Our Week In Review – 1/9/11 – Getting Back On Track Edition

 

This week was our first week of schoolwork since the Christmas break.  The kids got back into the swing of things very quickly and we had a good week.  Here are the highlights!

Wild Man

Learned about density in his science book.  I think we’ll spend a little time in the kitchen doing some density measuring this week.

Wild Man took a Math assessment in ALEKS and scored quite well.

We were finishing up China this week when I realized that we were actually supposed to be starting Mongolia.  Sigh.  This next week we’ll do Mongolia and only part of what we’re supposed to do on Russia and, hopefully, get completely caught up the next week.

I was thrilled with Wild Man’s Spelling progress.  He didn’t seem to have lost anything during break, although he still needs work with “ow” and “ou”.

Wild Man’s writing this week was thank-you notes for Christmas gifts.  I let him do them as emails, but it was still quite the effort for him.

Wild Man finished his reader before the break, so this week he has been reading books that were given to him for Christmas.  It’s so fun to watch him enjoy reading.  He’ll sit on the sofa, reading intently, and suddenly burst out laughing!

Vision Therapy is going well.  Wild Man now goes twice a week for therapy and his reading and math seem to gradually be improving.

Right before the break, Wild Man and PWM had their first belt test at TaeKwonDo and will get their yellow-tipped belts this week!  Yay!!

Wild Man went with our church youth group to the Ev Free Church District Youth Conference this weekend.  They left Friday afternoon and got back this afternoon.  He was in bed before 7pm tonight!

Rosie Girl

In History, Rosie Girl has been learning about the various denominations that sprang up after the Protestant Reformation.

Rosie Girl was behind in Literature before break, so we insisted that she finish Robinson Crusoe (on audio, at her request) and Going Solo (by Roald Dahl).  Since she read them simultaneously, she’s going to make her essay this week a compare and contrast essay about the two books.

In a few weeks, Rosie Girl will be starting Driver’s Education, which is required in our state to get a license before age 16.  She got her temps on Friday, so she can get her license in 6 months, but the classes start at the end of this month.  She’ll go every night for three weeks.

Rosie Girl is bummed that her tap class doesn’t start for another week or so and then she has to miss three weeks because of Drivers Ed. 

Chemistry finally did  us in this week.  Rosie Girl was learning about acids and bases and really understood the material.  However, PWM and I could neither one help her on some of the questions.  I’ve loved Singapore’s curriculum until now.  I think that there must be a fair amount of material that is covered in class because the book was missing information that was needed to solve some of the problems.   I came across and online Chemistry textbook with lots and lots of tutorials and study guides with explanations.  The author asks that you pay $20 if you end up using the text.  I told PWM about it and he told me that he’s already paid the money because he was using that site when he was tutoring Chemistry.  Not only that, but PWM agrees that it’s a good program.  Rosie Girl doesn’t like change which is why I haven’t changed her curriculum yet, but she grudgingly agreed to use the internet textbook.  And, really, it’s for PWM’s and my sanity as much as Rosie Girl’s education!!

That’s what’s up with us! How was your week??  Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see how others fared this week!