This Just In: The Weekly Bulletin

It feels like this week went by very quickly. We did well, though, accomplishing pretty much everything on my lesson plan with a minimum of fuss and bother.

Here’s the day-by-day rundown:

Monday
RobotBoy dived into the second segment of his math class with a lesson introducing ratios. We’re trying having me read over each lesson with him and do a bit more hand-holding while he works the practice problems (which basically means making sure he actually does all the practice problems) before turning him loose to do the assessment on his own. I'm hoping this will encourage him to give more time and attention to the lessons and result in better retention. It seems to be working well, and he’s off to a strong start for the second half of the course. He read a few pages of Earth’s Waters and then worked on typing definitions for his science center class coming up on Wednesday. Next, he read a short book on Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with electricity and a couple of pages in History of the World: Revolution and Conflict about the beginnings of the United States. Over lunch, he watched the first half hour of a three-hour DVD biography about Thomas Jefferson. He was appalled to find out that Mr. “All Men Are Created Equal” was a slaveowner, so we had a conversation about the necessity of evaluating every person as a product of his or her time. It was back to Minimus Secundus for Latin this week, with a reading about the Roman army. His “Theme to Remember” for this week is Handel’s Water Music (which he likes, but isn’t nearly as big a hit as Tocatta & Fugue). Then it was out the door for his piano lesson (and to drive uptown for the drum lesson we didn’t know had been cancelled).

Tuesday
We started the day with reading a chapter of Great Expectations over breakfast. Then we moved to the office/schoolroom for a math lesson about equivalent ratios and unit ratios. RobotBoy, again, did very well. After that, we tackled the first writing assignment in his new English book (which I was rather dreading, since writing so often seems to be a source of conflict and tension). We’ve decided to try letting him type out all of his rough drafts, which should make it easier for him to make corrections. Then, once I’ve approved the final draft, he will write out a good copy by hand. This is in deference to my agreement with him that I will require less handwriting this year, but that what he does write must be of high quality. Since both of this chapter’s readings were about food, he chose to write about making pasta sauce (his favorite food). We went through a couple of rounds of writing and corrections, but I was actually quite pleased with how little ink I needed to spill on his pages. He worked on some more science class definitions and did the worksheet requiring him to label the parts of a cell, then read If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution. He practiced the Handel snipped and then finished the day by translating a picture story from Secundus before we ran out to his ballet class.

Wednesday
Despite my repeated encouragement to get them done in small chunks, RobotBoy left a long list of science vocabulary words to finish up on Wednesday morning. He got them done and printed out neatly pretty much just in time to leave for his class. They learned about plants during class time, and came home with yet more vocabulary words to define and an assigned essay on the question of whether a mushroom is a plant. We finished out the day with another ballet class, then headed for home. Inspired by the Hoobler books he read in the first couple of weeks of school, he has decided to dress as a samurai for Halloween this year. So, he spent the hour or so before bedtime searching online for pictures from which we can draw inspiration.

Thursday
RobotBoy was up bright and early and back on the computer searching for samurai before breakfast. I pulled him away to eat and listen to me read aloud the next chapter of Great Expectations. Next came the morning’s math lesson, introducing proportions. We then went over the first set of grammar and punctuation exercises in the English text orally. For Latin, he reviewed the picture story he had translated on Tuesday and typed the new vocabulary words into his glossary, then did an activity sheet about the contents of Julius’s backpack. He read a couple of pages in his Human Body book, then took a break and watched a big chunk of the Jefferson DVD. His last bit of desk work for the day was a Spanish exercise (which he had to do twice to get completely correct). Then we drove uptown (again) for choir practice.

Friday
Today in math he learned about “within” and “between” relationships in proportion and about scaling. He grasped these concepts easily and well and should end up with a near-perfect score for the week’s assignments. He decided to tackle writing out the final copy of his English assignment next, but to work on it two sentences at a time in between other work. (I told you he hates to write.)


We went over the Grasp the Grammar and Latin Roots in Secundus together orally, after which he retired to his bedroom to read from the Revolution News and Learning Through History: The French Revolution. Neither of them got read terribly carefully, apparently, and I had to send him back to re-read sections when he was unable to answer any questions about them. Eventually, though, he got through them and seemed to absorb a reasonable amount. He followed up with “America Gets Rid of Her King” from the Child’s History of the World CD, then practiced Handel’s Water Music one more time. One more Spanish ejercicio finished up the deskwork for the day (and the week). As I type this, he is watching the last 30 minutes of the Jefferson biography before we head out for his back-to-back-to-back dance classes. He is planning to finish up his reading (the first several chapters of The Keeping Room) in the car.

By the way, we’re experimenting this week with finding a place in the routine for regular instrument practice. He used to do 30 minutes per day, last thing each day, alternating piano and drum. However, we’ve found that anything he leaves until last doesn’t get done either regularly or well. So, we’re working together to find a better time. We tried having him do it in the morning while I’m making breakfast, but he’s kind of a slow starter and doesn’t really focus on anything until he has eaten. The best plan we’ve come up with so far is to have him practice in the middle of the day, after he has finished math and at least one other subject. My routine is to take our guinea pigs out to play on the patio at about 11:00 each day, so today we had him do his practice during that time. He grumbled, but did it. So, I think we’ll keep it there for now and see how it goes.

Until next week . . .