Week in Review

After a week of vacation, it’s always an adjustment to get back into the swing of things. On Monday, I dropped Madalyn off at school and then Katie and I headed to my water aerobics class. Katie had read some of my blogging about the class and she was anxious to see me lapped by old ladies. It wasn’t exactly what she thought it would be. She thought we’d all be swimming laps. I think not.

Madalyn had a week long project to do for homework. Every morning her class recites the pledge of allegiance – and her project was to look up some of the words from the pledge in the dictionary – and then explain them in her own words. Words like republic, nation, indivisible, and liberty. Somewhat challenging for a 6 year old. Errr 7 year old. Or so I thought. Until she told me that all this homework was discombobulating her. Hearing your 7 year old say “discombobulating” is disconcerting.

On Thursday, Katie and I had our classes through the homeschool group. I was able to award one of my students with the Gold award (summa cum laude) for his National Latin Exam. He only missed one question out of the 40 on the test. I am so very proud!

Thursday was also Madalyn’s birthday. She decided that we needed to have Mexican for dinner. Mexican should have been listed as one of her favorite things yesterday! She opted to not have dessert at the restaurant so that we could get home faster. So she could open presents. It was the night of Pokemon. We are planning to have a slumber party for her birthday…but probably not until next month. A house full of the high decibel level of little girls. Good times.

Homeschooling Week in review:

Math: Katie finished Singapore 5A…and we started 5B. It’s going quite well so far…she is flying through…doing the first 8 workbook sections this week alone. She is looking at how to multiply and divide with decimals. She hasn’t needed my help yet.

History: Before vacation, we spent about 2 weeks studying World War II – and over the break, Katie started reading Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl.” In order to attempt to finish Story of the World by the end of the year, we are going to be skipping some of the sections. This week we moved on to chapter 30 with the formation of Israel; and then onto chapter 31 and the Marshall Plan.

Physics: Katie completed Physics right before Spring break…so we are done with science until we begin our four year cycle again in the fall with Biology. We are going to continue to use Noeo for the science curriculum.

Spelling/Grammar: Now that Physics is off her plate, I am no longer dividing the week between these two subjects…but she will do both each day to complete the books. Spelling will completed next week – and Katie is thrilled! We still have a bit more to do with grammar. The grammar lesson today focuses on one of my big pet peeves – good vs. well.

Writing: Katie is still reading Anne Frank – and we will be discussing it at the end of next week. Katie has had many vocabulary questions from this book – and a lot of time looking up things in the dictionary (I appear to be her personal dictionary).

Piano: Because Katie did not practice on the cruise...her lesson this week was almost like a practice session. But with a teacher making sure that her form was correct.

Latin: This week Katie learned about how to tell the difference between 3rd, 3rd -io, and 4th conjugation verbs.