Half-way to the Holiday Break

It’s been another busy week, catching up and trying to get back into the groove following our road trip earlier this month. I’m already starting feel pressure from the approach of the holiday madness that always begins right around Halloween. But we did manage to finish almost everything on the lesson plans for this week, so I’m feeling good.

Just for the sake of mixing things up a bit, I think we’ll do a day-by-day rundown this week.

Monday:
We took a break from Great Expectations in favor of reading two Washington Irving stories and some Edgar Allan Poe. It was awfully convenient that these two authors came up chronologically just in time for Halloween, huh? We started on Monday with “Rip Van Winkle” over breakfast. RobotBoy started his desk work with a math lesson on standard and metric units of measure. We then went over the lesson in English Prep about question marks and did the first exercise together orally. He also chose a topic for his writing assignment. (More on that later.) He translated the week’s picture story in Secundus and did a couple of ejercicios in The Learnables. The rest of the day was all music. He sang through Haydn’s “Symphony #94,” then went to his piano lesson and drum practice. On the way home, we made a quick stop at the library to pick up two of the books recommended for the English writing assignment.

Tuesday:
At breakfast, we read about the first half of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” after which RobotBoy tackled another math lesson on units of measure. This one took pretty much all morning, since it involved a series of “E-M-E” activities. This is a technique that requires students to estimate the size of one item, then measure it, then use that experience to estimate the size of a second, usually larger, item. He had two of these activities each for length, area, volume, capacity and weight. And each one required him to go through the process using both standard and metric measurements. He had a lovely time making all kinds of messes in the kitchen filling various containers (and the entire kitchen sink) with water and running all over the house measuring things. And I’m sure he learned a lot. But, oh boy, it took a huge bite out of our day. Once he finally finished with that, he did started reading the book he chose to read in order to complete the English writing assignment he had selected on Monday. He also read in his Human Body book about joints and muscles (of special interest at the moment, since he’s working hard in ballet to improve his turnout). He then worked for a while on his homework for the science center class (which he neglected until the last minute again) and did some more Spanish before we had to leave for ballet class.

Wednesday:
RobotBoy was up bright and early and already at the computer typing when I got up, frantically trying to finish his science class homework. He made it, just barely, and we headed out just about on time. Only after we were too far from home to go back did we realize he had forgotten to pack his tights for that evening’s ballet class. (Sigh.) So, I got him settled in class and went to the dance supply store, reasoning that it was closer than going all the way home and he needed another pair of tights, anyway, and they had called me the week before to let me know that the shirts I ordered had arrived. This was the final week of the biology series, and they focused on the human body. After class, we scrounged for dinner at the mall food court, then went to the second ballet class of the week.

Thursday:
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” concluded over breakfast (well, just after, since we were close enough to the end that we lingered until we finished reading). The day’s math lesson was on converting measurements (within systems). RobotBoy practiced converting ounces to pounds, inches to feet, feet to yards, etc. He also practiced converting from larger to smaller metric units, and the other way around. He watched the Famous Composers: Joseph Haydn DVD over lunch. He then read Diane Stanley’s Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations and read the story about Dickens in Lives of the Writers. He read some more about food webs in his Marine Science workbook and did the associated worksheet. He wrapped up the day by attending choir practice that afternoon.

Friday:
Continuing our spooky literature trend of the week, we read aloud Poe’s “The Raven” over breakfast and had a lot of fun squawking “Nevermore” at each other for some time thereafter. The final math lesson of the week required him to read some articles about whether the U.S. should switch to the metric system and then do another “out-of-seat” activity. This time, he had to pull a bunch of packages out of our pantry and document whether they were marked with standard or metric measurements, or both. It turned out to be a fairly boring assignment, since everything we could find had both types of measurements. He moved on from there to finishing his Secundus assignments for the week, adding new vocabulary to his word bank and doing the Grasp the Grammar exercise with me. Then he settled onto the couch with a snack and finished his history reading: a few pages from History of the World: Revolution and Conflict about the late 1800s; entries on Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and James Knox Polk in Time for Learning: Presidents; and three articles in Learning Through History: The Victorian Era. He seemed especially impressed by the article about Florence Nightingale. He read about musical forms of the Classical era and the symphony orchestra seating plan in Themes to Remember and practiced singing the week’s musical selection, which left us just enough time to finish the grammar exercises for the week in English Prep. He had a quick, early dinner, and we set out for his trio of dance classes.

So, did you notice what didn’t get done? Remember way back on Monday when we went to the library and then he started reading the book on Tuesday? Did you notice how I never mentioned it again? Yes. I noticed, too. See, what happened was this: I told him to choose one of the topics suggested in the book to write about. He insisted he wanted to do the one that involved reading one of the books on the “Have You Read?” list. I reminded him that the assignment was supposed to be finished within the week. He was so enthusiastic, though, that I eventually agreed he could have until the end of next week to do the actual writing, as long as he read the book this week. Well, we all know how that went. So, I have now decreed that he must choose a different topic and do the writing assignment on top of his regular assignments for next week, on penalty of losing fun TV and computer gaming. That usually does the trick.

In other news, we’re in full Halloween costume-making mode this weekend. The samurai costume is coming along nicely, although these things always turn out to be more work than I anticipate.

And tomorrow is RobotBoy’s big debut with his new choir. They are singing alongside a choir visiting from England for the service at the Cathedral tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to see him all angelic in his vestments . . . complete with neck ruff!