Our Week In Review – September 13, 2009

Weeks 1 and 2

I never got around to writing a Week In Review post last week, so I’ll just wrap up the first two weeks in one post.

Rosie Girl

One of the new things for Rosie Girl this year is that she is taking two classes at the local public school: Choir and Art.  In Choir, she found out that she is a Mezzo Soprano.  She is excited about trying out for Show Choir and Madrigals this week.  In Art, her class is working on pottery.  She also wants to try out for the Fall play.

At home, Rosie Girl is working quite independently.  Overall, this is working quite well.  She still could use her time a little better since she finds herself struggling to finish some things on time.  I had both kids scheduled to learn the states over the course of about six months, but Rosie Girl has already learned all of them.  She asked for a map of the entire US to fill in on Friday!

Rosie Girl’s other new thing this year is an online writing class.  She has been doing PowerSpeak for Latin for several months, but the WriteAtHome is new for her.  So far, she has just been doing her diagnostic assignments and hasn’t gotten any feedback.

In Biology, Rosie Girl did a microscope lab this week.  (Sorry, but I forgot to take pictures!)  She did the work all by herself, although I was close by (since she uses my microscope from medical school).  She looked at cells from her cheek and her dad’s blood (since she couldn’t quite bring herself to poke her finger).  It was a great experience for her.

Wild Man

Wild Man seems to be enjoying his band class.  I’ve had to help him some with organization to make sure that he gets where he belongs at the right time and that he has the right papers with him.  I’m really proud of how he’s doing.

Reading seems to be coming more easily this year to Wild Man.  He read most of his reader completely by himself!  In addition, he has been able to do his Geography workbook almost by himself.  I am finding that Wild Man likes to have immediate feedback, though.  He doesn’t like to do a whole workbook section before he finds out whether or not he got the answers right.  Something we need to work on!!

For Science, we are using a book on crime scene investigation techniques.  The first week, Wild Man did a lab exercise evaluating different handwriting samples.  This week, he learned about liquid chromatography by analyzing three different kinds of ink.  I put marks from markers on coffee filter strips.  Wild Man dipped the strips into water, vinegar, and alcohol, and then measured how far the ink traveled on the coffee filter strip.  Fun stuff!

Wild Man has decided that he wants to do his last year of AWANA this year instead of starting to go to the Junior High group.  Because of that, I’ll have him using the AWANA for his memorization.

In other news, Wild Man is going to try out for a community play that will be performed the first part of December.  Rosie Girl might try out for it if she doesn’t get a part in the high school play.

Conclusions

We’ve had a really good couple of weeks.  These are the weeks that make me glad we still homeschool!  I’m also very happy that we live in a school district that allows our kids to participate in some school activities.  Rosie Girl is looking forward to auditioning for the play and to singing with the Choir at homecoming.

I don’t plan to make many changes.  I have already told Rosie Girl that her schoolwork is now due on Saturday night instead of Friday night, giving her more time to work on it.  I will also start writing a daily list of independent work for Wild Man on his whiteboard.  He has two lists of work that he has been using, but it was rather overwhelming for him to figure out what to do next, so I’m helping him out by making a list of what he can do without my help. 

So, how has your week been?  Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others have been up to!!