Cheating

Okay, alert readers will note there was no weekly report posted this past Friday.

The truth is it had been a long and challenging week, and RobotBoy still had a fair amount of work to make up over the weekend, and I really just couldn't face typing up that report.

The good news is that he was really good about getting up and getting on-task Saturday morning with almost no nagging. The less-than-great news is that he still has a couple of minor things waiting to be finished.

The good news is that he is completely good natured about accepting the lost points for turning in his work late, freely admitting that he should have gotten it done on time. The so-so news is that I no longer have any enthusiasm for going through the motions of a weekly report for a week that doesn't seem to want to get done.

So, I'm cheating.

I realized that I have not yet posted a sample of my lesson plans for this year. And, since it's one of those things that homeschooling parents never seem to tire of discussing, I figured someone, somewhere might find it helpful.

Therefore, I am posting below the official "plan" for last week, the week that won't die. And then I'll just make a few notes about it.



Okay, what's not shown on here is the leftover reading from last week, which was selections from Exodus. We did several chapters, but are still working on finishing that this week.

As of the time we left for his dance rehearsals on Saturday afternoon, RobotBoy had finished pretty much everything on the sheet, except for two pages of Greek Alphabet Code Cracker that are "mostly done," the FLVS Geography lesson that still needs a bit of polish but should be turned in today and the Birth of Civilization DVD that didn't arrive from Netflix in time.

So, it's not terrible, but obviously we need to work on the time management and planning skills. This morning, before he started on anything, we chatted about this issue and have come up with a new strategy to help keep him on track. We created a table in Word that has columns for his four regular desk work days and rows for each subject. The idea is that we'll look together at the the week's assignments and fill in how much of each thing he's aiming to do each day. Since the last thing I want to do is create more scrap paper, we've decided to try keeping it virtual for now. We filled in the sheet together, and I e-mailed a copy of the file to him. (That way, I still have the original in case it gets "lost" or something goes wrong.)


He is keeping his copy open on his computer so he can look at the plan as he goes. As he completes each task, he changes the color of the text. Sp far, as of when he took a break for lunch at 1:00, he had finished his designated chunks for today of math, history, art and geography.

He's enthusiastic so far about the new approach and is making an effort to "front load" the week, meaning he'll try to do more than one quarter of each subject each day, leaving himself room to catch up later in the week if he needs to do so. We'll see how it goes.

The other piece of news for last week is that RobotBoy had his first organ lesson. He had a great time, seems very enthusiastic and even practiced (including on the weekend) without requiring nagging. So that, as they say, is a good thing.

And that is probably enough for now.

The Tweakly Report

Well, here we are again, huh?

This was our first more or less "normal" week, and it went reasonably well. RobotBoy did miscalculate his workload just a bit, knocking off early on Monday, which resulted in a long and slightly icky day on Thursday. But we got through it without major drama.

Here's the run-down:

Math - This week's lessons introduced graphing linear equations. RobotBoy did well with it. I continue to be pleasantly surprised at how quickly and easily he seems to absorb this stuff. On Friday, he read he next chapter of The Number Devil and learned all about "rutabagas" (square roots).

History - RobotBoy dived into early cultures this week, reading about "The First Europeans" and "The Rise of Agriculture" in his history atlas. He also read a National Geographic article about Stonehenge and watched the accompanying documentary on DVD. His worksheet for this week was on the same topic.

Reading - We finished reading the selections I had chosen from Genesis and moved on to Exodus. RobotBoy is familiar with the story but is finding it interesting to hear the "original" version. On his own, he read Jill Rubalcaba's A Place in the Sun. Just for fun, he watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

English - He started the week with the next lesson of Word Roots. Together, we did the first reading comprehension exercise in the next chapter of English Prep 2. The fiction except for this chapter was from The Lord of the Flies. RobotBoy actually had to look up some of the vocabulary, but he did very well answering the questions. He also worked on his Gilgamesh writing project, turning in a pretty good first draft on Tuesday and the final version on Friday. Now, if only he'd pay just a bit more (okay, any) attention to his spelling . . .

Science - This week, he read "Ionia? What's Ionia?" in The Story of Science and the last three chapters of Science in Ancient Mesopotamia. For his project, he chose to do the "Scrubbing Bubbles" experiment from the Ancient Science chapter on Mesopotamia. On his free day, Wednesday, he watched two episodes of Chased by Dinosaurs.

Languages - This week in Latin Prep 1 he had his first meaningful encounter with verb declensions. He did not have a particularly great time with the concept. We'll keep plugging along, though, and I'm sure it will sink in. His Spanish lessons have focused on saying the same thing in two different ways:

La banana está debajo del tazón.
La banana está bajo el tazón.

I'm sure that will come in handy someday, right? He's also chugging right along in Greek, working with the first 10 letters of the alphabet.

Geography - He finished the first module of the course this week, with lessons designed to help students understand what geography is (and isn't) and why it's important. I'm rather looking forward to him getting to the more substantive lessons.

Art - His major project for the week was completing a series of gesture drawings. He seemed to enjoy that. He started a second lesson that required drawings of common household items, but ran out of time to finish that one.

Extras- Rehearsals for both ballets continued this week, as did choir rehearsal. On Thursday evening, we enjoyed a family outing to see Kiss Me, Kate, the first production of the season at the Shakespeare Theatre. It was fun, and RobotBoy especially enjoyed the dancing.

Homework - Because RobotBoy initially underestimated his workload for the week, he hit Friday with quite a lot still to do. Having been out late on Thursday and looking forward to a longer-than-usual block of dance rehearsals and classes on Friday evening, he ended the week with a few assignments to be finished over the weekend. He could have pushed through and finsihed more on Friday afternoon, but wanted to make sure he got some rest in preparation for the evening. So, he'll be spending Saturday morning completing some Latin workbook exercises, a page of Greek and the rest of the second art lesson. It shouldn't take him too long, which is a good thing, since he's got another chunk of ballet rehearsals in the afternoon.

Oh, and by the way, I just have to give credit to vix and her comment from last week for the name of this post!

Week Three, and We're Still Here

We had yet another minor scheduling upheaval this week, with friends we haven't seen in years coming into town to visit The Mouse and making time for us while they were here. So, RobotBoy very graciously agreed to switch his day off to Tuesday. We also had a bit of catching up to do on work left over from last week. All in all, we've been busy.

But we did have a great time catching up with our friends, which made it all worthwhile!

Math - RobotBoy had the chapter test from last week left over and had a bit of a rough time getting in the zone on Monday. He did manage, though, and did quite well (92%). We had a minor kerfluffle on Thursday when I insisted he show his work and ended up making a new rule that he will lose points every time he doesn't. Once that blew over, things were fine, and he did well on all of his assignments this week. We're still slightly behind, but he has agreed to do this week's test on Saturday morning, which will put us back on schedule. He also read another chapter of The Number Devil, this one about "prima donna" numbers.

History - We're wrapping up our overview of prehistory and beginning the transition to early civilizations. So, this week he read about the spread of homo sapiens in his Atlas of World History and and almost finished the book about the ice age. He also read "Fire! Fire! Fire!" from A Child's History of the World and watched two short videos about Mesopotamia. (The Schlessinger video was from their Ancient Civilizations for Kids series, and RobotBoy was, to put it mildly, unenthusiastic. He said he thought they took the "for kids" part a little too seriously and that the host talked to him like he was two years old. Hmm, I guess I'd better take the rest of the series off the agenda, huh?)

Reading - Geraldine McCaughrean's Gilgamesh the Hero has gone over very well here. I pre-read it, and I have to admit it makes so much more sense than the very literal but very fragmented version I read with Moonheart a few years ago! RobotBoy is reading that one independently, and together we are reading highlights from Genesis. We're using the New International Version, which I'm finding quite readable. We also watched the "Darmok" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (in which Picard re-tells part of Gilgamesh), just for fun. The history/literature "output" for this week was a worksheet with questions about the Tower of Babel.

English - We wrapped up the first chapter of English Prep 2, working through the vocabulary, grammar and punctuation sections. RobotBoy learned about eponyms and practiced recognizing how a single word can play different parts of speech in different sentences. We introduced his next writing model, an excerpt from a version of Gilgmesh different from the one he's reading. We talked a bit about narrative voice and decided that this excerpt is written in the third person omnicient. Finally, he did the next two lessons of Word Roots.

Science - RobotBoy read the chapter in The Story of Science about early calendars and two chapters of Science in Ancient Mesopotamia. He did a simple experiment from Ancient Science: 40 Time-Traveling, World-Exploring, History-Making Activities for Kids, which was a bit hit mostly because it gave him an excuse to use a knife on a wooden dowel. Just for fun, he watched the remaining three episodes of Prehistoric Park.

Languages - Latin Prep 1 seems to be really clicking for him. This week, he was introduced to some regular, first conjugation verbs, and he did very well translating back and forth between Latin and English. In Spanish, he did several more pages of listening exercises. He finished Unit 2 of the Greek Alphabet Code Cracker, introducing the first six letters, and did two pages of Hey Andrew to help him review. By the way, I just have to mention that the RobotBoy is having so much fun with the Code Cracker book that he insisted on making extra copies of the decoder wheel to give to a couple of friends from church so they can send each other secret messages.

Geography - RobotBoy is still in the "introduction" phase of this course. He "met" his instructor over the phone on Monday. She sounds very nice and very approachable. The lesson for this week required him to survey 10 people about their knowledge of and attitudes toward geography as a subject and to compile the and analyze the results.

Art - The lesson that lingered from last week got finished on Monday. RobotBoy had to view an online exhibit of Roy Lichtenstein works, create his own sketch of one piece and participate in an online discussion. In the primary lesson for this week, he learned some art-related vocabulary.

Other News - RobotBoy happily returned to choir rehearsal on Thursday. He came out of the choir room bouncing and singing and ready for another year. Tomorrow, he will attend his first rehearsals for both The Nutcracker and Don Quixote, which will keep him busy most of the afternoon. Sunday school classes have also begun at our church, which I suppose means the year is officially in full swing.

Today's Visitors

These guys wandered into the yard early this afternoon and hung around for quite a while. RobotBoy (and our cats) had a grand time watching them graze.

The Joys of Living Next to a Conservation Area

The Weekly Report

This was a challenging week, schedule-wise. When I wrote my lesson plans for this year, I just divided the whole she-bang into 30 equal portions, figuring we'd adjust as necessary as we went. But, honestly, there's not a lot of wiggle room to do that adjusting, given what a compressed schedule we're working with already.

So, here we are in our second week of school, in which we have a national holiday (Labor Day) and my husband's birthday. Now, we feel free to ignore and work through legal holidays, especially since we take off so many days that school kids and office workers don't. However, we have a general policy of not doing school on days when Dad is on vacation. He had Labor Day off, and he traditionally gives himself the "gift" of a day off on his birthday.

Because RobotBoy is on a four-day schedule for desk work, we can pretty easily absorb a single day off. However, two days off in a single week presents a bit of a challenge. We went over the assignment list at the beginning of the week, and RobotBoy felt confident he could squeeze in everything he needed to do. I opted to let him try.

This led to some icky moments on Friday, when he overslept and couldn't get into gear, while I was tense about how much he had left to accomplish. Always a bad combination. Things came to a head over the first reading comprehension exercise. He normally eats these things alive, but had left all of the assignments for the week until Friday and was trying to rush through them. Our new grading plan for this year allots him 5 points for every one of these exercises he does "correctly, with good effort." So, I was able to bring things back on track by reminding him of that and telling him that he had already lost one point.

Here's a copy of the grading plan, by the way. We each have one tacked on our cork boards.



Once the smoke cleared, here's how the week looked.

Math - The lessons for this week were about absolute values and how to deal with them in equations. RobotBoy did very, very well with this, turning in perfect-on-the-first-try work for three out of four assignments. As I mentioned above, he has the chapter test still to finish sometime over the weekend. Still on his agenda (perhaps in the car going to and from dance this afternoon) is reading the second chapter of The Number Devil.

History - We're still in the prehistory phase. RobotBoy read from his atlas and a book called Exploring the Ice Age. He also did the "People Who Lived in Caves" story from A Child's History of the World and completed a handout/worksheet on "The Life of the Earliest People."

Reading - Continuing with our prehistoric theme, he read Dar and the Spearthrower.

English - We did the aforementioned reading comprehension exercise in English Prep 2, plus a few more comprehension, grammar and vocabulary exercises. RobotBoy turned in his first draft of his Genesis retelling. It needed some corrections, but he did a good job with them and turned in a nice, clean final draft on Friday. Here's his retelling side-by-side with the model from which he worked:



He also did Lesson 3 of Word Roots, earning a perfect score on his first attempt. (Woo-hoo!)

Science - The highlight of the week was probably finishing his triceratops excavation and assembling the skeleton:



He also finished reading the book that came with the kit, plus the chapter about creation myths from The Story of Science and the introductory chapter of Science in Ancient Mesopotamia. I got him the first disk of the Prehistoric Park series from Netflix, and he thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes. Even though we'll be moving on from dinos next week, I may go ahead and bring in the second disk, just for fun.

Languages - He continues to enjoy Greek Alphabet Code Cracker, and his first assignments from Hey Andrew! earned good reviews, too. So far, he's learned the first four letters. I was very pleased at how well he got through his first "real" assignments in Latin Prep, even remembering some of the vocabulary he was familiar with from last year. He also did quite well with the first few workbook exercises. And he did several pages of listening exercises from The Learnables Spanish Grammar Enhancement, which seemed to go well.

Geography - The lesson for this week introduced the concept of the world as a village of 100 people. He watched an online presentation about the idea and then did an assignment that required him to find specific statistics. It seemed to make a big impression.

Art - RobotBoy turned in his first hands-on art projects this week. This is not an area of strength for him, so we'll see how it goes. Again, this is a course he chose to do for fun, so I just hope he has a good time learning some basics.

He still has a few tidbits to make up over the weekend, but I feel pretty good about what we accomplished in a very short and interrupted week.

Wordless Wednesday