WR: Week 7

Feeling more on top of things this week.
We got through 2 weeks worth of Writing With Ease- I am LOVING this program from Susan Wise Bauer, no surprise. It is a gentle intro to writing- truly writing with ease, and incorporates copywork and narration. WWE II adds in dictation and by WWE IV the kids are learning how to diagram.
Flower's reading has taken off and she is reading the instructions on her math lessons, finding herself understanding words everywhere and thrilling at the joy of mastery.
Still enjoying MP's copywork books I, II and III. Cub is doing III again. His letter formation has improved greatly over last year. He actually has beautiful penmanship, which surprises me given some of his older sibs. MP's cursive books are fun and simple. The TDA first graders are loving the fact that they actually know some cursive!
Horizon's math for the notsolittles. Flower is cruising thru, doing 2-4 lessons a day. Cub has slowed down but one lesson is usually 2-3 pages and it's work. Feche-boy is steadily making his way through Saxon with the help of Viking Man.
We finished reading The Trojan War outloud and Feche-boy finished the study guide by MP. Another winner by my friends at Highlands Latin School. We begin the Odyssey on Monday.
TDA history is working through Intro to Classical Studies and so D'Aulaire's Greek Myths has been out for weeks. It's been a fav around here for years. Cub and Feche-boy are also going through the Famous Men of Greece study by MP and Cub is going to start on Augustus Ceaser's World by Genevieve Foster on Monday.
We hit memory work hard this week and tightened up some of the grammar and Latin poems we've learned, as well as Bible verses. Cub worked on geography, locating the world's major rivers.
Art was a 2-fer as our TDA instructress, beloved Zigrid was ill, so I led the kids in a drawing lesson from Bruce MacIntyre's Drawing Textbook. The younger kids really worked hard on mastering lesson 1. Zigrid did a make-up day on Thursday and had the kids use food coloring
to create primary and secondary colors, ice nilla wafers and viola! an edible object lesson. Yum!
Science focused on plants and Miss KB is having the kids make booklets using Dinah Zike's Plants book.
We also worked diligently on VP's Biblical and Historical timeline cards and are through the first card pack (32 in each) for both. We have a lot of work to do before they are committed to memory but we'll just take our time. The kids love hearing the info on the back and are eager to take time looking at the pictures and hear stories about the cards. The Veritas Press timeline cards are, imho, a must have. We've added dates and the kids are working hard. We finally put together the timeline notebooks and are ready to add in the historical figures the kids have colored. My thought is to have them add to their notebooks each year.
We listened to Classical Conversation's memory work cycle 1 audio CD at lunch every day. Even though the sentences are different the kids love to listen to it.
Drama was fun, of course, and the older TDA kids are doing a short skit for the family camp this week-end, telling about the importance of some of the Biblical Holidays.
TDA ordered the new Summit/Apologia worldview curriculum and I can't wait to incorporate that into our Wednesday Daniel Track. We're almost through with The Little Pilgrim's Progress. This week for etiquette we focused on phone manners and how to stand in line manners. The kids loved having me pretend to ring them and "test them" on how they would answer a phone.
I started working in earnest on the NUAMS certification. We sent in the paperwork this week to NAUMS as a transitioning school, so we have our work cut out for us to get that ready as well as be ready for TDA parent info nights starting in January.
Our crisis du semaine was the kitchen sink. What began as a slow faucet leak turned into a room sized Turkish Bath within a matter of hours. As a result, and after a day with the water to the house turned off, we now have kitchen cut-off valves (alleluia!), new kitchen faucet and pipes. The washing machine will have to wait but I did get a good movie in (The Reading Room) while hanging at NH, getting laundry done.
It was another full week but the parties not over. Viking Man is teaching at our churches Family Camp on Biblical Holidays. I have to get up in the morning and cook corn quiche and something else simple to take over for the Jewish meals we'll be enjoying together.
It feels like we hit crusing altitude after a bumpy launch and it's nice to have had a couple of steady weeks.