We did school together every day but today. I had a migraine on Sunday night, but was OK by noon on Monday, another headache Tuesday but was still able to work with the kids, and a bad headache today so today was an independent work day. I give Ga'hoole Girl a list of weekly schoolwork on Monday morning and it's due before dinner Friday night. I was skeptical of her finishing it since she had only done one item by Tuesday night. But, I bit my tongue and she proved me wrong when she gave me her list this afternoon. Each child also has a daily list each day and I have a weekly list of what I want to do with the kids together or separately. Here's what we did:
Math - both kids did five full days of ALEKS. At one point during the summer, ALEKS was saying that Wild Man was expected to finish his level in 96 weeks. He's now down to 9 weeks and Ga'hoole Girl is at 17 weeks. Ga'hoole Girl did have some frustration when she didn't do as well as she would have liked on an assessment and has had to review some concepts. (Of course, that's what Mr. Math Tutor and I like about ALEKS!)
Spanish - both kids have done five full days of Spanish. I found an online audiobook for Spanish that I'll use when we're driving. It teaches conversational Spanish using a funny storyline.
Spelling - Ga'hoole Girl did Spelling Power every day but today. We'll make up today's work tomorrow probably. Wild Man was supposed to do the last lesson in All About Spelling Book 1 today, but we didn't get to it. We'll do it tonight or tomorrow. Wild Man has a terrible time with spelling, even in this easy book 1 stuff. I love All About Spelling, and I think it's the best thing for him, but it's still so hard to have to tell him (again) that dress has two "s"s. He gets so frustrated. But, I'm optimistic that he'll catch on.
Reading - Ga'hoole Girl read her reader this week even though she had two weeks for it. Now she wants a book about Anne Boleyn, but the only one in the house is clearly rated PG-13 (at best). So, a library search is in order. Wild Man wanted to earn some extra money, so I'm paying him a quarter for every chapter he reads in a chapter book (up to a dollar a day) in addition to his usual reading. Twice this week, I came downstairs to find that he'd already read 5 chapters!! Wild Man is also working through Explode the Code Book 5. I expect he'll get to Book 6 in a week or two.
Grammar - Ga'hoole Girl has been working through Easy Grammar.
Writing - Ga'hoole Girl continues in her Jump In! book with learning outlining forms. She also posted an entry on her blog evaluating her cooking experiences this week.
Food Science - Both kids watched some "Food Detective" and "How'd That Get On My Plate?" this week. Ga'hoole Girl helped me with our fried fish and hushpuppies on Monday. She also made the meatballs on Tuesday which she thought were terrible, but I thought were fine. On Wednesday, we made fried chicken in which Ga'hoole Girl did the brining and breading. I did the frying because Ga'hoole Girl was pretty nervous about the hot oil. It was probably a good thing she was worried about it because some oil sploshed over the pan after I was done frying and started a small grease fire on the stove. It was quickly smothered with some flour, but was a mess. But, Ga'hoole Girl ended the week strong by making gravy to go with tonight's roast.
Art - Ga'hoole Girl read in her Usborne art book and explored one of the websites. Wild Man and I read some of his art book, Looking at Pictures with Children.
Science - Ga'hoole Girl finished module 3 in her Apologia General Science book. Wild Man and I were going to do some science experiments today, but never quite got to it. Next week.
Handwriting - I had ditched handwriting last year, but I've restarted it with Wild Man. I'm hoping that cursive writing will help with some of his letter reversals. In any case, he's doing about a page a day from Getty Dubay Italics Book C (I think).
Sonlight - The kids watched videos on The War of the Roses, The Mughals, and Late Medieval Art. We are also continuing our reading through The World of Columbus and Sons. We've been reading about Columbus' voyages, but also read about the Borgia family this week. I was wondering how they were going to talk about the Borgias without gettin PG-13, but the author handled it nicely.
Elections - We are also using an election unit study from Little Blue School. This week, we did the Prelude week on Tuesday and Week 1 on Thursday. The Prelude was just an intro to elections and the electoral college. Week 1 was about political parties. Each child has made up their own political party and they are running for "Vice-President of Planning" of our household. The study plan was for them to pretend to run for President, but my kids came up with the idea of the "Vice-President of Planning" thing. Next week, we'll do two weeks in one then we should be on schedule.
Bible - We did Genesis 20 today and memorized 1 John 1:9.
Whew! I looks like it was a busy week, and I guess it was. The kids did a lot of work. I'm really glad that they are able to do a lot on their own, so my input was only required for a couple of hours a day. Next week, I think we're going to do some work on Labor Day, but not a ton since it's the last day of summer for the neighborhood kids. We have a homeschool group meeting on Friday, so that day's work will also be abbreviated. But, I hope to still get a good bit of Sonlight done.
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