Weekly Report

In spite of a topsy-turvy week in which I was extremely pre-occupied with non-schooling related things we managed to learn a lot and even have some fun. We usually school Monday through Thursday but as I was not available on Tuesday we took that day off and schooled on Friday, even though I ended up not being available in the morning. The substitute teacher, Rick, did a fine job.

Eleanor:

We are now doing dictation 2x/week and copywork 2x/week instead of trying to do both 4x. Much better and really, I don't think we're missing out on anything. In history she learned about Moses and the Israelites. We even watched "Prince of Egypt" which is a fantastic movie. She was very taken with the story of the exodus and I've ordered "The Ten Commandments" (Charlton Heston version) because I think she's ready for it and she wanted to see a "live action" version once she knew there was one. She also learned about the Phoenicians and Dido of Carthage. We worked on the timeline which is something that we're really enjoying. In science she learned about mountains and seashores. In language arts she learned about sentence types and diagramming one word command sentences. She wrote a re-telling of "The Princess and the Pea":

Once there was a prince who wanted to marry a real princess but could not find one. The night he got home from looking for a princess a storm began. Then a knocking was heard at the city gates. The king answered the gates and the the lady outside said she was a real princess. The queen decided to have a test to see if the lady was a real princess. So she put a pea under twenty matresses and twenty eider down beds. That would be the princess' bed. If she felt the pea she was a real princess. In the morning the lady was asked how she had slept and she said something hard in the bed kept her awake. She had felt the pea! She and the prince married and the pea was put in the museum.

Hoping to make today our third day of French. Wish us luck.


Henry:

Had a good week. He learned about ancient China: silkworms, pictograms and farming.

One day an empress, Lei Zu, was sitting under a mulberry tree. Then she called to her maid for lunch and said she wanted to eat in the garden. The maid brought the empress' favorite food. A silkworm cocoon dropped from the tree into Lei Zu's tea. It unraveled into a long thread of silk.

We used the "Story of the World" cd for the first time this week which the kids liked a lot.

In science he learned about polar and panda bears, and gorillas and orangutans. He continues to do well in math and pretty much everything except sitting still.

Susannah:

This. Child. I don't like to label children but if I did, I'd rubber stamp this one as "STUBBORN" and move on. I'd leave well enough alone but she INSISTS on doing school...her way.

One change that I've made recently that has really helped is to put together a "teacher's folder". I have all the different worksheets and copybook pages and notebook pages torn out and 3-hole punched and divided by day and ready to go at the start of the week. I read about it at the WTM message boards and what a great idea. I thought I was organized before but this has cut down on reaching for books and tearing out pages while the kids sit and wait. And as a waiting child is like a ticking time bomb anything done to minimize the amount of waiting is only going to make the day easier.