The Sinister Scribe

My how time flies when your busy! And procrastinating. I kept waiting for a good time to do this each week and never found it. So here’s a batch update and I’ll just have to carve out times as I go.

Despite holidays and life in general, we’ve managed to stay on schedule (and have fun). Huzzah!

Math has hit a bit of a snarl but I think it is because he’s having to work a bit harder with new material. MathScore.com has incorporated a performance test function that allowed me to easily see the areas we need to work on. Between that site and Math Mammoth I think we’re set.

Science is still a favored subject by all in our house. I’ve finally hit on a timeline that works for us and we’re putting up timelines for fameous astronomers. (need to get a picture). Each one also has a basic fact card that we’ll add pictures to at the end. Those we’ll keep, but the wall timeline can be recycled and reused. Woot!

Literature/Dictation is cruising. We’re listening to Shakespeare’s plays translated by the Lambs as posted on Librivox and reading along from the Baldwin Project. Sam said he likes listening to them. Yay! His latest illustration for “Winter’s Tale” came out really nice.

Japanese is back to me. We’d been doing lessons with a campai from Sam’s Karate dojo and he just wasn’t keeping up. So based on her suggestion we’re working through the Katakana alphabet and I’m incorporating as much Japanese into our everyday life as I can. He’s certainly doing better at remembering the characters than I am!

Latin is very relaxed. We’re working our way through Minimus Segundus. I’m only testing him on vocab this year. Still planning on Lively Latin for next year.

Writing has slowed somewhat. His enthusiasm on his books has ebbed a bit. I’m going to make an effort to do weekly or monthly letter writing time… starting now. The picture here is from a session of writing. He loved using the dip pens. Jessie loved putting her letters in the mailbox herself.

Art has taken a leap forward. For Barb’s Sketch Tuesday his sketch surprised me with the amount of dimension it showed. We were talking yesterday about some local art lessons and decided we need to get more serious at home. By that I mean more deliberate. Still fun I hope.

History is not my best subject so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it is rather dry seeming in our lessons. Sam still finds interesting facts to share. We watched a History Channel special on the Black Death. Pretty heavy stuff but it lead to some great conversations on why personal hygene is so important. (I noticed he’s been washing his hands more often)

Music Appreciation is still going on. It really only consists of listening and the occasional comment or conversation. They’ve both liked the CD I have of classical music of the middle ages. I was glad it was something I already had on hand.

Art Apppreciation has kinda fallen off the radar. We still look at paintings that we come across (especially during history research) but I’ve not organized anything for a bit.

With Jessie, I let her participate as much as she is interested. We’ve worked a little on numbers (using a clock because she had it in her hand) and letters. She frequently asks me to read words she’s written (usually a long string of letters) which is kinda fun. She’s even glued bits of paper into letter shapes. She’s bringing me books to read during the day now. “Just for fun” she says and we read at least 3 just before quiet time. I’m making sure I set aside time each day just to be with her and do whatever is holding her interest at the moment. Though it has made my day more hectic (and let the house messier) it seems to be helping to even out her mood during the day.

Next week is going to be mostly review I think as Tuesday is the boy’s birthday then Thursday and Friday are a holiday. So Monday and Wednesday are it. On our “off” days we’ll still practice Japanese, do Barb’s Sketch Tuesday and maybe get to some sewing!

I’m grouping these two weeks because I’m really behind they’re kinda related… review and testing.

I found math more tedious to sum up with using MathScore.com. If only because it was online and not in print. He practiced speed drills and I can really see improvement there. Testing was minute drills with different (sometimes mixed) operations. I gave him a warm up before doing the official “test.”

Looking back through his history binder I was shocked at how little was there. Most of what we did was oral but there were a few things like his drawings of “Old Al.” I certainly didn’t get to as many of the projects as I had planned. (my fault, not his) What we focused on (not completely intentionally) was specific people… Alexander the Great, Muhammad and Vikings. So after reviewing those things and watching a few related TV episodes from things like Lost Worlds, Digging for the Truth, I tested him on those three topics by having him outline what he knew. If I can keep organized, I’d like to have him flesh out that outline later in the year as part of a midterm-like review.

Vocabulary was a fun test (for both of us). I had him pull out all the main cards from this quarter (17 I think) and make as many words as he could at first using each root only once. When he got down to the last few, I let him reuse any root that would work so that each root was used at least once. THEN, I had him write definitions for each word based on the root’s definition. Reviewing wasn’t so exciting… just used a flashcard approach to refresh his memory.

Beowulf was finished up during these weeks. At one point during review week he didn’t want me to stop reading because it was getting to a “good part.” VBG! Gotta love that. Testing was one part oral summation and one part dictation. Both were great.

Science was simple to review and test. We’ve done quite a lot on paper so we had plenty to review. I love his illustrations of the planets and want to frame them. Watched a few applicable TV episodes (The Universe). For testing I had him narrate what he knew, again in outline form. He did fine.

Didn’t test him on any of the music we’d listened to for music appreciation. We listened to a mix of it each day and that was pretty much it. Art appreciation was the same way though I intended to have him talk about his favorite piece. It just didn’t happen.

As I’m writing this I had a thought to have him print out one of the stories he’s been writing on his own and include that draft in his yearbook. The Narnia news had kind of fallen by the wayside. I am hoping to pick it up again this quarter. I hate leaving things unfinished.

I printed out this quarters hourly totals to file in the beginnings of this year’s yearbook. We were able to get all the hours in. This year it is the core hours that are harder to get enough of. That is partly because I’ve changed the way I’ve designated some subjects as core vs. non core. Also, I’ve broken out required reading from fee reading. Although most of his free reading is not tracked so maybe that is not it.

We certainly had a lot of fieldtrips this quarter and I’ve made yearbook/scrapbook pages for most of them. I’ll post them to picassa later… err… at some point.

The next week (technically 11 but not counted as such) was supposed to be sort of a “teacher’s planning week” but Jessie had the flu all week and I didn’t get much done. Thankfully I’ve got that year-by-week overview so at least I know the general direction we’re heading and know the basic materials we’re going to use to get there.

Ok, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something but I’m going to post this so that I can get going on this quarter’s stuff and the half a dozen posts I want to start about the other gazillion things that go on here.

Here we are at the end of the first quarter. I really can’t believe how fast time has flown.

We did a lot of wrap up this week. I’m ashamed of how little I did with the Vikings segment. I had such grand plans! Thursday evening I stayed up late to get together one last craft… Viking longships. Got them to the point that there was only adornment and minor assembly to do. While the kids worked on it, I read from Beowulf. I didn’t have Sam do any dictation from it. We discussed what had happened previously before I read and then what happened this time afterwards.

Math went really, really well this week. Sam flew through several sections on Mathscore.com

Science… we headed out to the driveway and made a line model represented the distance between planets using a scaled down “AU.” The next day we used those tic marks to draw circular orbits and place rocks in the asteroid belt.

Pennywhistle… he’s getting really good with “Hunting the Hare” Can’t wait for the performance/test

Thursday was the book discussion at the library for “Lightening Thief.” Sam had a great time. Jessie and I hung out at the Library and had fun too.

Friday we went Iceskating with friends and had a great time.

Behind again. Or is it still? LOL! Week 7 was full of activity and learning. Most of it however was not according to plan.

Tuesday had some drop dead gorgeous weather so we played hookey by eating out (at a restaurant I thought had WF pasta), rode our bikes on the Katy trail, and had ice cream. It was a lot of fun.

Friday night and Saturday was BioBlitz. What fun! Again we got to hold those really cool bat-o-meters (or whatever you call ‘em). Mr. Corben (their inventor) was a part of the expedition. We were even quoted in the Missourian (again). I can’t tell you how many times Sam exclaimed ” This is so cool!” during the bat walk. (everyone laughed at these little punctuations in the night).

Saturday we tagged along and looked in streams for little critters, ate ice cream and decorated Tshirts.

In between those two events there was math (that went quite well), Japanese, Latin, History (more vikings), Science (asteroids and stuff), etc.

The viking crafts are being met with indifference even though he picked this one out. Meh. We didn’t get to dictation because of the BioBlitz. Which is just fine.

There’s more but I can’t remember it just now. Wanted to get this posted before it was another week late.

G’Nite.

Community Service: This week saw our first volunteering for the Local Humane Society. We transported two dogs to KOMU. The picture is of Sam with Creamsicle, a basset/lab mix. If we didn’t alredy have a dog OR if we had a fenced yard… well, you know. Creamsicle was so adorable and well behaved at the TV studio in the midst of a bunch of kids there. You’d think he did it every day. I really hope someone adopts this guy. Here’s a link if you’re interested!

Math: Fell into the usual pattern… Monday was full of frustration but by the end of the week we were cruising again. He is now finished with the “fast division” section (whew!) and into the fast addition.

History: Vikings… we’ve watched a couple TV episodes ( gotta love iTunes) on the subject. Tried to start an art project that he chose. Gluing yarn down to cardboard is fiddly so we tried just drawing the designs with white glue. That hasn’t worked so well so we got some dimensional paint to try out next week.

Science: Studying outer planets, comets and meteoroids. This week at the library, we just went to the section in the kids area where we knew we could find books for this and he picked out a couple. I think we’ll keep doing that in the future because I really do think the books he was choosing by catalog search (from upstairs) really were too much beyond his level (and would require weeks and weeks to read… yes, its that completion issue I have again)

Literature/Dictation: Didn’t get to this.

Music Appreciation: A mix of everything we’ve covered so far.

Art Appreciation: I’d printed out a picture of a Viking weather vane but we didn’t really talk about it so I’ll leave it up for next week.

Tea Time: Huzzah! Jessie joined in today. We didn’t have any flowers for the table so she drew them and we put her artwork in the center. I read short poems line-by-line to her and she said them aloud, looking at Sam each time. Kinda cute. Sam really enjoys reading poetry and would do it for hours. One of these day’s I’ll have to let him do just that.

Japanese: I am going to have him tell me how he’s going to study the information from this weeks class over the next 5 weekdays and write it out on paper.

PE: We started the workout challenge last week. I did the calesthenics portion with him and man am I sore. Thankfully he is not or has very little muscle soreness.We only did a couple things on the Fitness Test (sit ups and push ups). I kinda have a good idea already on how fast he can run a mile. I’m wondering where in the house (or maybe garage) we could put a pull up bar…

Nature Study: nothing formal… we did catch a bluegill for our small fish bowl. It didn’t adapt as well as the bass, so we took it back. But not before he ate the tiny crayfish and the darter, I think.

Writing: Our Narnia News project is languishing. Sam is writing a fanfic of sorts that combines Pokemon and Naruto. There were a couple days this week where he got up early so that he would have time to work on this. (woot!) He has a couple of his friends reading it and offering suggestions. There were some mild language issues I’m hoping are cleared up now. Sigh. I have issues when a child of 10 uses swear words in writing… even free writing assignments. There are just so many more descriptive words out there that he knows how to use.

Other subjects, like vocabulary and pennywhistle, are humming along. I thought I had music lessons lined up (with bartering) but it seems that has fallen through. Next week I think I will have him pick a song he doesn’t know and practice it during the week with a performance (for family) on Friday.

I think I’m going to drop the Librivox idea for the time being, we have so much going on. Shakespeare will happen as soon as we’re done with Vikings. Sewing we WILL get to soon (-er or later).

Notes: Read about this really cool idea shared on Bravewriter’s Blog: Scavenger school. Basically hide the assignment somewhere in the house for them to find. They complete the homework where ever they find it. Not sure if I’ll do clues or just have them seek…

I’m hopeful that the scavenger idea will incite Jessie’s interest. I tried to include her in the Viking craft but she was so resistant… to the point of needing a time out. Is she just not ready to participate yet? I dunno what’s up and I’ve been kinda worried about how I’m going to homeschool them both. How do I slowly pull her in to participation? How am I going to teach this kid?!?

I did however get some validation that she is absorbing some things like letters and their sounds during our quiet reading time. So I feel a little better. I remember Sam learning the same way… while he was doing something else (bathing). Maybe I need to work a little harder at making it interesting for her…?

Kinda late on this one. Another week has flown by! Can you tell he is excited about our upcoming Japanese Festival trip?

Math was really good this week. He checked his work consistently and was able to catch the few little mistakes he did make. Seems like the Mathscore.com website has helped. He can’t wait to go back to it too. (paper worksheets are not his favorite)

Latin: Did a fun exercise this figuring out the path Iulius would have taken on his trip to Dacia. Even got out the big atlas to look at. Led to a great discussion on traveling without cars.

Japanese: Had his first lesson with his Karate instructor. She had some good suggestions (like starting with Katakana rather than Hiragana… Sam chose to learn both!) I think he’s done most of the stuff she’d be suggesting but I am hopeful her sequence will be more cohesive than mine or at least more productive. His homework was to practice the first characters in both alphabets, memorize the basic syllable sequence and choose 10 words he’d like to be able to say in Japanese.

PE: He’s really enjoying poi spinning. Has the forward 3-beat, weave down and is trying the reverse. He seems to be really enjoying Karate too.

Science: Space sounds! We had so much fun listening to them. One even sounded like R2D2. LOL! I really like his planet illustration this week. You can just see it in the picture.

Nature Study: I blogged about this earlier. We went back the next day too.

Music Appreciation: Gregorian Chant. The dislike for this was so great that we didn’t listen to it all the way through the week. (I like it though. Makes me want to do calligraphy and illumination) So we listened to more AyePodcast for the remainder. Next week I’m going to create a mix of our music to date and we’ll listen to that.

Dictation: again it was good. I could tell he was really trying hard to get the punctuation right. We need to review semicolon usage rules.

Penny whistle: nothing new here. He still enjoys playing and trying to pick up tunes by ear.

Vocabulary: He can do this completely on his own now. Posting them on our wall has been helpful when I forget to check his work. It reminds me!

Things we didn’t get to this week: Shakespeare, Librivox, Pres. Phys Fitness test & program, Sewing.

“Next week” (now this week) is already half through. Things have been busy in a good way. Next week we are taking the week off for holiday and I plan on working as hard to make it a fun week as I do to make the other weeks academically full.

We’re a month into the school year already. I can hardly believe how fast time is flying. This week was very much a week of fun with friends. Not that we don’t see our friends weekly, just this week we saw more of them and did more activities with them. Seems like these things come in waves… which is why I try to say “yes” when someone calls and asks if we want to join them.

This week Sam showed a lot of independence in his work either asking to get started before it was time or asking to work on the next subject if he finished early. He also mentioned how good it felt to be able to do these things on his own.

Math: This week was speed division, a more difficult subject if only because he’s had less practice. Monday he was working on sleep deprivation (a friend spent the night Saturday) so things were a bit harder than usual. By Thursday he was over three quarters of the way through this subject. Friday I have him a day off math… sort of. He didn’t do worksheets, but we had a great discussion on budgeting while I checked the back account to see how much money I could spend on groceries this week. Showed him how I figured things out and what things I regularly put money aside for. He seemed impressed that I put so much work into it.

Next week we’re going to go back to using Math Mammoth. I think a break from “speed work” will be good. Then maybe pick up MathScore.com again at the beginning of next month.

Science: So we tried to do some stargazing and even see the Perseid meteor shower but unfortunately the weather got in the way. I just keep forwarding the stargazing assignment to the next day. Hopefully this week we’ll get to do it.

Art: To tie in with Science I had him illustrate his favorite constellation on black construction paper with white chalk. Belatedly I had the idea of using GITD (glow in the dark) fabric paint on the star locations but we never got around to getting any. Maybe next week we can pick that up. For the Narnia Newspaper, I had him draw himself as the editor of the paper. He chose a fox with a tree stump for a chair and the desk had “twig” legs. It wasn’t what I had pictured in my mind (mug shot type of thing) but I liked his forethought into the furnishings.

History: Our studies this week touched on the Muslim faith. Sam was rather perplexed over some of the differences in regards to treatment of women. Made for some great discussion about being aware of different faiths… not being condescending of them even if you don’t agree… and how this awareness can make it easier to communicate with others.

Vocabulary: Not much to say. He still keeps saying how much he likes it and spontaneous bouts of neologism continue. As does “a-ha” moments of… so that’s why they call it {insert name}. Ok, so many of those names are of various Pokemon. Sigh. But the connections are there so I am not complaining (out loud).

Literature/Dictation: I forgot to do the pre reading review this time. (shame on me) So we did a post review of this week’s and last week’s readings. He was able to recall with no problem. Dictation wasn’t as good as usual but it wasn’t awful. I purposefully chose one with more punctuation and I could tell he just wasn’t paying as close attention as usual.

Music Appreciation: alternated with the classical Persian and Scottish since I didn’t have anything new for this week. I’m sure that I’ll have weeks in the future where I just don’t have any music to tie in with history so I’ll continue to replay past week’s music then. I think it will be a good review.

Latin: We started the digital timeline for Roman Emperors this week. So far so good. He seems to be enjoying it and… it is getting done.

Penny whistle: He’s really doing well. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between his playing and the recordings we have.

Nature Study: Not sure I can really qualify this as nature “study”….   this week most of our pupas became either moth or butterfly, except one. It looked like a swallowtail butterfly pupa but what came out was a wasp… red body with black wings. Even more than that, something was wrong with its head that (I think) was the reason it fell off. Kinda freaky to have a headless wasp wandering around on the deck table.  I suppose I could have done more with this lesson but we were all sufficiently creeped out as it was.

Things we didn’t get to this week (I really will get to these things eventually!): Nature Study, Shakespeare, Librivox, Pres. Phys Fitness test & program, Sewing.

Another week has wizzed by!

Math: A really strong week. Monday started out a bit iffy (seems to be a trend there) but by Friday he’d completed the current topic and finished another! He went up a “rank” too. MathScore.com uses military like “ranks” as you go up in points/topics/skills.

Science: Remembered to do a “pre-reading review” before we got started on Monday. It went well and it really seemed like he remembered quite a lot from the previous week. The Rough Guide to the Earth continues to be a big hit. Often he would be excitedly telling me what he knew from this book before I even had a chance to ask. Even later in the day, on the way to TKD, he was still telling me things he learned. It is going to be hard for me to let go of cover-to-cover reading but maybe in this case it is OK.

Another book, Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets beyond Our Sun, has held his interest. I think it is quite a bit beyond his reading level which makes me wonder if I’m giving too much latitude in book choices. But… it is supplemental reading AND his reading log input suggests that he is understanding the parts he does read.

Reading Log: I set up a simple MSWord document for him to put the date, title/author and brief notes on after each required reading session. So far so good. I figure that once a quarter I can print it out and file it. You know… I could set up a database to…. nevermind.

Vocabulary: Still going good and he keeps saying how much he likes it. We even did an informal “Neologism” session making up words with roots we’ve covered so far.

History: We discussed what he knew about Ol’ Al and I interviewed him using some of his interview questions. I think I may wait on a final draft until review week as it seems like that would be a good review.

We discussed his book review and he added a bit more too it. I think he could do better. By that I mean more depth and thought. But I’m not sure how to guide him there. Again, perhaps this is something we could revisit (and post to Amazon) during review week.

Japanese: Just did hiragana writing practice this week. Next week I think we’ll alternate with visual recognition (flash cards) and hopefully by the end of the week to a brief test to see if he can write them from memory.

Next week we’re going to give a language lesson (from his Karate instructor) a try. I’m pretty sure I can scrounge enough change to cover the fee ($5/20min) and get batteries for the voice recorder.
Writing: Narnia Weekly Travel Article. He did really good on this one. His illustration is great. I’m getting rather excited over this project and can’t wait to see the final product. Who knows… maybe we’ll pdf it and post it here.

Music/Art Apprec: I have to admit that I will miss listening to FootStompin.com’s AyePodcast. I’ve bookmarked a few songs they’ve played thinking I’ll buy them some time. And I’m sure I’ll be listening as each new podcast comes out. Sam liked it too, just not as much as mom.

I wimped out on Art Appreciation and didn’t do a regular study-and-tell-me session. I was afraid our brains would explode trying to remember all the intricacies of a Celtic knot work piece. Rather we looked at images (I have a few books for C&I) and then created a basic knot. Our outlines have been transferred to watercolor paper and next week we’ll color them. I started out using the tutorials at Aon Celtic but ended up using a hybrid paper that had all the diagonals already in place. Perhaps this is dumbing down, but it sure made the process more enjoyable for him. I’ll PDF that sheet and post it later.

Art: Various drawings… earth and moon, lemon, Mew

Tea Time: didn’t get to this on Friday but did “milk and cookies” on the deck Saturday. Finally got to break out all those Irish poetry books from the library. Sam did all the reading and we had a few science interruptions with “what kind of bug is that?” LOL!

One of those book in particular is quite a gem: A Pot O’ Gold by Kathleen Krull. It is a combination of stories and poems AND recipes. Yippee! There’s also quite a reference listing for further study. I think next week, for copywork, I’ll have him write his favorite.

Things we didn’t get to (same as last week): Nature Study, Shakespeare, Librivox, Pres. Phys Fitness test & program. The first and last ones I REALLY want to find time for!

Next Week: Science switches to hands on stuff… stargazing! Though I think during the day we’ll break out our star maps and review what we should be able to find. We start Chapter 2 in Minimus and will be working on a Roman emperor timeline. I’m considering having him “digitally scrap” this project in Fireworks. Then at the end of the project we can print it out and add it to this year’s “yearbook.” Speaking of that, I need to do a post about last year’s YB. I’m almost done with it!

This week started off and ended rather relaxed. With Monday’s rain our outdoor activities were canceled so we just relaxed during those times and moved to the next subject as originally scheduled. Even during the rest of the week, if he finished a subject ahead of schedule, he had that as free time until the next subject. (a CM suggestion I read about this week :)) I like doing that better than giving more electronics time. Friday we took the day off and went swimming with friends. Even on an off day though we still do reading and art so a few hours do get logged.

Math… there were ups and downs this week. Tuesday he didn’t meet the 15 minute on task minimum so I had him do another 5 minutes. At the end of that 5 he was in a rather sour mood because he’d lost a “level.” Wednesday was far better. Out of the usual 20 minutes he had 17 minutes on task. Woot! So now BOTH of us know he can do it. The rest of the week was along those lines.

Astronomy… went really well (I know it’s only the second week) but it just felt like it was gelling with him. It may have more to do with the subject than anything. And I think I’m getting the hang of combining subjects… for example, one art assignment this week, we discussed what he knew about Mercury and Venus and how they look. Then I had him get out the water color pencils and draw them. He said he wasn’t happy with it which is fine… but it reminded me that I want to get back to using “Drawing with Children” at some point for more involved art time.

History… The fixation with Alexander the Great continues. I took some ideas from SimplyCharlotteMason.com and had him write interview questions for “Ol’ Al” and write a review for a book he read on him (to be posted at Amazon.com). Next week we’re going to refine the review and have him think about what Ol’ Al might say during the interview. There was also an art assignment to draw a portrait of Alexander the Great. He drew the sword point on and enlarged it because it was coming toward you. Cool, huh?

Vocabulary… also went well. I’m going to try having him create a card set at flashcardfriends.com for just the roots and their origin. Or just have him write the root on the opposite side and use the cards themselves.

Music and Art Appreciation… listened to Wicked Celts (Prophecy and Blessing) all week and I’ve tried to find more along that line but didn’t turn up much until yesterday when I stumbled across footstompin.com’s (AyePodcast). It is a mixture of contemporary and traditional but isn’t tavern song oriented as much as some I’ve found. Gotta keep it “G” afterall. Didn’t get to the actual art appreciation time this week as we took Friday off. So the celtic poetry books we checked out will be used next week. I really can’t wait to read from them. I may use some of those poems for copywork. We haven’t really done that yet but I think his handwriting could use the practice. Hey, I like neat handwriting. *shrug*

Literature/Dictation… reading Beowulf. Jessie sat in on the reading and drew a picture of Grendel for us. I was just happy she was in the room quietly. When she brought the drawing to me (while I was reading :\ ) I was thrilled! Sam did really well on the dictation. I hope to make this a once a week lesson, reading 5-6 chapters each time so that we’re done by the time we finish with our Viking segment.

Writing… We’re doing quite a lot of writing for different things so I haven’t broken it out as a subject. One of the things we’re doing is a Literature unit by Highlights of Homeschooling on Prince Caspian. It has lots of suggestions for activities and worksheets to do. Since this is not a core assignment, I picked one project that wasn’t your average comprehension exersize… Making a Newspaper from Narnia. This week he wrote the editorial and without prompting flipped the question “what do you think about kids who believe in talking animals” to “what do you think about kids who DON’T believe in talking animals?”… because if you live in Narnia, OF COURSE you believe in them. Clever, no?

Latin… still working on chapter one. Spacing things out with the worksheets, words to remember review and activities. So far so good.

Japanese… I’m getting the feeling that his interest waning. I’m kinda sad (shhhh! I was secretly enjoying it too) He says he likes to practice writing hiragana but that’s all. Since this is elective I may just let him do that and see if a break will rekindle his interest. We did run into a young woman who gives Japanese language tutoring. (at Karate class) I put my name on her list. We’ll see if she calls us back and if Sam is interested at that point.

Community Service… Sam has been dying to volunteer with the Humane Society. We finally made it to an orientation last week. Now we just gotta pick a date and show up!

Life Skills… Sewing. Sam’s backpack is now cut out. I had him use the rotary cutter after measuring the fabric. While I was helping him with cutting, I realized just how careful I need to be in wording my instructions. I said “Cut to the end.” I meant “Cut to the end of the ruler.” He cut to the end of the fabric. Not a problem but it was kind of an eye opener for me.

Phys Ed… TKD, swimming, karate. Didn’t get the daily program going this week and didn’t get to the pres fitness assessment this weekend. That link has some great resources for basic abilities and ways to improve them. I hope that seeing how much he can improve over a month’s time will be a great confidence booster.

Pennywhistle… don’t know that I’m doing this right but we’re just practicing scales and a song or two. And I’m trying to get him to look at the music and not my fingers.

Things we didn’t get to: Nature Study, Shakespeare, Librivox, Pres. Phys Fitness test & program.

A good week. I’m feeling more confident now. Wasn’t feeling that way at all when we started this year. I think tying subjects together is helping. I feel like there’s more reinforcement of information AND I’m not rushed to come up with something different for everything. So maybe (just maybe) things are gelling for me too.

Wow! This week went fast. to keep track of the resources we’re using, I’ve started this page. I’ll add to it as we go. I’ll link the names as I get time. (or not if I don’t)

This year history is Medieval and Early Renaissance. This week was Ancient Persia. Rather than narrate only from the “spine” book, I waited until he had read the additional resources we got from the library and then we talked about what he “knew” and had him type that up. He still tries to get goofy with his writing (like calling Alexander the Great “Ol’ Al”). I allow it, but I’m not so sure I should. Where to draw “the line?”

We didn’t get to the timeline as I had hoped. Makes me wonder if a “century book” concept would work better for us or maybe a “digital” timeline that we work on…? Hmmm… Googling doesn’t pull up much. We did get to some globe and mapwork today though… With teatime of all things.

Art & Music appreciation I’ve tied to History, so this week we studied this statue and listened to this music. (Pssst! Get the music through iTunes, it is cheaper ;)) I didn’t get a chance to get the images of persian art and culture up on our bulletin wall this week. I am hoping that if the artwork is up all week it will maybe spark stronger recall and conversations.

Science: Astronomy… wow! We’ve hit a strong interest here. That’s good but it also leads to wild and imaginative ramblings with Sam. LOL! That’s not all bad but not all good either. I asked him to “type up what he knew on this weeks Astronomy topics and I got an imaginative rambling on “the space/time continuum.” I posted it on our wall but then with much questioning, tugged out of him something more on topic.

We’ll spend three weeks on books and information gathering and then a week on experiments. Found a great book for this: “Make-it-Work! Earth” by Baker/Haslam. A late nite (or three) of star gazing will also be in order.

Latin is Minimus Segundus this year. This week we went through chapter 1 and I’m going to (somehow) spread it over the next two weeks as well. Verb ending were introduced again so I think I’ll have him doing the worksheets in the TM, practicing the “words to remember”, conjugating additional verbs, reading more about the Greek myths mentioned, etc.

I did manage to get a copy of Winnie Ile Pu through BookMooch. Huzzah! Though I don’t imagine we’ll be really reading it this year. Next I need to acquire “Catus Petastus.”

Japanese is rather scaled down this year. We’re focusing on learning to write and identify Hiragana and then each week introducing 6 phrases. To get things started off easy, I had him pick the phrases this week. Each day he practiced writing the first ten characters. What I didn’t get to today was testing on them. Will need to do that on Monday. Basically, we won’t move on to the next set until this set is mastered.

We’re using MathScore.com for math this month. Next month too if we can afford it. Otherwise we’ll do it every other month. Mid week he was rather frustrated with his lack of progress. He was doing fine really but thought he should be doing better. (can’t imagine where that tendency came from {whistles innocently}) But today he did really good.

One of the many things I really like about using this online subscription service is that it tell me how much time he spent actually doing the problems. Idle time isn’t counted. Many days this week, after spending 30 minutes at it, he only had 12 or less minutes of actually doing problems. Surely a 10yo can focus longer than that! Well today I told him that if he could spend 14 of 15 minutes actually working, he wouldn’t have to do any more. It worked.

Rather than a formal grammar program this year, we’re studying word roots using Vocabulary Vine. We did the first 3 this week. I can’t wait to get enough completed so that we can try some of the suggested games. Like “Neologism!”

Today in the car on the way to swimming I quizzed him on the roots. He could remember two of the three so I am wondering if rather than filing them in his box right away, maybe we could post them on the wall. ‘Course this wall is getting rather crowded so maybe that’s not such a good idea. Maybe if we review last weeks roots on Monday and the current weeks roots on Friday (Tues through Thurs introducing the new ones) that will be enough. I’ll let you know next week how that works.

Nature Journaling… we started journals last year and I intended to pick them up again this week but we didn’t quite get to it. However, we did experience quite a lot of nature this week so maybe that’s okay.

We have a pupa collection going and one of them ecclosed (came out of his cocoon) yesterday. (pictured here” It was a Virginia Creeper Sphinx moth. Gorgeous! Sam said over and over “Mom, this is so COOL!” LOL! We still have a luna cocoon, an Isabella (wollybear caterpillar) and an unknown cocoon to go. Oh, and an Elm Sphinx caterpillar. I put a stop to things when we found a tomato hornworm. Those dudes are gonna have to go. Don’t mess with mama’s tomatoes!

For music practice, we’ve picked up the Pennywhistle again. The break seems to have done some good for the enthusiasm. I was pleasantly surprised how much the songs he can play from memory. The music reading was a bit rusty but I hope that will improve with time.

Exercise has been either taekwondo, swimming or running. Next week he’s going to give karate a try. At some point soon I need to sit down with my DH and come up with a basic fitness ability plan. Sam has trouble jumping rope, and doing basic tumbling. He doesn’t see the benefit of really working on it himself so I think I’m going to encourage it by making it part of our learning day. (and save money for the activities I can’t lead )

Where’s Jessie in all of this? Well, most of the week I staggered their quiet times. For example, while Sam was reading… Jess and I were out on a nature walk or painting for example. Then switched and while Jessie played kinda quietly in her room, Sam and I focused on subjects he needs more help on. It worked well but had me feeling rather completely frazzled by the end of the day. She also helped me mix up some freezer cookies. Where I can, I include her with what Sam is working on. Things like tea time work well too. IF she’s interested. Today she wasn’t. I feel the need to work more with her… getting her used to a schedule but I’m not yet sure how beyond going with what she’s interested in at the moment.

Things we didn’t get to this week: dictation & literature reading, Shakespeare, memory work, life skills (sewing), and LibriVox volunteering.

Saturday I think we’ll try to get the sewing project started… a simple drawstring backpack for our nature walk gear. I’m thinking we’ll do some nature printing on it at a later date.

Speaking of Saturday, I think I’ll go to bed before it gets here. I’ve promised to make some “good bread” tomorrow (wheat). In the name of science, I’m eating wheat again. That way, when I see the allergist next month, I can show as well as tell.