Homeschool Weekly Reporter: February 25th-29th

Yikes, it's been a few weeks since I did the "Weekly Reporter" thing. But we have been doing school! Here's what we've been up to this week:



Family Prayer - we've been pretty good about getting at least one session of family prayer in either Morning or Evening. We use Anne Kitch's The Anglican Family Prayer Book and Vos' The Child's Story Bible.



Math

DD 6 - completed her Singapore "Early Bird" 2A workbook! We've picked up 2B and will start that next week.

DS 8 - almost done with his Singapore 1B. We'll finish that up next week and then work on fact drills for a good bit of time. I'm considering using Math-U-See with him starting with Beta in a few weeks, but I'm still a little undecided.



DS 11 - since I last posted a report, he's finished his 5/4 Saxon and we are jumping ahead to 7/6. We are cranking through this - generally 2 lessons a day with our DIVE CD and some practice problems selected from the Saxon text (10-20 a day).





English

DD 6 - has finished her "Get Ready for the Code - B" and started "C" this week. We try to do a letter per week, which means we do 3-4 pages a day.



DS 8 - his reading is coming along wonderfully. Yesterday, as we were driving around town, he read "Providence Road" and asked me, "Hey, Mom, what does "Providence" mean?" I replied, "Why? Did you just read that sign?!?!" We just do a little reading together each day and play "Sight Word Bingo" sometimes. He has started Handwriting Without Tears "Cursive" - by his request and is really enjoying it. We also are practicing basic parts of speech with MadLibs. I'm thinking about starting him on "Simply Grammar" in a few weeks.



DS 11 - We are working through our weekly assignments from Classical Conversations "Essentials" Grammar and Writing classes. We did not complete the writing assignment for this week. He's also reading "Sherlock Holmes" and thoroughly enjoying it. He started on next week's writing assignment which is writing a critique.

Family Studies



Christian Studies - we didn't do anything specific (beyond our family prayer and bible reading) this week.



Modern - Read in "The Last 500 Years" about China and the Cultural Revolution, The Cold War, and the Space Race.



Science - we skipped our science reading at home this week. At classical conversations they talked about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and did some cool experiments with building bridges (the two subjects are not connected, of course).



Friday: Folk Tales, French, Fine Arts - we were behind on some lessons, so instead we focused on getting that work done. I'll read the folk tale tonight at bedtime and we'll save the French and Fine Arts lesson for next week.

Individual Studies



Literature -

DD6 - read "Rama and the Tigers"

DS 8 - read 1/2 a chapter of The Hobbit

DS 11 - read the rest of As You Like It (Tales from Shakespeare)



Modern -

DS 11 - read "Communism in Asia" and "The Vietnam War" from Story of the World 4



Classics -

DD 6 - read 2 Aesop stories

DS 8 - read "Skade" from D'Aulaire's Norse Myths

DS 11 - read from D'Aulaire's Greek Myths





Classical Conversations



All: reviewed week 19 and introduced week 20 (Bible, Math facts, English Grammar, Geography, History sentence, timeline cards, Science sentence)

DS 11 - worked on his "President" presentation on JFK (fact gathering, collecting photos, writing notes)

Other

DD 6 - made a copy of "Hop On Pop" (copied the text and pictures); Ballet class

DS 8 - made a jungle scene with clay, started lettuce and sunflower seeds

DS 11 - continues to voraciously read and learn about the history of aviation; Drama class