Smrt Lernins

Didn’t post a weekly review the week of Thanksgiving, but we did school that week, Sunday through Tuesday. We also had a full day this week, plus 1, since Captain Science lollygagged so badly on Friday that he had to put in 4 additional hours of work today getting his Essay Voyage essay done. That puts us at 82 days and at least 95 days by the end of the calendar year. Hooray!

Over the past two weeks, Captain Science has:

• Finished another two chapters in KidCoder, developing programs that find the area of various kinds of shapes (rectangles, circles, triangles). He has one more section to go, the final project, developing a Pong-type game. Next semester, he’ll start the GameCoder curriculum.
• Read sections on the atmosphere in Science: The Definitive Visual Guide, as well as the unit, application, and worksheet packet for the atmosphere chapter in PLATO Earth Science.
• Completed chapters X-XI in Caesar’s English II and all of Chapter 5 in Essay Voyage (Wordiness) including an essay on Octavius.
• Read a section in History: The Definitive Visual Guide on Marco Polo and the Silk Road. He also watched an episode (“Peasants”) of Terry Jones’s Medieval Lives. We’re going a little history light until the New Year, when we roll out the Renaissance in all its Shakespearean glory.
• Read pages 117-130 in Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra and completed the work in chapters 38, 39 (“Your Turn to Play”), 40, and 41 in Fred’s Home Companion: Beginning Algebra. He also attended Math Olympiad practice this week and started on his practice problems for the next competition a week from Thursday.
• Read The Lost Hero in about three days.

Tank did some puzzles, board games, reading from his alphabet seek-and-find book, and helping with the holiday cooking. He’s really good with measuring and mixing.

Babypie be’d a baby, be’d cute, and continued to expand her vocabulary by leaps and bounds. She also teeteed on the potty about six times this past week, with M&Ms as a reward.

Officer Daddyman put up the Christmas tree and got half of it lit. He caught some bad guys, including some fool who thought he’d be clever and ditch some pills (not prescribed to him) in the back of Daddyman’s police cruiser in order to not have them on him when he was checked into the jail. All he accomplished was keeping Daddyman at work until 2am, getting the pills identified by a pharmacist and entered into evidence and getting a judge to draw up a warrant for the guy. Criminals are stupid and they really annoy me with their keeping out of my husband until late hours.

Smrt Mama did some major sorting and rearranging in preparation of painting Babypie’s bedroom this week. All the 18mo and smaller warm weather clothes have been cycles out of Babypie’s drawers. All of the stuff that’s too short in the torso has been cycled out of my drawers. Some drawers that will never fit me again have also been cycled out of my drawers. Got caught up on all the laundry and got sheets washed. Cleaned the living room and then vacuumed a second time after Daddyman put up the tree.

The collective McLernins, Nana and Papa, and awesome cousin Nathan the hairdresser all celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving together.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print.

No, I didn’t forget to post this. Captain Science dawdled so badly yesterday that it resulted in school work carrying over to today.

So let’s see. Here’s what we did this week:

On Monday, Captain Science did the practice tests on oceans in PLATO Science. He completed chapter VII in Caesar’s English and the “Correct Sentence” section in the Essay Voyage chapter on formality. For history, he read a book on heraldry and then we all (three kids + Smrt Mama) made our own coats of arms from felt. Tank worked very hard on his and cut the tiniest pieces possible from felt. Once they’d positioned everything, I glued it on. Now we have beautiful coats of arms hanging in our school room.

Smrt Mama’s, Tank’s, and Captain Science’s coats of arms, respectively — Babypie threw her felt pieces on the floor and demanded markers

On Tuesday, Captain Science started the morning with the mastery test for the oceans unit in PLATO Science, scoring something like 87% — not his highest grade, but I think all this water business has been a letdown after the rock cycle. We then went to the La Leche League meeting, where he finished Beowulf (we’ll pick up Grendel next week for comparison) and did a page of math problems Officer Daddyman wrote for him as practice for Thursday’s Math Olympiad competition. Tank and Babypie really enjoyed playing with the other babies and toddlers.

I found the boys IN the block bin. Silly children.

On Wednesday, Captain Science did work on iambic and trochaic meter in World of Poetry, writing two lovely poems. Captain Science watched the first half of the video on the PLATO science fresh water unit. It’s a LONG video! He wrote his own math problem for later completion w/ Officer Daddyman (worked on it that evening). He also had a piano lesson. Tank, Babypie, and I just played and chilled. I also did some cleaning, which they “helped” with.

He is learning piano and keyboard from great-great-Aunt Elaine.

On Thursday, Captain Science watched the second half of the PLATO Science fresh water unit and completed the application. He had Math Olympiad that night, so Officer Daddyman and Patchfire’s husband took Captain Science and Eclectic Girl to that whilst we moms stayed with the middles and littles. Because we did next-to-no mid-day schooling, I was able to complete some knitting projects!

Finished up the baby to go in the mama monster’s pouch. Isn’t she cute?

On Friday Captain Science did the worksheet packet for the PLATO Science fresh water unit…which took him a good hour and a half. We then had to hop in the car and take Tank to the dentist for his first filling (not an actual cavity, just a little indentation in his tooth they felt needed filling). Once we got him, he worked on Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra pg 109-101 and lesson 36 in Fred’s Home Companion, which took him most of the afternoon, mostly due to some flailing and fit-pitching, but mainly due to a classic case of Dawdle. He also wrote a short paragraph for his “Correct Paragraph” assignment in the Essay Voyage chapter on formality. Tank and Captain Science spent the night with Memomma (their great-grandmother), who also watched Babypie for a few hours so Officer Daddyman and I could go to the shift holiday party.

Babypie waited so patiently at the dentist! She got to pick a prize from the prize chest, too.

On Saturday, Captain Science rewrote his Essay Voyage assignment, completed chapter VIII in Caesar’s English II, and read the sections on the Vikings and the Ottoman Empire in History: The Definitive Visual Guide. We also had a board & card game party, where he did another playtest of his Patheon Project card game, ironing out a few bugs.

Apropos of nothing, my beagle has apparently developed a Wii habit.