Weekly Recap: September 17-21, 2012

We had a busy week.  Rob had his check-up with his family doctor and was released to go back to work part time.  For Rob that means he may be working only 35-40 hours a week instead of his usual 50-60.  Wednesday was his first day back on the job.  His presence at home was missed.  We got use to having him around and were enjoying it.  I think he's happy to be living a more normal life.

As for our school work, this is what I have to report:

M8 enjoyed multiplying.  The focus was on 3s and 4s.  We found manipulatives (marbles) to be really helpful with the groupings of multiplication.  While M8 is getting to be a wonderful reader, she doesn't enjoy it yet so reading aloud was her challenge this week.  Attitude has been a real issue for M8 this week.  She's pitching regular fits over things that aren't fit worthy.  Also she's been telling me no about doing work, both school and home, and following directions.  I am way less than thrilled with this behavior and am looking for a way to cut it out quickly.  In additon to school work, M8 is also perfecting her hoola-hoop skills.

S10 is still enamoured with history.  Logic made his list of favorites this week too.  He completed his first Mindbender book and moves onto other logic puzzles next week.  His biggest challenges are assigned reading and Latin.  He did complete his two books for last week, one on Queen Victoria and the other, Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. We started First Form Latin this year and he's continually making the argument that Latin is a dead language and he shouldn't have to learn it.  I understand his concern but I know that the skills he learns with Latin will be well used through his life.

H13 is enjoying her logic and grammar.  For logic this year we chose The Art of Argument by Joelle Hodge, Christopher Perrin and Aaron Larsen.  H13 enjoyed logic at the beginning of the year last year but when we moved onto formal logic she lost all enjoyment.  Rather than trying to slog through formal logic we decided to spend more time with informal logic.  It was a good choice for her.  Grammar is her last session of Analytical Grammar.  This program has been an excellent fit for her.  She even admits that she enjoys knowing more about punctuation and how it works.  Her challenge comes with time management.  She loves to read and write so those activities are where she wants to spend the majority of her time.  Unfortunately she doesn't always balance the time required to complete her other subjects with her enjoyable activities.  Because she didn't finish school this week until Saturday afternoon, we'll be scheduling her week together and checking in daily next week.  Also this week, H13 mentioned that she might not want to go to public school next year.  I was surprised.  We'll be talking more about that in the weeks to come.

My big accomplishment this week was canning four and a half bushels of tomatoes.