Weekly Report

Week 6.

It's the watershed week. We have made it this far before--and then stopped. School came to a screeching halt, partly because I had planned, in the past, to do a six week on/one week off schedule. The problem with that, however, is that the one week would flow into many.

Last winter, however, after a long break in the fall, I got serious. We did about 12 weeks before we took our vacation in May. I learned we don't really need a break after six weeks, as much as I'd like one. I learned we do better with our routine in place for a longer period of time. I learned we need to keep going, that we simply must persevere. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself?

I am.

Highlight: none. And I wish I had something to show you, but none of their work this week was "good enough" to be featured. (I use it as an incentive for each of them to be neat and accurate. Nothing "passed."

Spelling:
SWR, taught the 1-1-1 rule. (When do you know to double the final consonant when adding suffixes to words? When the word is 1 syllable, ends in 1 vowel and 1 consonant, and when the suffix begins with a vowel. Isn't that cool?) Dictated L3, wrote sentences, had the kids add random suffixes to the words on the list, and did the test.

Latin:
Lively Latin: Vocabulary E, Word Power Ex. E1, E2, Lesson 9.1 and Exercises 9.1, 9.2 and a history bit on Coriolanus. We also played Latin bingo and the kids really struggled. I'm unhappy about that!

Classical Writing Aesop.
Originally I had planned to turn last week's outline into a story but it was more difficult that I'd anticipated. So we gave that up and turned to Alexander and Bucephalus.

History:
SoTW(2) Chapter 30: The Moghuls in India. Narrations, mapwork, colouring page, chapter test. Once again, neither are retaining the information very well. I taught the younger how to go through the chapter to look for the information she needed to complete the chapter test, but I'd rather she'd been paying attention in the first place.

Science:
Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, Ch 11: Bees. I read, they wrote out a few notes on the bees jobs. We need to switch curriculums, soon. We really need to blow things up.

Canadian History Read Aloud: (see side bar.) Day 8. This is going much too slowly.

Dictation and Copywork.
Older 2x
Younger 3x

Poetry: The Splendour Falls, By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It's not memorized, but it is time to move on.

Bible
Skipped Proverbs 5, and did Proverbs 6, 1-8.

Geography: Canada Map Book 1.
pp. 16-19. Map Keys and Map Symbols.

Math
The Older:
SM: We started fractions. Did you know I never, ever knew that you can tell how large a fraction is compared to another by simply looking at the denominator when the numerators are the same? It seems so obvious to me now, but all my life I have always, always had to convet to the same denominator in order to figure it out--yes, even 1/3 and 1/4. Embarrassing, but true.
Review 4, graph worksheets from the Intensive Practice book, and Ex. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Practice 6A. Drill 4x.

The Younger
SM: TB Practice 3C, WB Review 3, WB Review 4,
drill, 4x.

Grammar
The Older:
R&S4: Lessons 19, 20, 21.

The Younger:
Lesson 176, 177, 178, 179. (Only 20 more lessons to go. Only 20 more lessons to go. Only 20 more lessons to go.)

Logic
The Older: Visual Mind Benders, 9-14. Mind Benders Beginning Book 2, 30-35.

The Younger:
Undisclosed number of Mind Benders, Beginning Book 2.

Art:
We did the Botticelli Lesson. I photocopied The Birth of Venus onto watercolour paper and printed it out (Hooray for the new printer). However, the older found it difficult to control his watercolours and therefore "boring" the Younger fought with me about what music to listen to. The whole excercise was, in the end, most dissappointing.