Friday, April 18, 2008

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.

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17 comments:

GBK Gwyneth said...

Skip? Skip a section? Who told you that you could do that? Sheesh :)

Ruskin said...

We are on almost the same page of Singapore Maths 5B...
Have a great weekend!

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Ummm...my sanity said I could! I figured that my 10 year old really doesn't need to know about the Belgian Congo or the trials and tribulations of Eva Peron. We can deal with that in a few years. Otherwise, it would take us the entire year to finish this book...and I want to be done in May! How about this: Gwyneth, I give you permission to skip sections. Work?

CrystalChick said...

OH what a happy birthday girl!! :)
Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend! Mary

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Mary--
Thanks so much for coming over to casa sunshine and lemonade. I have been reading your comments on Rhea's blog for a bit...not sure why I never clicked over to read your blog until today :-)...my brain does not always process the way it should!

Rhea said...

I have the same wrapping paper! Now, out of all the info you shared with us, I don't know why that's what I felt I had to comment on. lol It's been a loooooooooong day and it isn't over yet. Mother-in-law is in town visiting and we have two baseball games this evening.

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Rhea--too funny. I love that wrapping paper...but it's about gone now. Have fun at the ball fields tonight.

Rhea said...

Well, sprained ankle child's game was cancelled because the other team didn't show up (talk about communcation issies) but our team did. Remy's game was great.

I have to stay up late tonight writing to turn in pages for the writing retreat I'm going on in two weeks. I'm working so last minute. I just can't seem to stick to deadlines lately.

And,I love my mother-in-law, but her visits do stress me out a little bit.

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Rhea--sorry about the game. What are you working on for writing? I liked what you posted on your blog. I need deadlines to get things accomplished. I am a huge procrastinator. Which is why we have a housekeeper. It's like my weekly deadline to pick up the crap (otherwise known as clutter) that has accumulated around the house! Otherwise me might be on Oprah.

My mother-in-law has never visited my house. Let's not go there.

Rhea said...

I seriously need a housekeeper. My mother-in-law's frequent visits (four and half hour drive from Austin) keep me cleaning up my house, that's for sure.

I just have to submit some writing (anything, short story, part of a novel, etc) by tonight so that the boss lady can make copies of all the writers' stuff and send it out to all of us. We have to critque each other's work before the retreat starts, so that when we get to the retreat, we can really workshop each other's stuff. Scary, huh? I've never done a retreat before or been to Wisconsin (which is where it is) so I'm very excited about going...and nervous. I've been in an online class with this boss lady and some of the writers for almost a year now.

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

That retreat sounds like a lot of work...but I bet it will be so worth it. Do you find that blogging helps you to hone (is that how you spell it?!) your craft? Or is it more avoidance behavior. Which is what blogging is for me. Helps with the procrastinating. Like I needed help with that.

Get the housekeeper. It's so worth it. Whatever it costs.

Rhea said...

Blogging helps for sure...and it also helps with prorastinating, I agree. :o)

Next time I talk to hubby about getting a housekeeper, I'm going to use you as back up..."see, my new online friend, fellow blogger, Kat, told me I had to get one." He thinks I'm nutty already!

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Rhea--I'm happy to be a co-conspirator in the quest to get a housekeeper. The amount of sanity she gives us is priceless. And Thursdays are my favorite day of the week now :-)

Skeller said...

Wow - you come up to speed pretty nicely after a vacation :-) I hadn't realized before that we're covering the same history tracks (tho, I did see, at one time that we were both reading Animal Farm - can I just say I was so surprised HOW MUCH the boys enjoyed that story!). We've similarly just finished Palestine and are reading Anne Frank (portions). Too bad we're not neighbors :-(
And 3rd conjugation verbs?? All my empathy to Katie - 3rd conjugation & 3rd declension make me want to tear my hair out. I'm not kidding you.

Happy Weekend to you (it's a happy weekend for me, cause my mac is back!!)

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Susan--I hadn't realized that we were in the same spot for history either! I agree...I was surprised at how much Katie liked "Animal Farm" - and surprised that I liked it that much, too!

Third conjugation verbs aren't so bad...it's those third declension -i stem nouns and third declension adjectives that give me a brain freeze.

Glad you have your Mac back...I think the withdrawl would set in quickly for me!

Unknown said...

In Gert's kindergarten they have a letter of the day - and the other day was M... apparently Mrs. M asked the kids to tell her words that start with M... one said Mom, one said Milk... Gert said "Manipulatives"

Kori said...

Oh I enjoyed reading Ann frank so much I cried for her. I wept for her. It is one of my all time Favorite books.

And Madalyn's Expression in that last photo is awesome.