Homeschool Week in Review: Week 6

We all had a good week. There was very little drama. School work was done in a reasonable amount of time. Even Madalyn has gotten over her "subtraction is not my thing" and scored in the 90's for her timed tests.

GRAMMAR/WRITING: We are still plodding along with Wordly Wise and Daily Grams. Katie got her first writing assignment back from her coach at Write at Home. She did pretty well - and got some great suggestions for next time. This week, you must see her assignment. She has it posted to her blog - but let me explain what she had to do. The lesson this week was on proper sentence formation. Then she was given a list of 10 nouns and phrases that she had to use as the subjects of her sentences. Click here to see into the imagination of my whacked child.

LOGIC: We moved on from syllogisms to puzzles. I am sure that there is a fancy name for them. But it escapes me at the moment. The puzzles are of this variety: Connie, Virginia, Steve, Randy, Valery, and Karen are cheerleaders at Southside Junior High. One of their routines calls for them to form a pyramid with three people on the bottom, two people in the middle tier, and one person on top. Read these clues and then put everyone into their proper position. CLUES: 1. Connie is between Steve and Randy. 2. Virginia is on top of Connie and Steve but helping to support Valery. 3. Karen is on the right side of the pyramid.

GEOGRAPHY: This week we studied our first South American country: Uruguay. Katie was disappointed that she could not find a recipe that matched her taste buds. She didn't want anything with lentils or peppers in it. Maybe next week. I haven't planned for our next few weeks yet - something for me to do this weekend - but her request is somewhere with yummy food.

HISTORY: We have continued with Ancient Egypt - focusing on their religion, myths, and legends. Katie made this cool flip book of the Egyptian gods and goddesses. You can read what they are responsible for - and then because it is cut, you can flip flop the heads and bodies. She also read the book Tales of Ancient Egypt.

BIOLOGY: Katie stayed with the Mysteries and Marvels of Nature book - learning more about insects. She learned about how insects defend themselves, how they live together, and how aphids can even change their gender.

MATH: We finished up our chapter on triangles and moved into Chapter 7 on four-sided figures. Parallograms, rhombuses, trapezoids, rectangles, squares - and how to tell the difference.

LATIN: She is still reviewing Latin Prep I - this week continuing to review vocabulary, 1-3rd conjugation verbs, declensions, and translations. I am in my third week of teaching Latin to high school homeschoolers. They are really struggling with the language - but most of their trouble centers around their ignorance of English grammar. If they cannot find the subject; a prepositional phrase; a direct object in an English sentence - it makes it mighty difficult to find them in a Latin sentence.

So, what about you? Are you proficient in English grammar? Where did you learn English grammar- in an English class or in a foreign language class? What languages did you take in school? Do you still remember or use them?

Theme Song: Doors - People are Strange