We Survived!

Our first week of the new school year, that is.

Actually, it's gone pretty well. We kept to our routine all but one day, completed all the assigned work for the week and even managed a field trip. As I've written about before, I have been very, very nervous that we had bitten off more than we could chew this year, especially given the compressed schedule required in order to work around Moonheart's college calendar. Now, though I'm knocking on the wood of my desk as I type this, I'm beginning to feel that we might be able to pull this off.

Here's what he did:

Math - One of the things about which I was most concerned was math, especially since we would be jumping back into the midst of an algebra course he started last year. For the first time, I required no review over the summer, and I thought it very likely that he would lose a lot of ground. Instead, though, he got in there and picked up where he left off with no discernable problems. He completed the unit on Using Inequalities with little trouble and near-perfect scores. On Friday, he earned an A on his first math test of the year. He also seems to be enjoying the idea of the supplemental reading, getting through the first chapter of The Number Devil bright and early Monday morning.

History - He read sections from various books about prehistory, from dinosaurs to cave folk. He also watched the short video about Aboriginal Rock Art on the National Geographic for Kids website. He then did a review/worksheet about prehistoric art.

Reading - Tying in with the prehistoric art theme, his assigned reading this week was the novel Boy of the Painted Cave. He enjoyed it very much, although he was sad when Greybeard died.

English - We did the first reading comprhension exercise in English Prep 2 and introduced our first writing model of the year, adapted from Genesis ("In the beginning . . ."). RobotBoy also worked through the first two lessons of Word Roots B1.

Science - He read the first chapter of The Story of Science, which got thumbs up. Together, we watched the first two episodes of the Nova series Origins, which we'll finish next week. He also read the first half of the book that came with the triceratops excavation kit and starting digging into the project. On Wednesday, we took a field trip to Dinosaur World, which we've been driving past for several years but had never done before. I fully expected it to be terribly cheesy, but it was very nicely done.



While I could certainly have lived without the oppressive heat and the biting bugs, I can't blame the owners/operators for those. And, of course, the whole day might have been more pleasant had my car not quit and had to be towed to the local dealership for repairs . . . Nonetheless, RobotBoy had a good time and might even have learned a few things.

Languages - We read together through the introductory pages of Latin Prep 1. I have to admit that the pronounciation thing is likely to be my downfall, but we'll keep plugging away. On his own, RobotBoy tackled the first several exercises of The Learnables: Spanish Grammar Enhancement and the opening pages of Greek Alphabet Code Cracker. He's especially enthusiastic about the Greek.

Geography - He dug into the first lesson of the FLVS middle school World Geography course, which, as usual, was mostly about the mechanics of the course rather than actual content. The motif sounds interesting, though, and I suspect he'll enjoy this one.

Art - This is another FLVS course, with a motif that will certainly appeal: pretending to be a comic book artist. I'm not quite sure how that will play out as the course continues, but the syllabus looks pretty good. This is one that RobotBoy chose to do for fun, so I'm not worrying too much about the rigor.

That's it for schoolwork. RobotBoy also had his first full week back at dance classes, after the school had to close for Fay-related weather a couple of days last week. He seems very happy to be back. He auditioned for both The Nutcracker and Don Quixote and was cast in both ballets. It sounds like the young boys won't have a whole lot to do in Don Quixote, but RobotBoy always enjoys any opportunity to perform. We're still waiting to hear the details of his participation in The Nutcracker, but it sounds like he'll have about as much to do as last year. Fortunately, most of the rehearsals for both pieces will be scheduled on Saturday afternoons, which will at least minimize the number of car trips I'll be making for the next couple of months.

Next week, we'll add Thursday afternoon choir rehearsals to the mix. And we're waiting to hear for sure about the new tap class, which is tentatively scheduled to begin next week, also.

So, I guess we'll just see how it goes from here, but it's definitely not a bad start to the year.