Good things: poetry, Knox's The Creed in Slow Motion (my kids LOVE this; starts many great, deep discussions), Exploring the World of Physics, reading Sunday scripture out loud on Fridays.
All of the above happen in the morning over breakfast.
Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery - Sean, Josh and I are all enjoying this.
Read alouds: finished The Penderwicks and Treasure Island this week. I've decided to start reading aloud to Sean. Rick's been reading to Becky and that seems to be their province now, but Sean still needs a good read aloud at night, I've decided. Sean told me he's started reading a book at night! He has not picked up a book on his own for months! It's The Gospel According to The Simpsons. He says it's pretty good.
Copy work for Becky - the copy work from Aquinas Learning is going well with her. Her cursive is coming along nicely. I've decided that Sean also needs to work on his penmanship. In fact, I'm back to all three of the kids doing this. Josh voluntarily wanted to and I got him the Write Now book to work from. He wants to be able to write faster and he wanted to do connected italics instead of cursive.
Sean is writing on the computer a lot. He comes up with ideas and the words for his friend's comics. His friend draws them and then they put them up on their Deviant Art account.
Journey to the Center of the Earth. Sean and I are still battling through this book. I can't wait til it's over and I can say that Sean read a bona fide classic. I think, in spite of the struggle, he'll be proud of himself.
Sean keeps saying he wants to study history. I can't activate my This Week in History Account but I sent an email in, hopefully they can fix that and we'll start next week.
I'm thinking of getting a math tutor for Sean. Let's face it, I'm a lousy math teacher and I'm so distracted I don't keep up. We are really thinking of sending Sean to school next year, therefore I really think it is necessary for him to stick to both math and Latin. This week he took all morning to take his math test and he didn't do well. He just wasn't focusing I could tell and that's probably most of the problem. But he truly needs structure. For the older kids, having a tutor once a week was great at making them sit down and do their math. And in the end they were grateful for this bit of discipline inserted into their lives. The tutor has to be able to come to the house though. I just can't drive one more place every week! I'll snap like a rubber band! Or I might as well move into the car permanently!
Becky tried out band class again. She was crying as we went in so I told her we could bail. This was supposed to be fun and not something she dreaded. But to my surprise she said she'd do it. She's completely overwhelmed by it and all the other kids are more advanced than her. I'm thinking we drop it and again get someone to come to the house to teach her. We'll see. I'll let thing percolate for a couple days and then we'll talk. If she voluntarily starts practicing then I know she's into it.
Latin is hard but going well. We are really getting deep into Latin, deeper than I've ever gone into another language. But it is hard and I know I should be spending an hour a week just reviewing everything learned up to this point. We are getting ready for a test soon, so that will help with the review stuff. Josh has sort of woken up and started to participate more. I think, as painful as it is, meeting for class twice a week, instead of once, is really a boon to study. But it is very challenging.
Aquinas Learning - Becky was loving the social component of this, but there was some big blow out yesterday among the 4-6th grade kids, with Becky ending up in tears. She was in a terrible mood for most of the day. I don't know what happened. Sigh, the joys of socialization! I do like the structure it gives our week. She's good at doing her activity sheets. We don't go over the memory sentences like we should. I have to say I am coming to hate IEW. It is the most unnatural way to learn writing that I can think of. And it treats children like they have no innate writing ability whatsoever. Writing has to be broken down absurdly and presented in a rather silly fashion. And the little paragraphs that the kids have to rewrite are not particularly well written. Give me Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Ease any day of the week over IEW.
Josh truly seems to enjoy both Chemistry and Psychology. He's neutral about PreCalc. Shakespeare, he wants to like but the amount of work is overwhelming and he let himself get behind and hasn't caught up, so it has become a drag. I helped him with his homework yesterday. And he's working on performing his Monologue tomorrow for class.
He's sticking in there with his cross country. He doesn't practice at home like he should though. He's got his next race this coming Sunday. I'm helping which means a long afternoon (4 or 5 hours). I"m bringing a folding chair! I can't stand for that long!
Today I hope to play catch up with stuff that has slid through the cracks. Josh gets to sleep in a bit this a.m. Chemistry doesn't start until 10 today instead of 8:30.
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