Weekly Report 1/25 - 1/31

Monday

• S threw up in the night. Is he sick or was it just a surfeit of potato chips? Stay tuned. . .


• S's friend Joe who goes to school wound up coming over early in the morning and was supposed to be picked up at noon. Their power was out, both parents work and for some reason he didn't have school (he goes to school). However, no one showed up to get him until 2:30 p.m. Threw quite a bit of a monkey wrench into my plans!
  


• I did manage to read to B and S Bible History - Solomon's Temple.


• We also read an old Troll book about Ancient China. We are going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors at National Geographic on Wednesday (if we don't all come down with a stomach bug!). This got the kids into playing with their new dragon puppet, finding out when the Chinese New Year is (Feb 14 year of the tiger) and finding out what everybody's Chinese Zodiac sign is.


• Later in the morning B took all the silly putty she's been playing with (each child got some in their Christmas stocking but she stole it all from them!) and made The Great Wall of China! And then she went over to the globe and copied over the word Mongolia on an index card, then placed the card on one side of the wall! Spontaneous hands on unit study!


• J worked on National Latin Exam practice.


• J did lesson 3 in Logic class


• J worked on Chin Dynasty questionnaire in Trisms


• B and S did WWE


• S did did the first part of vocab review in Latin - 10 words


• Instead of doing math formally S, B and friend played with the math dice. It was too hard to settle down to MCP and Saxon with friend roaming the house!
  


• W did some writeguide (very little I think)

Tuesday

• Latin class for W, J and I, W has a very bad attitude anymore when it comes to Latin. Senioritis?


• B and S did penmanship, math (S - factoring; B carrying in addition with bigger numbers), S did a page of spelling, B did a page from her phonics workbook.


• W took B and S to Vision Therapy. We found out last Friday that S needs glasses. I must get the prescription filled very soon! But when? He is so happy he'll be getting glasses. He is hoping he can read for longer periods of time. Right now he gets frustrated that his eyes tired so quickly.


• I took J to math tutor. He really likes her. She is a nice lady.


• W took B to gymnastics


• J and I watched next lecture in Science: Subduction Zones.


• I p/u B from gymnastics. She loves gym. sooo much.


• I read next ch. of The Cure of Ars to B and S.


• J and I read Book XIII in The Odyssey and answered study guide questions.
  

Wednesday

• Read B some Pinocchio - we are enjoying this very bizarre book!

• Read a ch in Herodotus about his travels to Babylon


• Read Growing Up in Ancient China


• B and I did about 5 minutes of estimating in her MCP math
  


• S finished Lesson 25 in Saxon


• J did a little bit of Writeshop - not much


• Went downtown to the see the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was really crowded. B got claustophobic after about 10 minutes. But it was cool to see the statues, the coins, the crossbow, the statues of horses and carts, the armor. R met us there and bought a dvd about The First Emperor. He joked about how he'd seen the movie the Last Emperor and now he was going to watch about the First Emperor and then he'd know everything about Chinese history!!!


• We ate a late lunch with R before he went back to his office. Then we peeked in at St. Matthew's Cathedral (we were parked in their parking garage!) and walked around the glorious church. They are doing construction on the main altar but the mosaics and statues and everything are very beautiful. B lit a candle and we prayed for H at college.


• When we got home, B and S got the charcoal pencils out and started drawing.
• Went and got S's eye glasses order. 7 to 10 days until we get them.
• S had been asking for a jumble puzzle book so I picked one up at the drugstore plus another book of all kinds of puzzles (suduko, crosswords, word searches, etc) He loves them and started doing them at bedtime.
  

Thursday

• Read first ch of The History of Medicine by Tiner - Imhotep, Hippocrates and Galen.
• Did long division with S - it totally, totally clicked! He thought it was fun! I had him use the mnemonic device Does McDonald's Serve Burgers (I got it from someone on WTM!).
  
• B did one addition problem on the whiteboard. She did it very quickly. It involved lots of carrying. I think she's getting this addition thing down now.
• WWE with both B and S. Every time I get this program out I appreciate its sheer genius in doing so much so easily and efficiently.
• Reviewed more Latin nouns with S
• Read Greek words in Greek workbook: agape, etc. Kids were losing focus at this point.
• Took B to Little Flowers where they wrote a letter to nursing home folks and learned about St. Jane de Chantal. It's her b-day today. Happy birthday St. Jane!
• S and Jack got to play together
• J - did most of Alg test but just wasn't focusing too well this morning.
• J - did a little bit of his writeshop, just a little.
• J - watched the DVD on the Qin dynasty. I saw half of it - very interesting!
• W was incredibly organized today. He slept late but he spent 4 hours on music stuff (1/2 hr on soloing; 1/2 on sight reading; 1/2 on piano; 1/2 on singing 1/2 on ear training; 1/2 on guitar pieces for his teacher). He also did his Writeguide and even some of his Latin homework!!! Wow, I was very impressed.
• W helped S with his on-line music theory lesson.
• S practiced piano.
• I read a lot of Pinocchio to B
• Read next chapter about St. Jean Vianney in Cure of Ars. The ch was about St. Philomena who he attributed all his cures to.

Friday

• W got up and went to 6:15 Mass, then to his music composition class
• J, S, B and I went to our Socratic Discussion/art class. I don't even know what J's group talked about. S, B and I, with the other kids finished making Southwestern Indian designed with stencils. I read about Blessed Father Junipero Serra to the kids while they colored. Very pleasant time.
• J started his new Intro to Chem. class from 1 to 3.

Projected for weekend:

• J needs to finish his Algebra test and do another lesson
• Also I'd like to finish reading Book XIV of the Odyssey, maybe tonight.
• We need to finish our bluebird box project - need to build one more, paint them all and put on predator guards.