We actually managed to finish everything on the schedule for this week and even to start some of next week's work. We just finished Week 7 of Core 6 which is Ancient Greece. The kids each did a notebook page on The Trojan War and a page on Alexander the Great. We had some trouble with the map and timeline work. I hadn't cleaned the Mark-up Map since last year and the stuff that's written on it won't come off. So, one of my jobs for this weekend is to get the map cleaned and ready to use.
For grammar, Ga'Hoole girl is supposed to memorize the 53 most common prepositions. She asked for my help, so we came up with some rather fun ideas. I wrote the prepositions on index cards and had her alphabetize them. Then, we mixed them up and played a game where each player, in turn, has to pick a card and them use letter dice to spell the preposition on the card. The player gets points based on the numbers on each letter die (kind of like Scrabble). Ga'Hoole girl really likes the game because we played it Thursday with M&Ms - one M&M/point. Of course, she beat the pants off me.
The most interesting thing that Ga'Hoole Girl came up with is for me to write the prepositions in Gnommish and for her to translate them. Gnommish is a made-up language from the Artemis Fowl series of books. The first time we did this, I wrote the prepositions by hand (only the first 11). But, I found out about a really cool website from a homeschooling magazine: http://www.omniglot.com/. this website has alphabets from lots of "real" and "pretend" languages. So, they have Gnommish, Hylian (from the Zelda video games), Romulan, Klingon, etc. Now, I can make her worksheets very quickly and easily. And, she really likes it.
We are still working through Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day of Creation for science. But, I have added in some other science activities to provide some interest. We are using the Journey North website (http://www.learner.org/jnorth/) to study whooping cranes and monarchs and their migration patterns. We are also going on a field trip to the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo in a couple of weeks. The last time we went there was about 5 years ago so we are looking forward to getting to see it all again. We also got an Antworks ant farm. The kids are really excited about it! Their science assignments next week are for each of them to research a topic on ants and then present it to the rest of the family at the end of the week. [I'm not a fan of complete unschooling, but I do like to follow their interests when possible.]
Ga'Hoole Girl is still working on her video game program. She has also started her art class this week. Tuesday was mostly paperwork, and they started linoleum after that. Unfortunately, she is frustrated with her project and with a few of the other kids (one of the boys is particularly annoying, she says). We live a few blocks from the school, so she walks or bikes to and from class. She is there from 8 to 8:40 every morning. I also had her do some art history this week. She looked at Ancient Greek art and decided to make a piece of pottery for her art piece this week (every couple of weeks I have her make a piece of artwork in the style we're studying).
Wild Man is coming along very nicely on his reading. He reads several pages each day out of his reader, along with a few pages of Explode the Code. Then, he and I use letter dice or something else interesting to go over any new concepts or words he's having trouble with. Wild Man is supposed to go to Singapore 3, but I ordered the intensive practice book to go with Singapore 2B. We're going to use that to go over some of the concepts again. One of the issues I've noticed is that his math skills are great, but his language skills don't always connect. When I read a word problem to him, he can often figure out the answer in his head and can give me the answer, but can't tell me how he did it. He can calculate, but has trouble getting information from the math part of his brain to the language part. He also tends to mix up the order of things. For example, I read a word problem to me and he told me that the answer is 8. But, he had real trouble telling me that the equation is 32 divided by 4. He wrote 4 divided by 32 - but, after he looked at it for a minute or two, he figured out that it wasn't right. Anyway, I'm going to be working with him on the language part of math.
When he has been playing outside, he has been playing Greek Soldier. Actually, he occasionally is a Trojan soldier, but more often likes to be a Spartan. He used an old ice cream bucket to make himself a helmet. Then, he used paper to make a red "horse hair" fringe on the top of the helmet. It is really cool to watch him. If anyone were to ask, I'd have to call his playtime part of school since he's playing Ancient Greek soldiers! Next week, we start learning about Rome. I'm sure he'll want to be a Roman soldier then. Homeschool PE starts on Monday, so Wild Man is excited about that. Ga'Hoole Girl doesn't go all the time. This week, they are going to play soccer, so Ga'Hoole Girl will probably stay home.
On Thursday, we went to the first Women's Bible Study of the year. Ga'Hoole Girl is their babysitter. This was her first time all alone with the baby and she did great. She even changed his diaper all by herself. The study itself is a Beth Moore DVD study on the fruit of the Spirit. I had a really good time. I just have to pray that Beth Moore and her big hair don't drive me too crazy (let's just say I'm NOT the big hair type!!).
So, my house is a disaster, but we had a pretty good week of school. Today is supposed to be house cleaning, but my head hurts some, and my hip (shingles) hurts a lot. So, we have a messy house again next week. Ah, well. The kids are learning, so we're doing OK.
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