Weekly Recap 4/4-4/8/11

Monday and Tuesday were chick days.  We'd intended to get all the chicks on Monday but S9 had his heart set on a rooster and our local feed store only had pullets.  We found a store with a straight run of Plymouth Barred Rocks on Tuesday and bought six.  We are counting on at least one of them being a boy.

 Felicia, is now more than two weeks old and she's finally thriving.  It's been fun to see her eat eagerly and prance around.  Now, if we can just keep her out of the house.

In addition to our farm animal adventures, we dug deeper into live in South and Central America during the Middle Ages.  We were impressed with Machu Picchu and horrified by the Aztecs. We also spent extra time learning about explorers and some famous women of the period.  Listening to the Lives of Extraordinary Women: Ruler, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought) was a highlight of the week.  I'd intended to just listen to the biographies from the beginning until the end of the Middle Ages but my dc were so interested in the women that they insisted on listening to the entire book.

For math this week S9 and H12 focused on factors and prime numbers.  They were pleased to put their multiplication facts to use and find prime numbers to be easy and interesting.  M6 worked on fractions.  We used play dough and had a great time making smaller and smaller parts. 

At the homeschool conference last week I ordered the California Achievement Tests (CAT) for our yearly evaluations.  This is new for us because Indiana didn't have any requirements pertaining to evaluations.  I got the tests yesterday and feel pretty confident that S9 and H12 will have no problem.  I think M6 will breeze through the math but there is more independent reading than I was expecting on her test.  I think I'm going to go ahead and have her take it.  She may surprise me and the 25 percentile performance level doesn't worry me too much.