Almost Caught Up

Okay, I admit I had to stare at the monitor and think for a few minutes to come up with a positive title for this week. Nothing is really “wrong.” I’m just having one of those weeks when my heart isn’t in it, you know? And RobotBoy is already showing signs of coming down with Holiday-it is and looking for every opportunity to slack off and get out of doing anything that looks like real work. It’s not a good combination.

Despite that, however, we did make real progress this week.

Math:
He has finally, officially caught up in his online math class. (Yay!) And, after seeing his grade drop following that one really disastrous module exam, he’s been really good about being more careful and picking up all the points on every daily assignment. It helps, too, that this module is about geometry, which comes very easily to him. He took the mid-module quiz today and earned a 90%. Combined with the good daily work, he’s now back to earning an ‘A’ for the course. (Again, yay!)

History & Literature:
Again, we slacked on Great Expectations this week. I think this mostly has to do with my making the mistake of buying RobotBoy the new Peter Pan prequel, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. He’s absolutely bonkers about these books, reads and re-reads them, and he just resents any other reading that infringes on his attention. We got through three or four chapters, but we’re still way behind my goals for this week. If we don’t catch up before our holiday break, I guess we’ll just have to continue then.

We did read some more poetry, several short, child-friendly pieces by Christina Rosetti. And we talked about how stressed and unstressed syllables make rhythm and about rhyme schemes. He really eats this stuff with a spoon. So, I pulled an old middle school textbook off the shelf and skimmed through their poetry unit to see what other concepts we might cover this year. He also read “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” in preparation for going to see a production at a local theatre this weekend. He’s supposed to be almost 1/3 of the way through Rifles for Watie, too, but as of this afternoon he was only about 70 pages into it. He says it’s picking up and getting more interesting now, so he should be able to catch up this weekend.

And, of course, he’s continuing to read from his assorted history books, and he’s watching a two-hour documentary about the California Gold Rush.

English:
It was a writing week. RobotBoy chose to write a paragraph about his impressions of “The Elephant’s Child.” He stalled the actual writing until Thursday, but blew through it and produced an acceptable paragraph on his first attempt. We also did the grammar exercises about commas in lists.

Science:
In addition to his regular reading from the assorted science books and a couple of marine science worksheets, RobotBoy went to his first meeting of the four-session physics class at the science museum. He seemed to have a good time and is looking forward to the next class.

Latin:
That leftover Secundus vocabulary finally got done over the weekend. (Yet another small yay!) And this week, he had all the vocabulary typed by Friday afternoon. He also translated the picture story and did the Grasp the Grammar page aloud with me.

Spanish:
Perfect scores on all ejercicios this week! I think that deserves a big YAY!

Music:
Piano practice is still a sore point. He goes to the piano without a whole lot of grumbling when I remind him, but it doesn’t sound like enough “practice” is getting done. He spends at least as much time calling out for me to listen and talking about what he’s doing as he devotes to actually doing it. Still, I’m trying to focus on the fact that he is playing almost every day. And he admitted that both he and his teacher could tell how much better he did at this week’s lesson just as a result of the practice he did manage. So, again, progress. (I can’t quite muster a yay for that one, though. Maybe next week.) Meanwhile, he continues to enjoy Themes to Remember. This week, he worked on Mozart’s Concerto No. 21.

Oh, and we did a musical field trip this week. The big Episcopal cathedral downtown offers a series of free lunchtime mini-concerts. I always mean to attend more of them than we do. This week, though, was a recital by the assistant organist on their enormous pipe organ, which RobotBoy just adores. So, we made the effort to get out the door for that one.

Butterfly Update:
Sad news on this front, unfortunately. We were extremely excited to find one of the butterflies hatching this afternoon. After a long struggle, though, he seems unable to free one of his wings from the chrysalis. I went against my better judgment and tried to help him along, but it doesn’t look good. We finally decided to let nature try and resolve the situation, and last time we looked, he was not where we had last seen him. I’m not sure what this means, and we’ve decided to hope for the best. I assume the other one should be ready to emerge in a few more days. We’re keeping our fingers crossed he does better.

And now, we’re off to the weekly 3.5-hour marathon at the dance school. Fortunately, I went to the craft store yesterday and acquired materials for a couple of small projects I can take on the road. So, with my craft bag and the MP3 player, it shouldn’t be too bad an evening. (Maybe just one more tiny yay?)