Our Week In Review – 9/4/2010

 

Our first week!!  After a rocky start on Monday, things actually went quite well.  I did have a migraine on Monday and Tuesday and enough of a headache on Wednesday that Wild Man and I did not go to the Nutrition Site.  But, Thursday and Friday were better.  Here’s what happened:

Wild Man

Vision Evaluation – The big thing for Wild Man this week was that he had his appointments for Vision Evaluation.  On Wednesday, they did visual perception testing with the technician.  Thursday morning, Wild Man, PWM, and I were all in the room for his appointment with the eye doctor (well, I showed up late because I had an appointment with my pulmonologist).  It was kind of a good news/bad news situation.  It appears that Wild Man does have some issues with convergence of his eyes which may explain some of his dyslexia issues.  That doesn’t really sound like good news, but it is because it means that vision therapy might help his dyslexia issues!  We get the full report in a week or two and he’ll start therapy if he needs it soon after that.

History/Geography – We aren’t using the World Book and Eastern Hemisphere Explorer with Core 5, but are using DK World Geography.  This week’s reading was all about physical geography and political geography.  We will start reading about the islands of the South Pacific next year.  We also read a fair amount in the book about ships.  He did some of the reading aloud to me and then I read the rest to him.  His reading is downright fluent these days!

I told Wild Man on Friday that he needed to dictate a “paper” to me about something that he learned in History or Geography.  I was expecting 2-3 paragraphs.  Instead, Wild Man spent close to an hour with the ships book, taking notes (quite a feat for a kid with dyslexia!).  When he finally dictated the paper, it was a 2+ page story (that I’ll post later) that was funny, but also included all the info required.

Math – PWM and Wild Man are working on math facts and working through ALEKS.  PWM is learning that Wild Man does better when he drinks some coffee before Math.  Wild Man also learns math better with frequent changes of activity – i.e. ALEKS (computer), playing cards (math facts), ALEKS Quick  Tables, etc.

Bible – PWM and Wild Man are reading The Story, an overview of the whole Bible in 31 chapters, and How To Live Like A Jesus Freak.  After they finish that Jesus Freak book, I’ll probably have them use Jesus Freaks, which is like a modern version of Foxe’s Book Of Martyrs.

Band – Wild Man had only one band class this week, but he practiced his percussion on the other days.

Spelling – Ah, spelling.  We did review work this week and I think we need another review week before we start the new lessons.  I have him using Spelling City, an online program in which I can enter lists of practice words, along with All About Spelling.

Grammar – This week, we worked on parts of speech.  I used an idea that my sister-in-law gave me – Wild Man put post-it notes on 10 different items (nouns), then went around and wrote a verb that relates to the noun on the post-it, and then added an adjective to each post-it.  On Friday, we used Grammar Ace to review adverbs.  Last night, I picked up a few Mad Libs  books to use in the next few weeks for part of speech review.

Writing – Wild Man did one paragraph using Institute for Excellence in Writing.  He remembers how to do the keyword outlines quite well and didn’t have any trouble with adding the dress-ups.  In fact, he not only reproduced the paragraph, but also had me look up some extra info (it was about Andrew Jackson).  The one thing that I’m going to have to implement soon, though, is that Wild Man may not try to make every paper a comedy act!  His goal is to make people laugh – not necessarily a bad thing – but we need to work on some plain, boring writing.

Literature – Wild Man read Henry Reed, Inc. without any trouble.  We also read some poetry and discussed alliteration. 

Journal – I have each kid journaling at the end of the day.  Wild Man has to write two sentences about something he learned.  My favorite for this week: “Feel a little sick after 38 pizza rolls.  School is great.”

Rosie Girl

Bible – Rosie Girl is reading through the Old Testament this year.  I’ve also had her read some from How To Read The Bible For All It’s Worth and How To Read The Bible Book By Book.  She claims that these were boring, but we had some useful discussions during the week.

History – This week was mostly a review of the life of Jesus and the first few years of the Church.  Rosie Girl isn’t a big fan of History, but she read and understood the material.

Math – Rosie Girl started Geometry on Monday with ALEKS.  By Friday, she was almost halfway through the course topics (of course, she was done with about 1/4 of the topics by testing out of them in the assessment).  She really likes Geometry.  She’s also motivated to get her math done.  Not only does she not want to do Math during the summer, but she just has to finish the four Math credits and then she doesn’t have to do any more.  She’d love to not have Math during her Senior year!

Literature – This week, she read Pictures of Hollis Woods and started  The Flames of Rome.

Writing – She’s taking the Essay 1 course through WriteAtHome, and Thursday was her first lesson.

Grammar – The only formal Grammar that she’s  doing this year is to read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.  She complains, but I think she’s retaining it.

Art – This is her only class at the public school this year and she enjoyed it this week.

Piano – Her piano lessons don’t actually start until week after next, but she is practicing daily.  She’s currently working on Bach’s Invention #4.  I signed her up for the Arranging and Composing class at Lawrence Academy, but I haven’t heard if they’re going to have the class this fall.

Community Service – Since Rosie Girl’s Art class is around lunchtime, she’s not able to go to the Nutrition Site with me and Wild Man.  Instead, she is going up to church to help the Worship Director.  Some of her work is “scut” work – filing, etc.  But, she will probably also be able to do some work that requires some musical knowledge, such as transposing music and entering music into the computer program.  She’s also going to be spending some time before or after her Community Service time learning to play electric guitar with the guy who does the Sunday Night music.  In fact, PWM borrowed an electric guitar and Rosie Girl has been spending the last couple of hours today learning to play it.

Chemistry – Rosie Girl did just fine with Chapter 1 of Singapore Chemistry.  The MicroChem set came on Friday, so I need to schedule the labs.

Journal – Rosie Girl is supposed to journal 2 sentences each for Bible, History, and Literature.  Here are a few samples: “Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world.  Rome ruled it.”  “Thirty-three years of a man’s life condensed into 4 pages.  That takes skill.”  “So, the age of apostles is upon us.  Prepare for stories of gruesome death.”

That was our week.  The only things that will change in the next few weeks are that Rosie Girl will do a practice ACT section every Monday.  In two weeks, I’ll have her writing a paper on History or Literature every two weeks.  And, I always reserve the right to change things as needed!

And, to make me really nervous, we’re planning a trip to see UW-Stevens Point later this fall since that’s where Rosie Girl thinks she wants to go to college.  Yikes!!  Where did the time go?!

Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers  to see what others have been up to this week!