Weekly Report 11/16-11/20

This week has been a slumpy week.

First off, no one was sleeping well for some reason. Actually I know why. W in some crazy lapse of judgment let B and S watch some old Twilight Zones with him. B has been completely freaked out ever since. Every night she cries that she doesn't want to go to bed. S puts on a strong front that he is not scared, however, he doesn't seem to shut his eyes until midnight. B keeps waking up in the night and crawling into bed with me and Rick. B kicks terribly in her sleep. Once she wakes me up, I am unable to go back to sleep. So I've been going to bed at midnight, waking up at 4 a.m. and trying to get by on that. This means that every time I try to sit down to read aloud or watch a video I drift right off to sleep. Both J and W being teenagers think staying up late is great, except the next morning they don't want to get up! I've also been fighting headaches all week.

With everyone being sleep deprived, we've been a family of grumpies. B had a total meltdown at our Socratic Discussion and we had to leave early. She has a terrible temper and once she gets wound up it seems like she can't not regain control over herself until she has screamed it all out. I was so angry at her. I know I didn't handle it great being so very tired. Sigh. All week I felt like I was trudging through sand to get anything done. Everything seems to take me 4 times longer than it ought to.

Secondly, we had two doctors appoints for J who has been diagnosed with scoliosis. One on Tuesday afternoon and one on Friday (to fit his brace). In addition to that Thursday morning was spent signing W up for community college classes for next semester. And W and J are going away on a retreat this weekend and both decided they needed new jeans so they took themselves off shopping.

Unschoolish: Kids started watching a new PBS show about business/economics called Bizkids. They learned all about currency. B and S played a lot on the computer: like making animations on sketchstar, listening to a lot of music, playing on Noggin (making videos). S read a lot of the Game Informer magazine (not sure I approve). S also exchanged e-mails with two friends. They watched a lot of Fetch, Wordgirl and Phineas and Ferb. S tried out a lot of new game websites, freeonlinegames, onemore level. B went to Ninjakiwi (she likes the puzzle games). B made up a lot of science experiments inspired by our reading of Archimedes and doing a couple of little demonstrations on density and buoyancy. J was, as usual, on the computer a lot. He developed an interest in sharks though and did a lot of reading about them. He and Rick stayed up late one night (sigh!) watching a program on sharks and whales or something. He announced he wants to be a marine biologist. This from the kid who hates swimming! We'll see about that! He also started rereading the Bunnicula series of all things! I have no idea what W has been doing except going to Music Theory class and some Latin/Latin class at the beginning of the week.

Schoolish: B and S did cursive M-Th. Did a bit of Greek on Monday. Math - B learned about greater than and lesser than, putting larger numbers in sequence, figuring out sequences and problem-solving. S did lessons 16 and 17 in Saxon (mostly multiplication). J did up to L 27 in Alg II and took test 5 (but I haven't gotten around to grading it yet). We did a bit of Vision Therapy homework. Did Latin homework on Monday and then Latin class on Tuesday a.m. We need to study for Latin quiz next T. S read some in his Seton reader. B did some work in her reading workbook and read a lesson from the McGuffey reader. Neither B or S did very much music practice this week. We didn't do any high school history. We did get to the next book in the Iliad and I made the boys organize their notebooks (they had papers scattered all over the house!). S did a bit of Latin - some grammar and some vocabulary review.

For read alouds - we started a new book Freedom Train about Harriet Tubman. I'm going to try and sandwich that in before we get to the book on St. Jean-Baptiste Vianney.

I am ready for a Thanksgiving break. I figure Monday and Tuesday of next week will be regular days. Wednesday a.m. I'm going to try to play catch up with the teens in re lit and history. Then Wed. afternoon break officially begins. H is coming home for the first time in 2.5 months! She'll be in Wed. night!