Weekly Report # 3


This week went pretty well, except for a few minor glitches. Our schedule gets thrown off for the day when Father sleeps in and leaves later for work. Benefits of having your own business with employees who open the shop for the day. We usually start lessons as soon as he leaves. But when he doesn't get out of here until 11:30 or so, we just hold off until after lunch. Sometimes this works. Other times, I swear James brain has left the building. Hello? Anyone home?

Faith, Character and Catechism: Father and James read two more chapter in Boyhood and Beyond: Ch 5 A man and Ch 6 Be of Good Cheer.

"There is not a set day when you become a man. It's not a matter of age. Manhood is built within you little by little. Each time you accept one of life's responsibilities as your own, you take a step toward manhood... Each time you claim some task as your own, you advance toward manhood. When you begin to see the needs of others and feel the urge to meet those needs, you're becoming a man. When you develop a useful skill, gain wisdom, or protect someone that is weak, you are moving toward your life's purpose." pg 42

"Get to know the truth. Refuse to let yourself become discouraged. Let God's cheerful Spirit rule your heart. Life is full of hope. If you find yourself sliding into discouragement or into a sour attitude, know for sure you are listening to some form of lie. Go back to the truth and believe it." pg 49


We completed Lesson 3 Unity and Trinity in St Joseph's Baltimore Catechism, Chapter 3 Creation of Man in Bible History and read Matthew 3:3 John leads the way in Adventure Bible.

Voyages in English: Chapter one Personal Narratives. Lessons two covered Introductions, body and conclusion and we focused on subjects and predicates. Homework I gave to James to complete on daddy day was pretty simple: Think of something you made recently, like the birdhouse, and list as many details as possible about the experience. Then write a conclusion to the personal narrative about the experience.

I'll spare you the list, but his conclusion was great: "It saves the birds from the cat's grinding jaws."

Wordly Wise: I'm not liking it and neither is James. Shelving it for now.

Spelling Workout D: Lesson 2 Short Vowel Sounds. Scored 18 out of 20 on the spelling test. Two words going into the word locker for more practice next week - adopt and pencil.

Writing with Ease: Will pick this back up next week. Janet from Across the Page wrote up an excellent post spotlighting WWE this week. Well worth checking it out.

Saxon Math: Moving right along and though it seems a bit easy for James, the repetition is great. May end up moving a bit faster and doing two lessons at a time.

Exploring the World of Physics: The guys read and worked on Chapter Two - The Laws of Motion. Father says it is challenging and James is getting it. He covered the math equations presented in the chapter on the laws of motion. Pretty advanced stuff, but its all going into James head. He scored 100% on the questions at the end of the chapter with a bit of help from Father. When I got home from work and quizzed him, he answered the questions correctly. I'm impressed. Want James to learn more about Isaac Newton. Shelved Tiner's biography of Isaac Newton. Found it to be a bit too depressing and wasn't enjoying reading it. Picked up "Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities" by Kerrie Logan Hollihan. It is much more detailing, interesting, positive and has some interesting activities to do such as making your own waterwheel and making your ink.

History: Read Chapter 27: How Quakers first came to New England. Interesting, because I either didn't learn this part or had forgotten how hated the Quakers were and the attempts to get rid of them.

Lively Latin: Still haven't actually started any lessons as of yet. Read a bit more about the mysterious french connection and picked a latin name for James. He picked Titus. I picked Scribonia for the fun of it. But when a certain party who will remain nameless said Scribonia sounded like screw bony, I decided against it. Maybe I'll just skip the latin name. :)

Artistic Pursuits: Completed Unit 1 all about Space. Learned all about vertical and horizontal spacing. About artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze with a bit of history about General Washington thrown in. We tried free drawing from a photograph that I forgot to pick in advance, so was scrambling to find something to draw. James chose to draw a lightsaber from a picture on front of one of his movies. I drew a flower from a photograph in Woman's day magazine. And no you don't get to see it. Both our attempts were quite amusing.

Picked up some additional books this week - now we just have to find the time to read them.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like another great week for James. What is Wordly Wise??? I loved his conclusion in regards to the necessity of birdhouses!! Very cute!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like another great week! We also read Bard of Avon this week!

    ReplyDelete
  3. By way of introduction, I am a retired Saxon high school math teacher and former Saxon homeschool curriculum director.

    Before you start doing two lessons a day or some other derivation to speed up the process, please email me a telephone number and I will call you on my dime.

    If the Math 54 book is that easy, it is either the older first edition or he is ready for another level book and there are several ways to determine that.

    Since he is already in a Saxon book, the on-line placement test would only give him false test results as it was designed to place a non-Saxon student into the correct level Saxon math book.

    Please feel free to visit my website and read my monthly newsletters.

    Thanks for your time and whatever you decide, good luck!

    Art Reed
    www.usingsaxon.com

    ReplyDelete

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