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!