Weekly Report # 20 2/23 to 2/27

What have we been doing this week. Father has been busy working on the computer, drawing up a circuit board for his microphone project and has done a good job of teaching himself the in's and out's of the program. Sorry, I don't remember the name of it. He has a tendency to work late at night after James has gone to bed and he can work without interruption. I am generally able to tell when the frustration level gets high with the loud banging of fingers on the keyboard, cussing at the computer and pulling of hair. Don't we all want to cuss out the computer every now and again? I find myself giving him the same reminders I do with James when he gets frustrated with his wii game. "Time to take a break - NOW!"

He's off this weekend for a recording workshop at a music studio in Berkeley. One of his dreams has always been to learn from a professional recording engineer, not only how to do a recording, but everything involved from the placement of the microphone to the set up of the equipment. The workshop is a hands on one and everyone involved will be put to work, so it will be interesting to hear about his experience when he gets home.

Speaking of Wii games - James has been playing his Mario Super Galaxy game diligently every day for who knows how long and has worked his way up to 114 power stars. He is limited to playing one hour at a time and he generally manages to get 2 power stars at a time. The goal is 120 power stars which he will probably accomplish in the next few days. He said I had to say that when he gets the 120 power stars, then Mario gets to refight Bowser at the center of the universe. Once Mario defeats Bowser, this will unlock Luigi and you get to play the game all over again, except in fast mode. He has been reading and studying the Prima Game guide every night discovering everything there is to know about the game. The guide is 336 pages and chock full of game playing information. I consider that educational - he has been spending a lot of time studying the book, reading silently to himself, looking up information and utilizing that information.

We did do regular lessons this week as well.

Explorer Bible Study - we completed Lesson 4 Genesis 3 - Temptation and the Fall of Man. It prompted some interesting discussions about temptation and Adam and Eve.

Voyages in English - Continued learning about Adjectives. Completed 5.5 Adjectives that Compare, 5.6 Irregular Adjectives that Compare and 5.7 Adjectives that Tell How Many.

Spelling: Completed Lessons 19 Regular Plurals adding s or es

Cursive: Practiced writing capitals and cities, compound words and created Fun Letter Sentences. For fun letter sentences, james had to pick out 5 letters from the alphabet and writing sentences with words starting with these letters. The sentences he came up with are:

1. Bullet Bill is part of the Koppa troop (something from super mario galaxy)
2. Count coco's octopuss crashed the car.
3. Dilly duck is under the deck.
4. Echo Elmo was eating.
5. Robin rocket raced. (he was getting tired of writing at this point)
   

Writing with Ease: We are loving this program. Completed week 5 and this week the excerpts were from "Misty of Chincoteague"

Day one identifying the central idea and narrated: "The ponies were on a ship and ship shipwrecked. The ponies found an island and they found salty ground and water for them to eat and drink. After that they slept all night long." Day two and three completed copywork and dictation. Day 4 he identified the central narrative thread from the passage and came up with: "The ponies learned how to get out of the mud and they had more ponies."

Math: Continued with subtraction from 11,12, 13

Science: In Chemistry, read "What Drives a Reaction", and in the Periodic Table read about the Oxygen Elements.

History: We read Chapter XIV More Adventures of Captain John Smith. It was interesting to read about Smith having to deal with the colonists who didn't want to do any work and just live off the work of others or barter away their tools for food from the indians. He also had the misfortune of a new group of colonist arriving who didn't care to work either.

"Unfortunately, among these new arrivals there were few likely to make good colonists. They were indeed for the most part wild, bad men whose friends had packed them off to that distant land in the hope of being rid of them forever. 'They were' said one of the old colonist who wrote to them 'more fit to spoil a Commonwealth than either to begin or but help to maintain one.' (TCOO page 122)

No cub scout meeting this week, but he worked on putting together a poster about cats for Achievement 5 Sharing your world with wildlife. Next week will be our off week for lessons and James will be working on building a birdhouse and he'll be learning about one animal that has become extinct in the last 100 years.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. William Yeats