Weekly Recap 11/9-11/12/10

We spent the beginning of the week looking at new houses.  That has to count for homeschooling under some kind of creative curriculum.  We've also had four showing for our house over the past week.  That may not count as homeschooling but it sure has encouraged us to maintain discipline and practice neatness.  I have been truly blessed and impressed by how helpful and cooperative the children have been.  This is a stressful time for all of us.  There's a lot of uncertainty and waiting.  It would be easy to dig in and be difficult.  Heaven knows there are times when I'd like to do just that.  The children seem to be taking it all with good attitudes and, for the most part, thankful hearts.  They are inspirations to me. 

During the trip to and from house hunting we listened to The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey.  Even M6, who normally fusses about our listening books, was hooked and is excited about the next book.  The other book we listened to and enjoyed was Call it Courage.  We'd listened to Hatchet earlier this year and the children found a lot of similar themes in the two books.  It was an interesting discussion.  I especially enjoyed it because I wasn't the one that initiated it. 

 Our other highlight for the week would be our math lessons.  Last week, S8 picked up on division quickly.  We started with bugs and have progressed to single digit denominators with any place value numerator.  He's very impressed with himself.

This week we spent some time reviewing money.  M6 and S8 both enjoyed playing with the coins. 

M6 especially enjoyed identifying and sorting. 

S8 enjoyed making different combinations to fulfill my requirements.  For example, give me $0.78 using only two quarters or give me $0.17 using only 4 coins.

After playing with money for a bit we moved on to telling time.  M6 is great at the o'clocks and the thirties.  S8 has any hour or minute down with no problem.  I can't wait to see what we learn next week!

H11 is working on NaNoWriMo.  She met her word goal last week and is only about half way through her novel.  She's loving this exercise.  In another triumph, she's on lesson 9 in Analytical Grammar and I've only heard minimal complaining.  She feels confident and grammar has become a tool rather than a curse.  WAHOO!

She decided to go back to Life of Fred Fractions and give it another try now that she has a better grasp of her multiplication tables.  So far, she's doing beautifully.  She's passed the first two bridges on the first try.  We are both pleased.

H11's other big accomplishment is that she cooked dinner tonight with minimal assistance.  Spaghetti and meatballs.  She even baked her own bread. The meal was delicious and I think she especially enjoyed all the compliments she received.

K14 is still working on her campaign to go back to public school.  We may give it a try with our move.  She's done really well in her current classes (French, algebra and band).  Also, if we buy the house we are discussing there would be fewer than two hundred students in her high school.  That seems like  pretty safe situation with a pretty good student to teacher ratio.  It's certainly worth considering though I still can't figure out why she'd want to get up that early!