Our Week in Review – February 7, 2009

We have had a pretty good week here, educationally speaking.  I’m still having more headaches than usual, but we’re working around them.

History/Social Sciences – We are reading in George Washington’s World about the late 1700s.  One of the DVR shows that we watched was about the fight against polio in the US in the 1950s.  Ga’hoole Girl wrote about polio for her weekly assignment, and she chose to write a poem!  Ga’hoole Girl has also started doing some of the reading aloud, making it easier to keep up with the Sonlight work.  Wild Man actually prefers her reading to mine.  I started to get a little offended about that until I realized that his complimenting her meant that she will read aloud without fussing more often.

Language Arts – Ga’hoole Girl finished her reader in just a couple of days.  Wild Man is still reading diligently through the third Harry Potter book on his own.   He is reading The Whipping Boy aloud to me.  He moved on to book 6 1/2 in Explode the Code.  He has also done pretty well in spelling this week.

Foreign Language – Wild Man started his new Spanish semester (after a couple of emails to PowerSpeak to sort out the username and password issue) this week.  He loves the new program because he can earn “money” by playing games.  He then can spend the “money” to outfit his avatar.  He’s always enjoyed PowerSpeak Spanish, but he’s having even more fun with it now.  Ga’hoole Girl finished Spanish and asked me to sign her up for high school Latin.  She also loves being able to outfit her avatar.  She is paying more attention, though, to her grades because this is a high school course, so the grade will go on her transcript.

Science – Wild Man’s trebuchet kit arrived this week.  He and Mr. Math Tutor have been working the last couple of days to cut out the pieces.  The really cool thing is that the machine is held together by dowels and rubber bands so that the configuration can be easily changed for experiments.  We were originally planning for Wild Man to do the experiments in the back yard, but the instructions say that we need more room than that!  So, Wild Man and Mr. Math Tutor will probably go to the parking lot at the high school one weekend to actually try the thing out.  Ga’hoole Girl made up her initial outline for her science fair project.  She will be calculating the cost of Solomon’s Temple in modern currency.  It’s a rather large task, considering the variety of materials that were used, as well as the labor costs.

Bible – Wild Man is still working diligently on his AWANA verses.  He earned another Discovery this last week.  Ga’hoole Girl is starting How to Stay Christian in High School.  As a family, we are still reading in Exodus.

Cooking – Ga’hoole Girl made a lemon meringue pie this week.   The filling didn’t set well, but she knows that it was because she overcooked it.  Yesterday morning, Mr. Math Tutor went in to the kitchen to find Ga’hoole Girl cleaning up so she could make pancakes.  He commented on how proud he was that she was cleaning.  She answered, “Well, I’ve been kicked out of the kitchen enough times . . .”  She can be taught!!!!  Ga’hoole Girl spent several hours today at church helping a woman in our church who has a catering business.  She loved it and would like to do this regularly to learn about catering and cooking.

Music – Ga’hoole Girl is going to be participating in a Schumann  recital this spring as well as her regular recital, so she is working hard on several pieces.  Wild Man got a drum pad this week and has his first drum lesson on Monday.

Wild Man played chess with me Thursday night.  I thought I was doing quite well when I captured his queen, but he managed to get a pawn all the way across to get it turned into another queen.  Within a couple of moves, he had me in checkmate.  Alas.

Next week is going to be a little different for us.  We will be getting ready to go on a trip down South.  We are going to work just on science fair projects and Sonlight work, although Ga’hoole Girl also gets to do poetry and Bible so she doesn’t get behind.  But, foreign languages, spelling, etc. are optional for the week.  We’re going to be plenty busy!

How was your week?  You know I love your comments!!  Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for more weekly updates.