Weekly Report 11

We tried a few different things this week:

• School first, piano practice after lunch (bad idea)
• Starting school later and continuing school after lunch (bad idea)
• Practicing cello after the boys go to bed (very bad idea, I’m just too worn out)

So we need to get up and get going earlier so we can do piano, school, lunch, then cello practice for Mommy/quiet time for the boys.  It always comes back to that–getting up earlier.  At least in a week, it will be the time change and that will help greatly I think.  We have also been trying to be outside as much as possible while the weather is cooperating, which has been really nice even though I feel like I lose a lot of time in the afternoons to do indoor stuff like pay bills, return emails, declutter, mop…  But I have been getting a lot of reading done while they play outside which is an ok trade-off at the moment.  Soon it will get cold and we’ll have plenty of indoor time.

Here’s what we accomplished even though there were several meltdowns this week (me included), A and D have had horrible coughs (which I really hope I don’t get), and we took a light day on Wednesday so I could turn 34. 

D: Letter I: We read the “i” sound box book, Inch by Inch, and Building an Igloo.  He traced a big I and that was pretty much it.  I’m getting less and less creative with this as the weeks go by.

C: ETC: 13 pages in Get Set for the Code
Math: Learning place value and adding ten to a given number
Copywork: Writing his full name and trying to line up the letters on the line
Reading: Lessons 62-65–We just hit long vowel/silent-E words and this may slow us down a bit. 

A: Math: 1 review lesson and 2 lessons on multiplying by 5 (even though he can’t remember multiples of 4.  How do you drill multiplication facts anyway?  They’re just not sticking.)
Grammar: Lessons 52-57
Cursive: Letter I–he does about 2 pages of cursive a week, but I think we’ll speed up and do a page a day so we can finish the alphabet.  He’s so incredibly slow writing everything else half print/half cursive.  All cursive would speed things up considerably. 
Writing: Writing with Ease week 2 assignments went well, although we need to teach his brothers to not interrupt us, not for ANYTHING, when we’re trying to do dictation. 
Latin: Didn’t happen.

Science: We started studying volcanoes, finished notebook pages, and read Volcanoes by Franklyn Branley, but have yet to start making our own volcano.  That’s on next week’s plan. 

Music: We listened to Rimsky-Korsakov sporadically throughout the week and still need to listen to the rest of the Classics for Kids programs.  A had piano (he was so glad after missing it last week) and C went to Kindermusik.  D did not as he has been coughing pretty badly most of the week.

History: Vikings!  We had a great time with history this week.  We read in SOTW, did the mapwork, A did a narration on Leif the Lucky, and they colored Viking longboats.  Then they made their own out of cardstock and I just remembered, we forgot to put the sails on!  It was kind of a crazy afternoon today though as I tried to help three children color, cut out, glue, stay focused, get the piano practicing done, and keep track of our baking.  We forgot all about the sails!  Oh well.  We did make Viking bread for dinner and it turned out pretty good, although very dense.  We made the monk’s dinner of lentil soup (from the Activity Guide a few chapters ago) to go with it.  None of the boys really liked it.  They’re not big soup eaters, much to my dismay.  I love soup and good crusty bread.  Maybe I can reform them this winter.

Viking bread (with my new cutting board and knife!):

We read quite a bit as well–Leif the Lucky, Eric the Red, East O’ the Sun, West O’ the Moon (a Norwegian folktale with gorgeous illustrations by P. J. Lynch), Yo, Vikings, and a few myths from Odin’s Tales.  A also started reading Vikings at Sunrise. 

 

Other Literature: A is still reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and we’re reading Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood aloud which is pretty complex.  I suggested we get an easier version, but A vetoed that idea.  We’ll definitely expand our vocabularies with this book.  We also listened to Because of Winn-Dixie in the car and tried to start The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane but the cd had too many scratches and we may have to read it aloud as well.  And I finally finished The Lord of the Rings! I’m so excited.  And after that, I breezed through Quest for a King: Searching for the Real King Arthur in an evening. 

Next week’s goals: Finish the Halloween costumes (really this needs to happen tomorrow) and continue to work on breaking some very bad habits we’ve got going here.