Where Am I This Week?

So, am I still part of the Weekly Reporters club if I miss two weeks? What about if I have a really good excuse?

Well, let’s just forge ahead, shall we?

The last couple of weeks have been very busy. I had to make two round trips to Virginia to bring Moonheart home for Thanksgiving and then deposit her back at her dorm. And RobotBoy is deep into Nutcracker rehearsals and preparations. In fact, we are spending much of today getting ourselves ready to be away for a full weekend of performances in another city. At the last minute, I decided that it was pretty crazy to bus back and forth (a three- or four-hour round trip) every day and just booked us a motel room for the weekend. When we return, I should just about have time to catch my breath before I take to the road one more time to bring Moonheart home for her holiday break.

And, of course, right in the midst of it all, we had several days of internet connection trouble.

Nonetheless, we are managing to keep making progress academically. Here’s a quick run-down of what RobotBoy has accomplished in the last couple of weeks:

Math:
He has just about finished the geometry module and continues to do very well. On the oral component of the module exam, he earned 100% of the available points. Now, he is just waiting for a few of the lessons he’s already submitted to be graded in order to be sure there is nothing else he needs to review before taking the online assessment.

History & Literature:
We have finally gotten back to regular reading of Great Expectations. We’re still behind where I had planned to be by now, but will just have to continue reading over the holiday break in order to catch up. RobotBoy finished reading Rifles for Watie just this morning, and has already started on The Red Badge of Courage. Sometime today, he will also read A Day That Changed America: Gettysburg. And, as I type, he is watching the last half hour of an A&E documentary called Abraham Lincoln: Preserving the Union.

One nice side effect of all the Virginia to-ing and from-ing is that we managed a field trip to the Fort Sumter National Monument. It was perfect timing, since RobotBoy has been reading about the Civil War. It was very interesting and well worth the 45-minute detour. RobotBoy’s writing assignment for next week will be to choose a few of the many photos I took and use them as writing prompts.


As a fun extra, we’ve been listening to the Chronicles of Narnia on CD during all of our driving. RobotBoy read the whole series a couple of years ago, but I had planned to have him re-read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe this year as a prelude to attending a stage adaptation later this year. I happened to find the full series, unabridged, on CD a few weeks ago, though, which has proven a really fun way to pass time on the road. So, I’m now pondering options to substitute for LWW later this year. Given RobotBoy’s obsession with the Barry/Pearson Peter Pan series, I’m thinking the original novel might be a nice possibility.

English:
We’re continuing to like Galore Park’s English Prep. We took last week off while we were on the road and celebrating Thanksgiving, but got back to work this week with the reading and comprehension exercises.

Science:
We rushed back from Virginia in order to make sure RobotBoy made it to the second session of the Physics class, which he’s enjoying very much. Meanwhile, he continues to read through his human body and marine science books at home.

Latin:
Since I last wrote, he has finished Chapter 4 of Minimus Secundus and did the chapter on Daudalus and Icarus in Learning Latin Through Mythology. In addition to the regular worksheets and exercises, he particularly enjoyed drawing a picture showing how he would escape from an island if he had on-hand only one wheel, a ball of string, some chewing gum and some logs harvested from a nearby forest. He even consented to write a paragraph describing his plan.

Spanish:
Yet more perfect ejercicios. He’s doing so well with this program that I floated the idea of speeding up a bit next year. However, he is pretty vocal about maintaining his current pace and making sure he has time to really learn the material.

Music:
Piano practice is happening on a somewhat more regular basis these days. Of course, between the holiday and our time on the road, he’s missed his lesson the last two weeks . . . Ah well, we’ll get back on track eventually.

Meanwhile, he’s been reviewing his Themes to Remember pieces, and I’m very pleased with how much he remembers.

Well, that’s the whirlwind version of the last couple of weeks. It’s not exciting, but I’m actually fairly pleased with how well we’re chugging along, given everything else that is going on in our lives.

And now, I’m off to finish the packing and preparations.