Week 6

The 6th week of our school year already?! This week we seem to be cramming a lot into few hours, so that we can everything done, and still have a lot of free time.  Some subjects have fallen to the wayside, and sadly, the first to go is formal Nature Study and Spanish. We have still spent plenty of time outside, but rather than draw plants and read about insects, we have been ripping up our summer garden and avoiding the unbelievable spider infestation that has blanketed Silverdale. I realize that this still counts as life skill development, but I still miss the formality of our nature notebooks. Spanish should be easy to practice daily, but I cannot get into the swing of talking to Truman in Spanish rather than English.  Perhaps if I had a few post-its around to remind me. There's an idea. 
We have been able to keep up with the rest of our subjects, especially math and history, which I am scared to get behind in.  We managed to get through 4 math lessons this week, plus many math related games. I have taken to asking Truman the time multiple times per day, and while it takes him a while, he can get it.
The weeks' subjects:
Spelling, 4 tests
Poetry of Walter de la Mare -8 poems
Piano-we are working on some Christmas songs for dad.
Copywork-Truman's cursive is really nice, and I am trying to get him to take spelling tests in cursive. No    
    luck so far.
Spanish-only once DVD lesson, plus food worksheets.
The Little Duke, 2nd half of ch.3, plus character list.
Tree in the Trail-chapter 8 and 9
Burgess Animals Chapter XI and XII
Understood Betsy, chapter 5
Pilgrims Progress-kind of accelerating through this, because I just want to finish.
Among the People
Julius Caesar movie from the 50's.  It was fabulous, although looooong.  Truman was a little bit   
   uncomfortable when Caesar was stabbed, so we had a discussion about movie blood, and had to look up
   how they do it on the internet.
Several Dangerous Boys chemistry experiments.
Albrect Durer-only managed to look at ONE picture, and now that I think about it....I forgot to ask for a narration.



Carbonizing a marshmallow, taking notes every minute for 20 minutes.

 

Titrating bleach and food dye!




Certain the marshmallow can still be eaten, despite being harder than a rock.

Week 5

Ratchet up the Chaos!  I was wondering what I could do this month that would be totally disruptive to our easy routines, something that would require hard labour and multiple bickering sessions between Will and I...  Homeschooling, my master's finals, my temporarily deployed husband (only an hour and 15 minutes away, but still...), Cub Scouting, and all the other things that we do apparently weren't quite enough to keep me occupied, so I decided to MOVE. 
I was wondering if I could find a house on the water that was in our price range, browsed around craigslist, submitted a few inquires, made a few drive-by's, and darn if I didn't find a lovely place on Liberty Bay, with fabulous neighbors, homeschoolers across the street, a beautiful kitchen, and a monster playroom!  The eastern side of the house is made of floor-to-ceiling glass, looking out across the water.  Of course, I have already decorated the place in my mind, and I can already envision snuggling in front of the windows with our school books and the fire on rainy days, blankets on the beach with our work on the sunny ones. I have this idea in my mind that the tranquil ruralness of the place is going to make me a calm, angelic teacher; a mommy that is composed and serene, gazing out the window while her children do her reasonable bidding.  Don't laugh. Perception is reality, and if I think a quiet home with a view will sedate me, then it will.  I am already browsing the Washington State naturalist sites so that I can teach my boys the name of every single thing that washes up on the beach.  I still have two weeks of relatively normal schooling before the move, so I may as well stick to blogging about homeschool, not my upcoming view of Puget Sound.

This week Truman finally finished his one sentence per day book report on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.  To read his report it sounds like he didn't like the book because of his stilted writing style, but I know that he really did.

We had two days of Math review, which Truman aced, thankfully. I read the entire book about the Gift of Learning, and I just cannot say that Truman has a dysfunction with Math.  The number reversal improved with just a few days of me acting like a Writing Nazi, and letting him look at his numbers written on the glass door also helped.  He still has the attention span of a dust mote unless he is building with Legos or reading a book, but that is typical 7 year old boy behavior, right?  What drove me up a wall this week was his humming for 4 days straight.  I didn't say anything because it seemed mean to make him stop, and it was Beethoven he was humming...

History was all about The Rise of Islam, and it was fascinating!  Even my 7 year old can see how amazingly parallel it is to Christianity.  We even read a bit of the Koran at the Library, although I felt like hiding it behind a magazine while doing it.
Truman pounded out several chemistry experiments this week, as well as brought his mammal diagram completely up to date.  This chart looks fabulous, and when it is done I will have to photograph it.
Today (Friday) is our day to play catch-up, and finish everything that we had not had a chance to do this week.  I have to admit that we crammed a lot of schoolwork into two days, because we spent some time looking at houses and playing on the beach.  Today we will do neither, and I have big plans for our Henry-free afternoon.

Truman and I went to the Off-Campus Back to Class picnic, where Truman meet all the other 3rd grade homeschoolers who will be in his Wednesday class.  4 boys and 5 girls, a good mix.  The teacher is lovely, and appears to have the patience of a saint. She was asking the kids if they had any nicknames, and Truman said, " My friends just call me True." with a nonchalant shrug.  It was so Ponyboy from the Outsiders that I laughed out loud, which instantly lessened his coolness and made him scowl.  I felt bad for my boy and his embarrassing mommy, and left for the rest of his class.

Picture of the week-Truman and Henry on the Ferry to Seattle on Thursday. 



Too cool for school-notice Truman's attempt at accessorizing....his blocky name necklace!  Still a 7 year old, depite the urban punk look I think he was going for.