Smrt Lernins

A banner week! This week was pretty much all success, very little arse-dragging or slacking or attitude.

Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents was gangbusters, chapters 16-19 and the first pass at the bridge. Granted, he got all loosey-goosey come bridge time, so he’ll have to do at least one more try, but every other day this week, he finished quickly and with little to no error. He seems to have finally found his pace with the decimals.

I was thrilled to implement the MCT curricula this week. Captain Science absolutely loves Grammar Town. It’s mainly reading, with very little written work, though there are several sections of memorization (pronouns, verb tenses, etc.). I’ve had Captain Science write the memorization stuff down and we have been doing little memory games when we’re at the table for a meal or riding in the care. I made up a poem for the subject and object pronouns, which Cpt. Science enjoyed. He’s already well into the book, covering pgs 3-55, which means he’s about at the halfway point. Good thing we have plenty of other language arts stuff to work on!

Captain Science also began Caesar’s English I. He did the introduction on Tuesday and the first lesson today. Again, little written work, a lot of reading, and then review. I told Captain Science that if he can pass the first review on the first attempt, we’ll start his actual Latin curriculum!

At Patchfire’s recommendation, we started the poetry along with grammar. No actual writing yet, just reading. Captain Science read the first section, “Building Poems.” He enjoys reading the poems, though I hope he’ll also enjoy writing them. I need to compile a list of example poems for each of the topics (assonance, alliteration, iambic pentameter, etc.) covered. Once I do, I’ll post that here.

Speaking of writing, we started our short story “class” with Captain Science and Eclectic Girl this week. The children first wrote down what they thought the components of a short story might be, then we discussed them and talked about why each guess was or wasn’t an element of a short story. We talked about length, conflict and resolution, antagonists and protagonists, then Cpt. Science and EG wrote a paragraph describing their antagonist and his/her main conflict in the story. EG’s story is about a girl from Chocolate World, trying to get to Candy World. Cpt. Science’s story is about a warrior from his imaginary world of Exon and the battle to…well, I’m not exactly clear on that, but he’s got the whole story to explain it to me!

History this week was the final bit of ancient Rome, the Pantheon Project. Next week, we’ll do a quick review and whatever final assessment I come up with. We’ve done crosswords, word puzzles, and Venn diagrams, so I need to come up with something else fun. Any suggestions?

We’re also back on the ball with Science on the same day (Tuesday) EG and Patchfire came over for writing, Patchfire taught a science unit on the brain. Cpt. Science and EG read, looked at CAP, PET, and MRI scans of the brain (which they Googled), and colored a scan of the brain. On Thursday, we went over for a continuation of the unit on water and heat.

Next week, Officer Daddyman starts his first board and card game design class. I think we have a few other families interested, so I think that will be a lot of fun. He’s great with kids that age, too, so I think he’ll also get a lot of enjoyment out of the class. If he hadn’t become a cop, he could easily have been a wonderful middle school teacher. He has the kind of patience for children ages 8-13 that I just don’t have. I’m better with the littles and the great-bigs. The in-between-bigs aren’t my best area.

The Tank also had a great week at school, though it was early release week, due to the public school schedule. Can I get a “and that’s another reason why we’re not re-enrolling him next year” from the audience? The high point of the week was Pajama Day, when Tank got to wear his big brother pajamas to class and bring a stuffed animal. He chose Captain Science’s old Build a Bear, named “Bye Bye Bear” that meows when you squeeze its paw (hey, Cpt. Science was only 2 when he made it, ok?).

Babypie is talking up a storm. I started making a list of the things she says (to me, at least) and I came up with around 20 words! At 10 months old! Another talker like her biggest brother, I guess. Amazing how much she and Captain Science are alike.

My only accomplishments for the week were ticking off some unschoolers and developing mastitis. I recovered from the unschooler thing right away, but the mastitis has been a slower go of it. Still feeling run down and glad it’s finally the weekend.