I can tell that Christmas is nearly upon us, because this week was almost a total wash. It started on the right foot, but ended on the lame and limping foot. I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Captain Science were still in public school, he’d have spent the week doing holiday-themed worksheet packets and having his class Christmas party, so any academics are still more than he’d have been getting there.
History was one of the subjects that started off so well. Monday’s topic was the lives of the emperors and how Rome went from republic to empire. Captain Science’s essay was the best so far. Wednesday’s topic, however, was on Roman innovations and inventions (technology and the like). Sadly, though this should be a topic Captain Science latched onto right way, he caught a case of the holiday half-asses and wrote the thinnest, most conjecture-filled essay in the history of essays. Ok, not quite that bad, but still pretty bad. I was going to have him rewrite it on Thursday, but instead decided to just call it a wash, as I was deathly ill.
Math also started out strong with chapters 7 and 8 of Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents, but then got a bit spotty with 9 and 10. Captain Science made lots of careless mistakes that required correcting (and a little suspected peeking at the answers). I think it’s good that the next lesson is the bridge to chapter 11, because it will provide a nice post-holiday review to let me know if we need to go back and cover certain chapters again or if we need to buy some supplemental materials.
No science this week at all, because of the above mentioned deathly illness.
Captain Science did some Editor in Chief and Writing Strands work. Nothing to write home about in terms of excitement, but a solid job done by Captain Science. He also did a few Logic Countdown exercises of his own choosing.
This will be our last weekly review until 2010! I can’t believe we’re really done with our first full semester of homeschooling. It’s passing so quickly and much more easily than anticipated.
