Mom woke up Monday morning with a nasty case of pink eye. Fortunately I was able to get into the doctor that afternoon but oh my gosh - going to the doctor with 3 little kids.......I definitely don't recommend it. Mr R stayed home so that he wouldn't miss his piano lesson, and Miss Muffet & Hug-a-Bug brought their DS games to play but Chunky Monkey was all over the place. He was trying to open cupboards, touching the garbage containers (gross), climbing everywhere. I could not get him to sit still!!! I know the Dr was running way behind schedule but I think that the nurse took pity on me and got us in more quickly :)
That same afternoon, Miss Muffet's desk for her room was delivered! We didn't tell her it was coming that day so she was very surprised when the doorbell rang. Unfortunately the hutch was damaged so we will have to wait a while for the replacement to arrive but in the meantime at least we have the desk! The funny thing is that they were all more interested in playing with the BIG box it came in, than in the actual desk itself!! I thought that playing with boxes was more for the younger years, but evidently the older kids have fun with them too! They spent hours playing in this box in the garage.
Daylight Savings Time threw all of us out of whack this week - but in the most pleasantly surprising way. Mr R was up by 7am every morning and working away on his schoolwork, completely motivated, and completely independent. Most of the days, his work was done by 9am! And he even wanted to do some subjects in the evening so he could be ahead for the following day. I was so impressed, and told him so. That seemed to further motivate him and he was just a machine getting through his work for the rest of the week.
He finished reading the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths - which was a literary supplement to his VP history class. And has been working on memorizing the Latin verbs, SPECTO & SUM in addition to the 10 commandments. Grammar & writing were pretty light this week and he has asked to start IEW again, so I need to figure out how to schedule that since it is pretty teacher-intensive.
We are on pace for math with Mr R completing lesson #26 this week but scoring just 15/20 on his math test. He doesn't think it is important to show his work - even with daily reminders and then he makes silly mistakes that result in a really low score on his tests! It isn't that he doesn't understand the concepts, he just tries to do it all in his head! I need to figure out a way to get through to him on the "show your work" issue. If you have any ideas, I am all ears!
I think the highlight of his week was the science experiment he did on evaluating the presence of starch in various foods by using Lugol's Solution (iodine). It was really exciting to see him develop his hypothesis and then test it out. We are just starting to work on the scientific method and learning how to properly set up our experiments, record our materials & observations, and then summarize the findings and conclusion.
Inspired by her big brother, Miss Muffet also started getting up early and working on her schoolwork. In the past few weeks, I found that she needed a lot more help in math so I was spending more time with her but this week - she did not need me at all! She did all of her work independently. She finished up Lesson #40 in math and will have a test on Monday so we will see if this independence was a good thing or not. Writing was a little challenging this week. It was all about similies and metaphors and she was struggling to remember the difference and how to use them properly. I think we will spend some more time on this next week before moving on.
Hug-a-Bug had a good week, even though he spent the entire day Wednesday in bed. Poor guy even slept for 3 hours that afternoon! He was back to his usual self on Thursday though and even managed to do 2 days worth of work in just one day! He & Chunky Monkey loved that the older 2 got their work done so quickly - it meant they had more time to play this week!
And speaking of Chunky Monkey - he actually sat still for a few minutes and watched a little bit of a video. Hi-5 was a big hit here with Miss Muffet & Hug-a-Bug when they were toddlers so it looks like a winner with him as well!
The best day was Friday - Miss Muffet's 8th birthday!! Hug-a-Bug was so sweet and started her day off by serving her breakfast in bed (he did it the day before as well thinking that her birthday was Thursday!) - so sweet.
And as is the usual birthday tradition, the kids all piled into mom & dad's bed for present opening before breakfast :)
We finished the day by going out for dinner and celebrating with family at home after.
Happy 8th Birthday Miss Muffet :)
We also took some time to remember & pray for all of those men, women (& their families) who have made and continue to make such tremendous sacrifices in order for us to live in the land of the free, and home of the brave.
We honour and remember them.
11-11-11
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