Homeschool Update

Some highlights of the past couple of weeks:

MATH:

Thalia took a test early in the week, and has now started Chapter 5 of Lial's Intermediate Algebra, Systems of Linear Equations.  She says she now has more of a clue about some of those ACT math questions from back in September, having now seen what the heck they were going on about.

Annabeth continues to storm through Key to Decimals.  She's not quite halfway through the second book.  So far it's been review, with mistakes made out of sloppiness rather than misunderstanding.

HISTORY:

Thalia actually missed an answer in Notgrass World History -- the first this year.  I think it might have been absentmindedness.  She's displaying signs of nitpicky-ness with the text, looking for minor faults.  It really isn't very challenging as a history text, so I guess that's what keeps her occupied.

Annabeth wonders about all of the timelines in History Odyssey.  Why make the little one that you can't fit all the stuff on, and then also put the same stuff on the big one?  Because then you actually learn it by fitting it in; plus the big one is to keep and add to  from year to year.

ENGLISH:

Jensen's Format Writing requires that one select one's own topics, which has apparently been the biggest challenge for Thalia  so far -- figuring out what she'd like to write a 7 sentence (occasionally 8 sentence) paragraph about.  The topics are getting more and more ... interesting.  For analogy, she compared kidneys to furnace filters, saying it was the first thing that came to mind.

And Annabeth is working on similes in Writeshop.  Which is nice, since it's something she hasn't worked on before.

SCIENCE:

Let's see, Thalia had her first Physics test a couple of weeks ago, which she did really well on.  Then we had the assignments from hell, which took F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  to complete, and included much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then this week everything was easy-peasy.  Sort of a bipolar course -- you just never know what to expect next.

And I've been trying to go over more assignments in Shepherd's Life Science with Annabeth, since they're not doing that much in their once-per-week class.  They've made it through cell biology, which she thought was confusing.  Overall, if I didn't feel comfortable with the subject I think this would be a tough course to supervise from home (it might be easier to outright teach it, since then you're following along more closely anyway).

SOME OTHER STUFF:

Dave Ramsey has taught us about relationships and money (hohum, THAT was a fairly useless chapter), and how to interview for jobs (ditto -- better info about this is available elsewhere).  And a brief swipe at taxes.  Don't get me wrong, I still like the course.  But we hurried through these chapters. There were test questions I thought were just plain silly, since they were more along the lines of "were you paying attention" rather than "you should remember this stuff".  But we're coming down to the home stretch.  She's also been reading Adam Shepard's Scratch Beginnings this week for sort of a look at real life applications.

Theater work is keeping everyone busy.  Sets to paint.  Songs and blocking to learn.  Annabeth just got the lead in a play at church.  She sewed several pillows for the Snow White set last week, stuffing one with an extraneous bed pillow we had in the closet.  She was pretty proud of them, especially the one with gold fringe which she figured out how to apply herself.

Also, we've been handing around the latest Rick Riordan book (Son of Neptune) since Thalia was one of the first to get it from the library.  Three of us managed to read it this week during her checkout period of it.

And all the other usual falderal -- voice, piano, dance, driving.  Annabeth started doing Mango French again this week (Mango is available through our public library's website).  Plus all the stuff I'll think of after I post this, which is pretty typical.  You'd think by now I'd be writing notes all week, but no.  Just scrawls in the planner -- otherwise, these ARE my notes.