Weekly Report #17 1-26 to 1-30

This week was difficult, dragged ever so slowly and we all are more than ready for our break next week. Midweek we had a mini break when my traveling sister and brother in law stopped by Thursday on the tail end of their 6 month journey around the United States. They saw some amazing sights, took some awesome pictures and kept a travelogue of their experiences here. I was exhausted just reading about their adventures but K and G looked amazingly rested. It was quite educational hearing about all the historical sites they visited. I think she should have it all made up into a book to document the trip.

What we accomplished:

Explorer Bible Study: Completed Lesson 2 which covered Genesis 1 and the first 5 days of creation. Plus James writing out 2 Samuel 22:31 "As for God, His way is perfect, the way of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him." And in a way, it turned into a mini english lesson and lesson about respect for God and when we capitalize His name and any references to Him.

Also for cub scouts, we are working on the achievement "Ways We Worship". We discussed people in history who showed great faith. One person mentioned in the book was "Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, a lubavitch Rebbe. Neither Father or I had ever heard of him, we looked him up and all learned a bit about his history and his influences.

Voyages in English: Continued with Unit 4 about verbs and completed 4.12 future tense with going to and 4.13 Present Progressive Tense. James completed worksheet homework for future tense on his own and did very well.

Cursive: continued with practicing writing n and m and how write n and m in special situations.

Spelling: Completed Lesson 16 suffixes added to root words.

Writing with Ease: Week 2 involved identifying the central ideas and actions in a passage from The Patchwork Girl of Oz. None of us had ever read this story and Father sat in while we discussed. Both James and Father had a hard time coming up with a simple 2 sentence narration for this particular passage. Lots of information to sift through. But by the end of the week, James was able to give me a simple two sentence narration identifying the central idea in the 2nd passage. Of course, it was much simpler than the first passage which gave a complete description of the patchwork girl. Very good lesson this week in learning how to actively listen - for all of us.

Math: Started next Kumon Workbook for subtracting 6 - 9. First few lessons are review and James did well with those. I threw in a couple addition handouts and short circuited his brain. However, once he focused managed quite well.

Chemistry: Father and James read all about Noble Gases in DK Chemistry book and the Carbon Elements in Periodic Table-elements with style. In the Archimedes book - they read Ch 10 about Archimedes and the Centers of Gravity and Ch 11 The Sphere and the Cylinder.

Cub Scouts: James earned his bobcat badge this week and we will be presenting it to him at the pack meeting on the 20th. Meanwhile, we started working on the Bear Trail Achievements. Besides the Ways we Worship, we started working on the Country Section. Achievement 4 is tall tales. We read Johnny Appleseed and Stormalong and discussed them. We will be revisiting the stories, plus 3 more and mapping out the locations where the stories took place. The things we are doing for cub scouts seem to be leading us into studying the history of various subjects, which is all quite interesting. James is enjoying the den meetings and all the boys get along great. We couldn't ask for a better group of kids.

My art history class this week touches on the 16th century and Italian Mannerist Artists. Yeah - me neither, I don't have a clue what a mannerist artist is. That's why I'm studying art. Also project 1 is due on Sunday which I have to write a 750 word stylistic comparison comparing Donatello's David with Michelangelo's David. (if you don't like pictures of naked statues, don't click on the link)

Our first break since Christmas is next week and looking forward to it. We usually work three weeks on, then one week off. But, because we took so much time off during Thanksgiving and Christmas, we work for the first 6 weeks. We made it through slightly battle worn, but victorious.