Weekly Report - 2

Our first week was so ideal, I should have seen the fall coming!  Apparently, all the amazement at our new school year settled into an air of drudgery.  Maybe this will always happen.  We plowed through, but it was a struggle everyday.  Some of the issue was that I didn't feel my best, so maybe I lacked that extra enthusiasm that they needed to ignite their own excitement.  Maybe the newness of the uniforms and new books and daily schedule had worn off and it all felt just a little too snug and imposed.  We still got a lot done, but we didn't make it to the gym and we didn't manage to do any fun projects or art or poetry.  Our school lacked life this week!  It's good to know what makes for a good week.  I can resolve to make those things more of a priority.  Next week is a clean slate...

MATH

I decided to buy BJU 1 for Chloe, but just the worktext and reviews.  It should be here Monday.  Level 2 was going to move too fast for her and too slow for Kaden if I continued to keep them together.  She can work more independently with Level 1 and I can play addition games with her instead of spending that time teaching new concepts.  Level 2 will be there waiting for her as soon as she needs it.  It was tough to abandon my dream of combining them for math, but I think it was the right decision for them.  

Kaden starts subtraction review next week and he "hates" subtraction.  I think he needs more practice to really feel comfortable with it so I will find ways to include games and stories with manipulatives and take the strain out of the lesson.  He might be better off doing those pages alone so there isn't any "parent pressure".  I have to keep in mind that it is good for him to struggle and overcome his limitations.  My natural inclination is to lighten up and help him to coast through a difficult situation.  Subtraction isn't going to go away and eventually he'll have to master it but in his own time and not according to my timetables of "what is appropriate".

It came up so infrequently in Saxon 2 last year and I always let him skip those fact sheets.  I think that was appropriate then, but he is able to master it now, he just doesn't think he can.  I'm glad that BJU approaches it as a chapter concept, we won't need to move on until he has knows it and has confidence to do it.  He is so good at addition and multiplication, so of course he would rather only do what he's good at.  Just like me...

READING

Chloe read The Josephina Story Quilt this week and Kaden completed another week of Explorer's Bible Study.  He also read four or five short chapter books!  He's quite pleased with how fast he can read now!

WRITING

Our copy of Writing With Ease workbook 1 is supposed to be here Monday.  I am so excited to start that.  It's just what I've been trying to pull together myself.  Doing a little happy dance!!!

HISTORY - KING ARTHUR

Our Island Story: chapters 10 & 11

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Pyle), pages 1-12 (The sword in the stone.)  I'm enjoying this book but I think the Talbott and San Souci books are more appropriate for their ages and the illustrations are so beautiful!

King Arthur triology by Hudson Talbott:  The Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, Knights of the Round Table (These are excellent, I plan to purchase them.)

(No notebook pages completed this week as our afternoons were just too frustrating!  I have some great books planned for next week and hopefully we can get our afternoons back in order!)

SCIENCE

Earth:  Plate tectonics and pangea theories from CKE.  Puzzle experiment from Barbara Taylor's The Earth.

MPH:  Classification of living things into four groups, similarities and differences.

GEOGRAPHY

Countries of North America and Central America.  I finally learned them myself!  Kaden was excited because one of his books has a character from Costa Rica and now he knows where that is!

POETRY

We chose poems but we didn't have time to learn them, so we'll save them for next week.  We did manage to learn some new knock-knock jokes!

We continue to read The Princess and the Goblin.  It is very good, but we are having trouble getting to it everyday.  I'm thinking of just reading this one like Ambleside suggests, one chapter a week.  That would be quite doable AND we could enjoy it for a longer period.  The kids never forget what has happened, even if it's been a few days.

Here are some of our favorite library picture books we read this week as well:

Heart of a Tiger by Marsha Diane Arnold

There Was a Old Woman Who Lived in a Boot by Linda Smith

The Well at the End of the World by Robert D. San Souci

I wish I could buy some new picture books to add to our library.  It seems that since we started schooling, all my book money goes to curriculum... 

PUPPY UPDATE

Bruno is a biter and a terribly mean little puppy.  We aren't sure whether to get him another dog to socialize him or just to find him a new family without babies and little children.  It is so heartbreaking.  This was a major disturbance in our week and a cause of too much lost sleep.  I hope we can come to a solution soon!