Well, RobotBoy continues to be absorbed by the opera project. This week, he's been in rehearsals most days from 10:00 or 11:00 until 5:30 or 6:00. We've spent a few nights in the on-site accommodations in order to cut down on the driving, but he's so busy and tired that it's been a real challenge to get him to focus on much schoolwork.
Here's what we've managed to get done this week.
Math:
He completed the exam for the last module on Tuesday (and earned a 92% -- yay!). On Wednesday, he made some corrections to previously submitted lessons and started reviewing for the semester exam. He connected with the teacher long enough to get through about half of the oral quiz during his lunch break on Thursday, and they agreed to finish up during the break on Friday. He also did a bit more exam review before rehearsals started on Friday. At this point, it looks like he'll have to do the online portion of the semester exam over the weekend.
History and Literature:
Nothing to speak of, unfortunately. He is supposed to finish Dragon's Gate this week, and I'm hopeful that will happen at some point during our driving. He's just so obsessed with that Garth Nix series, though, that it's extremely difficult to get him to read anything else. (Last time I checked, he was about half-way through Sir Thursday, the fourth book in the series.) He did spend some time with the rest of the cast looking at pictures of rural Maine in 1914. Does that count?
English:
We read the grammar notes on making adjectives from nouns and on hyphens and did the accompanying exercises.
Science:
He's slowly working his way through the rest of the Earth's Waters chapter 2 review. He read about arteries, veins and capillaries in the Human Body book and watched a Bill Nye episode about insects. We're also taking advantage of the fact that we're staying in a nature preserve by walking the trails and reading all of the signs about the flora and fauna here.
Latin:
I left the Secundus activity sheets at home, unfortunately. However, RobotBoy has otherwise prety much kept up. He translated the week's picutre story, read the Roman Report about Saturnalia and did the Latin Roots and both Grasp the Grammar exercises.
Spanish:
He's done pretty well with this, too, probably because it is so well suited to getting done in the car. He did four ejercicios over two pages and is almost caght up for the week.
I think that's about it, in terms of formal academics for the week. We did survive our camping trip last weekend and had a good time, despite rain, unusually cold temperatures (for Florida) and even a tornado warning on Saturday night. One thing to be said for camping with a choir group: The singing around the campfire is unusully good!
RobotBoy had to skip piano, drama and choir this week, and he will likely make it to only two out of his five dance classes. It seems to be worth it, though, since he says working on this project has been pretty close to "heaven."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
A New Project
And, no, it's not an academic project, but another theatrical experience.
RobotBoy has been cast to help "workshop" a new opera. The piece has been in development for several years, led by a team from New York. However, they are now in residence for about two and a half weeks at an arts center not too far from our home. There is a part in the piece for a nine-year-old boy, and they opted to cast someone local. They took on RobotBoy based on the recommendation of someone who knows him from other things he's done in the area.
So, here we are, in this gorgeous setting. The center is located inside a nature preserve, with facilities for pretty much every kind of creative endeavor tucked among the palmettos and wax myrtles. We have a private room set aside for us for the nights when we want to stay over or just to hang out in comfortably between rehearsals. It's peaceful and so beautiful. And RobotBoy is having an incredible experience working with professional singers and the composer and librettist of the piece.
The only downside? Well, not much school is getting done.
We did manage relatively normal days Monday and Tuesday, and I "gently encouraged" RobotBoy to do some work on what would normally have been a free Wendesday. But from Wednesday evening on, we've been either at the arts center or on the road there and back.
Actually, I'm typing this on one of their computers while waiting for RobotBoy to come out of a rehearsal. So, I'll have to rely on memory to try and recap what we did this week.
Math:
He completed four lessons this week and is now perilously close to finishing the FLVS course. All that's left are the module exam, the final oral exam and the semester exam. He has simply aced this last module, which has been about charts and graphs and probablity. I'd really like him to maintain the current grade, though. So, I've encouraged him to hold off of the tests until he's better rested and able to focus. We're hoping to finish those up by the middle of next week. After that, it's on to Painless Algebra.
History/Literature:
All I can remember him doing on this front this week is continuing to read Dragon's Gate. He has been reading quite a lot for fun in the car and in other spare moments. He zoomed through the fourth of Dorothy Hoobler's samurai novels, A Samurai Never Fears Death, and one and a half of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series. He's also very much enjoying listening to Five Children and It (courtesty of LibriVox) on the mp3 player her got for Christmas. They all, I suppose, technically fit our modern history timeline. Right? Oh, and we did read a couple more chapters of Great Expectations. RobotBoy has gotten much more interested in the story again now that the mysterious benefactor has made himself known.
English:
Hmm. Well, he's supposed to be writing an essay about theatre this week. We did some brainstorming, and he wrote the outline, but I guess that's something else we'll have to catch up on next week.
Science:
It was another fairly low-key week for science. RobotBoy read from The Human Body and Earth's Waters, watched a couple of Bill Nye episodes and did part of the Earth's Waters Chapter 2 Review.
Latin:
It was back to Minimus Secundus this week, Chapter 6 (I think) about Saturnalia. He got as far as translating the picture story before or routine broke down.
Spanish:
I'm pretty sure he did a couple of pages of ejercios Monday and Tuesday?
I don't think he touched Themes to Remember, so poor old Schubert will have to wait in line. However, given that he's spending two or more weeks working on an opera, I guess he's not exactly "falling behind?"
He did make it to his piano lesson, during which he happily started his new Level 3 book. He also made it to ballet on Tuesday and choir rehearsal on Thursday. And on Monday evening, he attended the first rehearsal/class for the junior production of Pirates of Penzance. He will be playing Samuel, whom the director describes and the Pirate King's "second in command." He has loved Gilbert and Sullivan in general, and this show in particular, for a few years. So, I'm sure he'll have a grand time.
And you know what just occured to me? Gilbert and Sullivan fit into our modern world history era for this year. Bonus! (That's what we call a "two-fer" around here: When something fun that we'd probably do anytway just happens to justify academic credit.)
I'm sure I'd be even more excited about that were it not for the knowledge hanging over my head (like the heavy clouds in the sky) that after we finish here for the day we're off to spend the weekend camping with RobotBoy's choir. We got all kinds of camping equipment for Christmas, so we're well prepared. And RobotBoy is pretty excited. Now all we have to do is cross our fingers that the rain and thunderstorms predicted for tonight and tomorrow don't wash us and all our equipment away . . .
Or that we don't get attacked by bears . . .
RobotBoy has been cast to help "workshop" a new opera. The piece has been in development for several years, led by a team from New York. However, they are now in residence for about two and a half weeks at an arts center not too far from our home. There is a part in the piece for a nine-year-old boy, and they opted to cast someone local. They took on RobotBoy based on the recommendation of someone who knows him from other things he's done in the area.
So, here we are, in this gorgeous setting. The center is located inside a nature preserve, with facilities for pretty much every kind of creative endeavor tucked among the palmettos and wax myrtles. We have a private room set aside for us for the nights when we want to stay over or just to hang out in comfortably between rehearsals. It's peaceful and so beautiful. And RobotBoy is having an incredible experience working with professional singers and the composer and librettist of the piece.
The only downside? Well, not much school is getting done.
We did manage relatively normal days Monday and Tuesday, and I "gently encouraged" RobotBoy to do some work on what would normally have been a free Wendesday. But from Wednesday evening on, we've been either at the arts center or on the road there and back.
Actually, I'm typing this on one of their computers while waiting for RobotBoy to come out of a rehearsal. So, I'll have to rely on memory to try and recap what we did this week.
Math:
He completed four lessons this week and is now perilously close to finishing the FLVS course. All that's left are the module exam, the final oral exam and the semester exam. He has simply aced this last module, which has been about charts and graphs and probablity. I'd really like him to maintain the current grade, though. So, I've encouraged him to hold off of the tests until he's better rested and able to focus. We're hoping to finish those up by the middle of next week. After that, it's on to Painless Algebra.
History/Literature:
All I can remember him doing on this front this week is continuing to read Dragon's Gate. He has been reading quite a lot for fun in the car and in other spare moments. He zoomed through the fourth of Dorothy Hoobler's samurai novels, A Samurai Never Fears Death, and one and a half of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series. He's also very much enjoying listening to Five Children and It (courtesty of LibriVox) on the mp3 player her got for Christmas. They all, I suppose, technically fit our modern history timeline. Right? Oh, and we did read a couple more chapters of Great Expectations. RobotBoy has gotten much more interested in the story again now that the mysterious benefactor has made himself known.
English:
Hmm. Well, he's supposed to be writing an essay about theatre this week. We did some brainstorming, and he wrote the outline, but I guess that's something else we'll have to catch up on next week.
Science:
It was another fairly low-key week for science. RobotBoy read from The Human Body and Earth's Waters, watched a couple of Bill Nye episodes and did part of the Earth's Waters Chapter 2 Review.
Latin:
It was back to Minimus Secundus this week, Chapter 6 (I think) about Saturnalia. He got as far as translating the picture story before or routine broke down.
Spanish:
I'm pretty sure he did a couple of pages of ejercios Monday and Tuesday?
I don't think he touched Themes to Remember, so poor old Schubert will have to wait in line. However, given that he's spending two or more weeks working on an opera, I guess he's not exactly "falling behind?"
He did make it to his piano lesson, during which he happily started his new Level 3 book. He also made it to ballet on Tuesday and choir rehearsal on Thursday. And on Monday evening, he attended the first rehearsal/class for the junior production of Pirates of Penzance. He will be playing Samuel, whom the director describes and the Pirate King's "second in command." He has loved Gilbert and Sullivan in general, and this show in particular, for a few years. So, I'm sure he'll have a grand time.
And you know what just occured to me? Gilbert and Sullivan fit into our modern world history era for this year. Bonus! (That's what we call a "two-fer" around here: When something fun that we'd probably do anytway just happens to justify academic credit.)
I'm sure I'd be even more excited about that were it not for the knowledge hanging over my head (like the heavy clouds in the sky) that after we finish here for the day we're off to spend the weekend camping with RobotBoy's choir. We got all kinds of camping equipment for Christmas, so we're well prepared. And RobotBoy is pretty excited. Now all we have to do is cross our fingers that the rain and thunderstorms predicted for tonight and tomorrow don't wash us and all our equipment away . . .
Or that we don't get attacked by bears . . .
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Doing the Second Semester Shuffle
Well, here we are back in our first full post-holiday week! I hopeyou all had a lovely holiday season and aren't experiencing too much turbulence getting back into the regular groove.
RobotBoy did more or less keep up with math over the last three weeks or so, but that was about all the formal schoolwork we did. And, because of The Nutcracker and assorted other holiday events, we ended up a little behind by mid-December. So, I’ve spent the last couple of days doing that “second semester shuffle,” in which I figure out exactly where we really are with all subjects and then adjust the lesson plans for the remainder of the year accordingly.
I felt “done” with the process as of sometime yesterday, but haven’t actually clicked “Print” and put the new pages in my binder just yet. Somehow, doing that seems to invite crisis.
This has been surprisingly good week. I feared that, following three weeks mostly off and the usual post-holiday let-down—not to mention the fact that I was feeling tired and stressed after making yet another round-trip to Virginia to get Moonheart settled for the second semester—RobotBoy and I would have some trouble getting back into our school routine. Happily, however, he’s been really, really good about all of it. In fact, he finished his assignments early enough on Friday to have time to build one of the wooden race car models we bought earlier in the week.
So, here’s what we’ve done this week:
Math:
He’s in the final module of his online math class and doing very well. The previous module, on algebraic concepts, was more of a stretch, but this one is all about graphing and tables and charts and such, and the visual stuff is always a snap for him. He’s a bit behind pace, but on track to finish the course within a couple of weeks. I’m not sure he’s ready to move on to the full algebra course. He could certainly handle it, but I have a hunch he’d hate it. So, instead, I think we’ll spend this next semester working through Painless Algebra.
History & Literature:
We rejoined Pip and his Great Expectations this week and are making good progress. RobotBoy finished Alice Rose and Sam on Thursday and has started reading Laurence Yep’s Dragon’s Gate. He watched a DVD biography about Mark Twain and was so excited the day he figured out that Sam Clemens and Mark Twain were the same person. He also read about the Opium Wars in History of the World: Revolution and Conflict.
English:
He had two reading comprehension exercises this week, both about the New Globe Theater in London. One of the excerpts was from Susan Cooper’s King of Shadows, a book he read and enjoyed a couple of years ago. And the subject was a familiar one. So, he breezed through the exercises.
Science:
In addition to his regular allotment of reading, RobotBoy took the line self-test for Chapter Two of Earth’s Waters. He aced it. Since he did not have a science center class this week, we also took some time to do a couple of simple projects. The first, from his Marine Science book, had us each building a “sea scape” in a shoebox and then trading them so that we could do “soundings” through holes in the lids with plastic straws. We then charted our findings. It was both more fun and more meaningful than it sounded to me when I read the instructions.
We also built a model of an artesian well, following instructions from Earth’s Waters. That one was a big hit.
Basically, what happens is that you pour water slowly into the funnel and watch it bubble up through the straw.
We've recently discovered that a local cable channel is re-running the old Bill Nye the Science Guy shows. So, we've been recording the shows, and RobotBoy is happily working his way through the series as a fun supplement.
Latin:
He worked in Learning Latin Through Mythology this week, reading the myth of Daphne and Apollo. He translated the picture story based on the myth and then did the vocabulary worksheet.
Spanish:
He continues to move through The Learnables: Basic Structures on pace and with few problems. He earned perfect scores on this week’s exercises.
Music:
We’re still in Beethoven mode. Over the break, RobotBoy watched a Beethoven bio on DVD, and this week he’s working on the "Moonlight Sonata" in Themes to Remember. Next week, we move on to Schubert.
Other Stuff:
In addition to our at-home work, this was also the week in which most of his outside activities kicked back into gear. He attended his regular round of piano and choir and dance. The science center classes don’t resume until next month, but he is scheduled to begin a series of theatre classes next week and has to go in for a placement audition on Saturday morning. So, he’s been working on his song and monologue in preparation.
I know there will be the usual bumps in the road this semester. In fact, we’ve already learned about one: RobotBoy has been invited to participate in a workshop for a new musical theatre piece, which will eat up two or three weeks of our lives in the second half of this month. However, I’m looking forward to seeing those pretty, new, clean sheets of paper come out of the printer and go into my lesson plan binder. At least I’ll manage to feel organized for a few days!
RobotBoy did more or less keep up with math over the last three weeks or so, but that was about all the formal schoolwork we did. And, because of The Nutcracker and assorted other holiday events, we ended up a little behind by mid-December. So, I’ve spent the last couple of days doing that “second semester shuffle,” in which I figure out exactly where we really are with all subjects and then adjust the lesson plans for the remainder of the year accordingly.
I felt “done” with the process as of sometime yesterday, but haven’t actually clicked “Print” and put the new pages in my binder just yet. Somehow, doing that seems to invite crisis.
This has been surprisingly good week. I feared that, following three weeks mostly off and the usual post-holiday let-down—not to mention the fact that I was feeling tired and stressed after making yet another round-trip to Virginia to get Moonheart settled for the second semester—RobotBoy and I would have some trouble getting back into our school routine. Happily, however, he’s been really, really good about all of it. In fact, he finished his assignments early enough on Friday to have time to build one of the wooden race car models we bought earlier in the week.
So, here’s what we’ve done this week:
Math:
He’s in the final module of his online math class and doing very well. The previous module, on algebraic concepts, was more of a stretch, but this one is all about graphing and tables and charts and such, and the visual stuff is always a snap for him. He’s a bit behind pace, but on track to finish the course within a couple of weeks. I’m not sure he’s ready to move on to the full algebra course. He could certainly handle it, but I have a hunch he’d hate it. So, instead, I think we’ll spend this next semester working through Painless Algebra.
History & Literature:
We rejoined Pip and his Great Expectations this week and are making good progress. RobotBoy finished Alice Rose and Sam on Thursday and has started reading Laurence Yep’s Dragon’s Gate. He watched a DVD biography about Mark Twain and was so excited the day he figured out that Sam Clemens and Mark Twain were the same person. He also read about the Opium Wars in History of the World: Revolution and Conflict.
English:
He had two reading comprehension exercises this week, both about the New Globe Theater in London. One of the excerpts was from Susan Cooper’s King of Shadows, a book he read and enjoyed a couple of years ago. And the subject was a familiar one. So, he breezed through the exercises.
Science:
In addition to his regular allotment of reading, RobotBoy took the line self-test for Chapter Two of Earth’s Waters. He aced it. Since he did not have a science center class this week, we also took some time to do a couple of simple projects. The first, from his Marine Science book, had us each building a “sea scape” in a shoebox and then trading them so that we could do “soundings” through holes in the lids with plastic straws. We then charted our findings. It was both more fun and more meaningful than it sounded to me when I read the instructions.
We also built a model of an artesian well, following instructions from Earth’s Waters. That one was a big hit. 
Basically, what happens is that you pour water slowly into the funnel and watch it bubble up through the straw.
We've recently discovered that a local cable channel is re-running the old Bill Nye the Science Guy shows. So, we've been recording the shows, and RobotBoy is happily working his way through the series as a fun supplement.
Latin:
He worked in Learning Latin Through Mythology this week, reading the myth of Daphne and Apollo. He translated the picture story based on the myth and then did the vocabulary worksheet.
Spanish:
He continues to move through The Learnables: Basic Structures on pace and with few problems. He earned perfect scores on this week’s exercises.
Music:
We’re still in Beethoven mode. Over the break, RobotBoy watched a Beethoven bio on DVD, and this week he’s working on the "Moonlight Sonata" in Themes to Remember. Next week, we move on to Schubert.
Other Stuff:
In addition to our at-home work, this was also the week in which most of his outside activities kicked back into gear. He attended his regular round of piano and choir and dance. The science center classes don’t resume until next month, but he is scheduled to begin a series of theatre classes next week and has to go in for a placement audition on Saturday morning. So, he’s been working on his song and monologue in preparation.
I know there will be the usual bumps in the road this semester. In fact, we’ve already learned about one: RobotBoy has been invited to participate in a workshop for a new musical theatre piece, which will eat up two or three weeks of our lives in the second half of this month. However, I’m looking forward to seeing those pretty, new, clean sheets of paper come out of the printer and go into my lesson plan binder. At least I’ll manage to feel organized for a few days!
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