Weekly Report, Term 2, Week 4

The Homeschooling conference feels like a million miles away. I over spent. And I didn't come back inspired and fired up like last year. I just feel guilty.

Moving on.

Morning Subjects:

Bible Study. Explorer's Bible Study, Discovery. Words of Wisdom.
Began Job. Hooray! I got it at the Homeschooling conference, as I'd planned, and I'm thrilled the three of us are back at it again. The material is actually new to them (I guess they don't figure Job exciting enough in Sunday School, or something.). The lessons are quite short. That was a pleasant surprise! I thought of Charlotte Mason all last week as we read discussed our passages without losing attention or interest. I wish I had experienced this sooner.

Latin. Lively Latin. Big Book 1. Ex. 16.9 to 16. 11.
As Rose says, it seems to be the never-ending curriculum. We've had the last pages in sight for two weeks. We just can't....seem....to....reach....them. I've put on Lingua Angelica twice since purchasing it at the Homeschool conference: one caught the Boy's attention. But I've promptly mislaid the song book, (of course) so we couldn't sing it. He actually had to ask me, though: "What language is this in?" (Is that good or bad?)

Spelling. SWR, List N2
I dictated it and we did a bit of work on suffixes. I forgot to test. Oops.

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff, 4: Lessons 79 to 82. Skipped Lesson 80.

The Younger: Rod and Staff 3: Lessons 54 to 57.

Composition:
The Older: Homer A, Week 3: The Wind and the Sun.
Once again, he's written maybe two paragraphs. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm failing. We did do some dictation.

The Younger: Aesop A, Week 16 or so.
I've ditched the Bible Stories. Somehow we barely have the time to work with short bits: never mind the long rambling story of David and Goliath. The child does not yet know how to narrate without relating every single detail. I corrected that in the older child: and look what I got for my trouble! Instead we're using the models from the first six weeks. She missed those as I folded her in with the older at week 7.
I'm flailing.

Math.
Older: Singapore Math, Level 4B. Week 5.
I'd planned the usual doubling up of weeks to progress more quickly: but we had to s-l-o-w right down when he encountered three long, tough reviews. I was slow at getting to mark them, too, so on Day four we just went over them and I re-taught whatever needed refreshing.

Younger: Singapore Math 3A Week 13.
The child surprised herself by whipping through her stuff. I took a few minutes earlier this week (fresh from a presentation on Right Start Math on which I spent a fortune for the games) and taught my daughter to recognise the patterns in the nine times table on the 100's board. She even found a few I'd never seen! You know, of course, that she's aced the nines times tables. Just like that. (She doesn't quite know it yet, but she will). And it seems to have been some sort of key to the lock in her brain for knowing all of them. I still haven't found the key to my son's brain. The multiplication table is still locked up tight in there.

Afternoon Subjects.

Science: Singapore i-science, Primary 4, Chapter 3b: How Do Plants and Animals Breathe?
The kids got all grossed out by the pictures of the stomata in plants. I had a chance to tell them that photosynthesis is the reason I believed in God.

History: Story of the World, Vol. 3: Chapters 13 (The Sun King) and 14 (The Rise of Prussia).
This was a mish-mash. We'd listened to The Sun King on the way down to the conference, so we did our map work, timeline and chapter test this week. Then we listened to "The Rise of Prussia" and I figured out that I had had Frederick the Great confused with his grandfather! (All the kids' assigned supplementary reading--from Synge to Famous Men of Modern Times was about Frederick the Great, so hopefully I haven't confused them!) We made several entries in our Timeline book, (we are soooo behind!) did the chapter test: but forgot to do our map work.

I'm thinking of stopping right here for a few weeks while we "catch up" in our Canadian History studies to the time period of Chapter 15, which, as far as Canadian History is concerned is dated at 1663, the year King Louis XIV sent first the soldiers and then the women to secure the survival and future of New France.

According to my reading schedule, if I read 2x a week (about an hour and a half, maybe, each time?) it may take us three weeks. I'm not sure I can do that, but not to do so is too fall too far behind for comfort. No, not comfort. Sanity. No, I'm not sure why I am so pathologically attached to my SoTW schedule.

Literature:
didn't get to the magic.

Canadian History.
I purchased Heather Penner's "Modern History Through Canadian Eyes" (A strange title, to be kind) at the homeschooling conference. I thought it would be helpful in coordinating all the various resources out there--I've been doing what I can, but it has been terribly time consuming.

Unfortunately, I find myself staying up late nights creating spreadsheets of my own and typing in all the info I need in a format I can access more easily--and so, thus far, it's been quite a bit of work. (I spend money to make life easier or more enjoyable. This was a bad purchase by those criteria. But, it's only been the first week. Perhaps I judge too soon.)

Canadian History is just one of those things you have to coordinate from the pitifully small number of available materials. (Yet, maybe it's unfair to compare the number of our resources here with those of the behemoth to the south.) There is no really decent stand alone spine. I lamented that as late as a few days ago. However, I read Granatstein's Who Killed Canadian History when we got home from the conference and perhaps that isn't a bad thing. It forces us to read our history from different authors...and so "different perspectives" are just built right in (without discussion or analysis) at this age. Granatstein believes, as I do, that history ought to be a story at this age--and analysed and examined when the child is older and better able to do that. One of the things Penner has done is coordinate resources for older students as well as younger. So, for example, Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples is coordinated with chapters of Morton's "A Short History of Canada." So, we're good to go, once I get a copy of Churchill's books.

Fine Arts.
Music: Beautiful Feet
Art: Artistic Pursuits. (Yes, I broke down and bought it.)
aargh--we didn't get to THIS either.

I don't know what to do. I had thought getting up at 6:30 would help. That lasted one day. We just can't seem to get everything done in a day--and yet, I know we could. I spend 90% of my time disciplining them: and that's just not right. I keep thinking it shouldn't be necessary at this age and stage. I also feel as though I am not ever going to figure this out once and for all. It will always be a struggle (and it shouldn't be). (I think R.D. Laing would enjoy this.)

So, I'll keep making my plans and keep seeing them remain undone. And because they remain undone I feel like we can't ever take time off. We can't ever relax. And yet, I can't keep this up. We need to take breaks as much as I hate them. And I can't keep making plans and watch them be transferred from file to file week after week. Some thing's got to give and it's usually my temper.

The Greeks personified, this, didn't they? Or monsterfied it. Scylla and Charybdis, wasn't it? Or am I merely, as Hirsch would have us say, between a rock and a hard place?