Phew! Another busy week! Glad that one is over. Too much running around and too many extra activities this week. So let's see how we did:
Chunky Monkey discovered how to climb out of his crib - or more appropriately, learned that he can fall out of his crib when he is trying to climb out :( Fortunately he wasn't hurt and hopefully it scared him enough not to try it again! However, the playpens were another story. He was trying all week to climb out of them so I packed them up and put them away. The rooms they were in look so much more spacious now! This little guy does NOT sit still for very long.....although I did notice that he really enjoyed playing with his toys this week - for longer than 5 minutes.
Hug-A-Bug was so motivated once again this week! He is just flying through his work and asking for more! He finished up Little Angel Reader, Level A this week and wants to start Spelling Workout Level A next week so why not!
His printing showed a huge improvement this week. I switched him from those big red pencils (with a gripper) to a regular pencil (with no gripper) and his printing was so much better!!
The trouble is that he isn't holding the pencil properly, and he is getting lazy in the letter formation and needs reminders on which strokes to do first and how to do them. He also finished his Nate the Great book in just one day!
Miss Muffet went to the symphony on Tuesday morning. I think she was more excited to spend time with her friends than she was about the actual performance! We didn't get to review as much of the grammar as I would have liked this week (my fault - too busy with my PT work) - so it is on the list for next week again. She did manage to finish up her science unit on The World of Vertebrates and did well on her test. And she is on Lesson #43 for her math. The C rods arrived last week and I am trying to figure out a way to incorporate these into her lessons. Miss Muffet spent a LOT of time this week working independently and I'm not sure it was a success. She wants to do the work on her own but she still needs my help, even though she doesn't like to admit it. She finished up book #3 in The Boxcar Children series and is LOVING these books. Apparently there are 120+ books in this series and she is on a mission to read them all!!
Mr R also attended the symphony this week, and much like his sister, seemed to have more interest in the social part of the day and not necessarily the music! Good thing the tickets were at a huge discount. We are trying the new way of checking Mr R's math - which is not correcting any of the mistakes in his day-to-day work. Not sure if this is working yet or not - he has a test on Monday so we will see how he does. He is really enjoying the VP NTGR history course - and the literature that goes along with it. This week he was reading A Triumph for Flavius (just finished Lesson #40) as his directed reading and he just started The Cricket in Times Square as his free reading. I don't think I can keep up with him on all these books! French is going well and I think we should be finishing up Level 1 of LÁrt de Lire in the next couple of weeks. We are behind in French since technically we should be in Level 3 (Grade 5) this year but I'm pretty happy with his progress in both French & Latin - and he should have no trouble getting to the end of Level 3 by next Spring.
Mom flying solo & having lunch with the kids at one of our favourite restaurants in the USA.
All in all - they did accomplish quite a bit this week considering that we had a trip to the symphony on Tuesday, a trip across the border for some shopping & lunch on Wednesday, and lots of household chores on Friday to prepare for our friends staying over on Friday night.
A few things for next week;
I am a little concerned about the VP history courses that they are doing. On the WTM forums this week, there was some discussion that VP has an anti-catholic slant on their materials (??). I'm quite concerned about it and plan to dig deeper. The kids haven't said anything to me about any of the material (and I'm not sure if it would be that obvious of a bias that they would realize??) but I need to figure this out.
I've decided to add Poetry to their daily subjects beginning next week. It is one area that I think is very valuable & that we really should be doing, but I've always had an excuse for not tackling. Well enough excuses, we will spend 5 minutes each day memorizing a poem and hopefully be able to recite it for Dad on Friday evening. Here is what we are trying this upcoming week;
Mr R: The Arrow & The Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Miss Muffet: The Violet by Jane Taylor
Hug-A-Bug: The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay
Next week is a stay-home-and-hunker-down kinda week. It has been a long time since we've done a proper 5 day school week around here. We need to get back on track.