Week in Review

Another week of homeschooling completed. All in all, it was a pretty good week - work completed as scheduled with a minimum of tears, frustration, and screaming. Madalyn had a good week at school, too. There was early release on Wednesday and Thursday - and I had a conference with her teacher yesterday. She says that Madalyn is a sweet girl, a hard worker, and a natural reader (Public school is such a good fit for her!).

Math: This week we moved from addition and subtraction of fractions to multiplication. Again…it’s easy! I am struggling with how to challenge her in math. We can’t skip the lessons – just because it is easy for her doesn’t mean that she knows how to do it without the lesson. So…perhaps we should do more than one lesson on a day. I am not sure what to do.

History: We covered the Russian Revolution and the end of WWI. Katie really liked this chapter in SOTW – she found it quite interesting. Her interest was obvious when I graded her chapter test! She also read a book about Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a kids Discover magazine about Suffragists. Katie says that what we need to work on now is children having the right to vote!

Physics: She continued her book about inventions. She stood in our kitchen at the beginning of the week to see what needs electricity in order to function. Conclusion: pretty much everything! Thank goodness for electricity or else we’d have to cook our dinner “over yonder fire.” She also read about the history of the television, computer, and possible inventions in the future.

Spelling: continued words with suffixes.
Grammar: Grammar unit review and then moved to the next chapter on adjectives.

Writing: She finished “Children of the Lamp” and then did her first week using the book report form I discovered on “Wall of Books” blog. She did not appreciate this new approach! After looking at her first attempt, there were tears when I told her it was just a first draft and that changes needed to be made. But after going to the basement school room and letting out a loud primal scream…she was ready to tackle the project again with much better results.

Piano: Worked more on technique – left and right hand switching. She got new books this week.

Latin: Third conjugation verbs – and she has 2 weeks off of classes – and is thankful that Abbey did not send home a Latin test to do over the break this time.

Choir: Tonight both girls are performing with their choir (Gwinnett Young Singers) for the International Montessori conference downtown Atlanta. With Friday traffic, I am wondering if we need to leave NOW…

Art: Had an art show for the last day of classes (my favorite is the second one - she had to draw a face with her eyes closed - love the abstract!):