Weekly Report 2/1/10 - 2/6/10

MondayJ did a lesson of Alg on Sunday and then another one Monday

• J did his NLE practice exam and studied for Latin quiz
• B and S - read Bible History - Solomon's sad end
• B and S - WWE
• S did a lesson in Saxon
• B did another addition problem with carrying
• B is quitting violin. She hasn't had more than 1 lesson since before Christmas. She was already fading in her interest and that gap really made her stubbornly refuse to go. I was going to force the issue but frankly Mondays are so rushed and it would be really nice to not have to rush around all Monday afternoon and evening.
• S went to piano lessons
• W has been very industrious but I haven't really been keeping tabs on him at all.
• B picked The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew out as her new chapter book
• R is reading the last book in the Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian.

Tuesday

• Got up and studied some more for Latin quiz
• During Latin class B and S did penmanship, spelling/phonics and math. Or at least S did math, B didn't. B is going through a, how to put this politely, obnoxious I don't want to do it and you can't make me phase. Sigh.
• I got a 99 on the last quiz but on the one today I got a 91. For some reason I stuck macrons all over where they didn't belong. J got B's on both quizzes and W flunked both. He says he studies but I think he really thinks about studying and then doesn't actually end up doing enough to get him through. I think he has to learn the hard way. I reminded both him and J about GPA's and how colleges will look at them.
• Took J to Algebra tutor. He had a good session.
• I got a new book from Amazon. I bought all these books by Miroslav Sasek. The one that arrived today was This is London. I read it aloud to B and S.
  
• J and I watched next lecture in How the Earth Works about continent collisions. Very, very interesting.
• B and S did a lot of line rider today which they haven't played in a long time.
• Discussed what we want to do for Lent.
• Finally finished reading Book XIV in the Odyssey w/ J
• J has been reading The Life of Pi this week.

Wednesday

• slept horribly last night. Did I drink too much caffeine???? Today was painful and slow as molasses.
• Read next chapter in Cure of Ars
• Read next chapter in Herodotus
• S did a bit of math (very simple multiplying by 10s and 100s)
• B and I went over end of ch test.
  
• J did a writing exercise for Writeshop (describe an animal. He described Tillie)
• J did a lesson in Alg II
• I collapsed and didn't get any more academic stuff done
• B and S went to VT
• S and I watched most of a frontline report on how the internet is changing students possibly for the worst: computer/game addiction and becoming so distractible. We decided memorization, exercise and sitting down to read something for an hour each day with no distractions. Then he went downstairs to play a videogame and I got on the computer LOL! We are gonna have to work at this!!!
• Took B and S to Starbucks where we sat and brainstormed about getting the kids to eat better at each meal. I told them no more snacking between meals (except fruit or veggies). Instead they should eat the meals I plan and put before them to keep them nice and healthy!
• W shovel the whole driveway. Took him 2 hours. And he didn't sleep much last night either. I don't know if W did anything academic.
• J is still reading Life of Pi.
• Wouldn't you know it? B is now taking out her violin and trying to play it and begging me once again for lessons. What is a mother to do with a child like this??????? Other than tear my hair out!
  

Thursday

• News of big snow on the way here tomorrow, so instead of starting off with our studies I hit the grocery store
• Finished reading Cure of Ars to B and S
• Read next ch. of History of Medicine. S thinks it is fascinating. B hates it. Way too gruesome for her (dissecting corpses and such); she was writhing while I was reading it. Poor thing! LOL! So I guess I'll just make this a S and I thing and find something else for B.
• Showed B how to borrow when subtracting
• S did some vocab review in Latin. The one complaint I have about this book is that you learn tons of Latin vocab but you don't ever use it very often. So it just becomes lots of rote memorization. Some of that is fine but I think they are doing overkill. I do love their presentation of the material and the way they teach the grammar.
• S and I did Saxon Lesson 30 talking about percents and fractions. I worked through every single problem with him since we hadn't done any review for a couple days.
• J did his logic lesson on line
  
• J did a tiny, tiny bit of Writeshop.
  
• J carefully numbered his Alg copybook in preparation to do the next lesson, then took the dog for a walk. Came home and crawled into bed with his book. Since everything has been cancelled for tomorrow, I'm not worried. I'll just make him do the stuff tomorrow!

Friday

• With all the talk of a huge snowstorm I just don't seem focused on academics much.
• S did his music theory class on line.
• S and B did a little bit of WWE
• I finished reading aloud the ch on Herodotus' travels to Egypt
  
• J did a lesson in Alg.
• W went to his Music Comp class and got home before the snow got bad
• I splurged and bought books this week. I got Life of Fred books for S. He dug right into the Fractions book with great gusto.
• B did another borrowing subtraction problem on the white borrow. I made a big deal of the one's column having to go next door to it's neighbor the Tens and borrow from them. It made her laugh and the lightbulb went off! She got it!
• I made everybody spend 30 minutes reading. Don't know if W actually did. J read History of the Ancient World. S read a book about the Percy Jackson series by the same author. B read to me from the McGuffey Reader. She read very well.
• S did a little VT
• B doesn't want to listen in on the History of Medicine. So I asked her to tell me what she wanted to learn about. I expected her reply to be flowers or pulleys (she loves to make stuff. She made an elevator for her stuffed animals using a pulley idea!). But no she said Reptiles! So I got out a book on Reptiles and it was just as gruesome as the Medicine book but for some reason, it didn't gross her out!
• R is home because of the snow. He finished his work early and is now reading the very last chapters of the whole Percy Jackson series to the B and S.
• We got the rest of our Miroslav Sasek books! I think we'll attempt to read them over the course of our snowy weekend.
• I'd still like to get some Greek done.
• I asked the kids, since we are done with the Cure of Ars if they wanted to start up a Geography study. I have A Child's Geography of the World. But S loved the Cure of Ars book so much, he wants another saint biography. I went searching and found Frontier Bishop by Riley Hughes. He's not a saint but a significant figure in American Catholic history. I went to Mount St. Mary's College and one of our dorm building is named for Father Brute. I thought it would be cool to read this book. Maybe we can take a fieldtrip up there if the snow ever clears! Anyway, he lived a little bit earlier than St. Jean Vianney but more or less at the same time. So we'd get some reinforcement about the French Revolution, Napoleon, only this time the priest doesn't stay in France but comes to America. So it will tie into a lot of things and then we can actually go see the places that Father Brute lived. They, of course, mention Baltimore a lot. We are going over there to the Aquarium with their cousins at the end of March. Maybe we can pop in and see the Cathedral as well.