a video on the Ancient Aegean that we borrowed from the library, and read more in Gombrich's A Little History of the World.

Thalia continues with Prentice-Hall Science Explorers. The closest AnnaBeth got to a science lesson this week was during Brownies, which was the Movers Try-It (which she'd already done on her own, but still had fun re-visiting).

In music we listened to Grieg (Thalia is working on "Morning" from the Peer Gynt Suite on the piano), attended piano lessons and choir.

Thalia finished up work on Kenya. Both girls attended dance and a scout meeting. AnnaBeth continues to be enamored of Mavis Beacon typing.

And more. There's always more; no matter how carefully I check over my notes from the week I leave stuff out. Sometimes I do it purposefully because I doubt that anyone wants to know every knitpicking detail of our week. Mostly I want to be able to pull up all of these posts myself and see what the general tenor of our homeschooling has been.