Weekly Report ...

Week #20 completed! It was a good week. Once again, my six-week schedule helped me remain on track and focused.

The oldest twin completed Central Asia in her Eastern Hemispheres studies. We are working our way through Penny Candy, and she just completed the missionary biography she was reading. In Latin, she is continuing the review of LCI that LCII focuses on in the first five lessons. We also listened to the recordings from Librivox of Famous Men of Rome, completing chapters 3-5. I had her focus her attention on Life of Fred:Decimals & Percents, completing up to the Bridge that includes chapter 25. We will finish the book in two weeks, and then return to Math-U-See, Lesson 19. I have the Fred Algebra book on hand already, but I do not think we will begin it just yet.

Grammar studies included the younger twin, and we were able to complete five lessons this week, as well as two worksheets, and a writing assignment that focused on outlining paragraphs. The younger twin also worked his way through to the second quiz in his third CLE math workbook, and completed two weeks in science. He is reading Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling. He completed a number of drawing lessons via the on-line academy, and studied the Jewish holidays and Biblical origins of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In History, we read about Greek sculpture and architecture. He added some narrations to his notebook, and drew examples of the Greek columns. He also decided to research the prevalence of the various columns in historical buildings. Got to love it when they take that extra step.

Little Bear is nearing the completion of her fourth workbook in math, and she has reached lesson 30 in R & S Spelling. We studied the Nile River this week, as well as King Tut and the mummification process. She remembers a great deal from when the older kids were working their way through SOTW I, which was 4 years ago. She was only 4 then. In Science, we studied pigeons, and read about the Cuckoo, who replaces the eggs of certain birds with its own, so that they can be raised by the efforts of others. Little Bear was really disturbed by this, especially since it involved ridding the nest of the eggs that belonged there. She felt the Cuckoo should do its own work. Little Bear is continuing to do well with Writing with Ease. Her narrations have improved so much. I have added a little tweak to the program a la the old Sonlight LA. I have her underline, circle, squiggly underline various parts of speech. She is able to recognize nouns, proper nouns, verbs, and adjectives now with relative ease.

I did manage to get some work in with Rocko. I always wait until he is receptive because I just do not see the point in trying to teach him when he is otherwise engaged. His math skills are excellent, and he can add two two-digit numbers in his head. And his writing is improving. I am using a dry-erase board with him, and helped him with his grip this week. It really seemed to improve the quality of his writing. We read about the Creation week, and a picture book of Noah's Ark. He was so interested in that one, and was able to relate to me the story in his Bible storybook about how Noah came to be on the ark. He then took it upon himself to draw his own rendition of the ark, and the animals, and Noah and his sons. I can see his interest in academics growing slowly. He asks me more often to "do school". It is nice to see his interests come alive.

Well, those are the highlights. Emma is improving, slowly. She is over 7 1/2 lbs. We are awaiting lab analysis of her stools, as there was some concern over the consistency. Let's just pray it is not the start of anything bad again. I will end (actually they are up at the top) with pictures of some playtime at a nearby park, which is situated beside a lake. It is beautiful. Hope you had a good week, too.