WR: Math Mastery & More

This week was still a little off due to illness but we did manage to get back on track for part of it.
Math is still cooking. Cub is doing long division with remainders -almost with ease. I found a cool little book at the library called The Best of Times and it tells all of the shortcuts for multiplying by rhyme. Cub and I spent a couple of hours reading and solving problems together and he has a much better grasp of how to whip out a multiplication problem. I highly recommend this for kids moving from skip-counting to multiplication. Flower's doing double digit addition, time-telling, measurement, etc. and is days away from finishing Horizons 1B. She is loving the Critical Thinking Skills Imagery book. I used to get a Thinking Skills book each year for the older girls but somehow forgot about them. They are still terrific and I plan to add them to the list of stuff to get for the notsolittles. Feche-boy started Life of Fred and is enjoying the humor. The plan is that at least 1/2 of it will be review and he'll just breeze right through.
English Flower's almost done with WWE 1 and Cub continues to work his way through IEW's First Fun theme book. He doesn't consider it much fun but he is getting the hang of it. FB is working through IEW's Ancient History theme book and is doing some fine writing. IEW's Advanced Spelling & Writing is on the agenda most days as well.
History continues with Bible, FMOG and D'Aulaires Greek Myths. KB is doing much of the

reading aloud and they are all enjoying it. Yesterday she and Feche boy did crazy voices for the Joesph story. Fitting in drama as we go...FB is almost done with the Odyssey book and MP study guide. 2 chapters left; slow and deep this year. He's reading a chapter a week of Constitutional Law by Ferris as well and for fun continued reading Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. He is in awe of the Great Khan. Cub finished 100 Most Important Books in Church History as well as Augustus Ceasar's World.

Science- Cub and Flower did a couple of experiments with KB out of the L.I.F.E. Biology book and loved it. FB finished Chapter 3 in Apologia's Biology, complete with lab work, study guides and Vocab Memorization. I rediscovered "Biology" by Joan DiStasio and had him do several worksheets to reinforce concepts.
Apologetics got down to business this week with more weighty reading assignments. Not sure all of the assigned books but Lewis figures heavily in to the plan as does Chuck Colson.
Drama, Art & Music were fun as usual. The younger kids are really enjoying Calvert's Melody Lane and we spent a portion of the day working on beat. We also started a small workbook on sight reading. At the end of our TDA day we sang Donum Nobis Pacem before intercessory prayer. A couple of the older kids knew it and the little kids joined it. Very sweet. Art for the younger kids continues with days of creation. Their artwork is beautiful. Drama is lots of games, tongue twisters, ad libbing and puppets for the youngers. They love drama and art!

I thought, too, I'd add in what KB is doing this spring for her "Gap Year." Last fall she was floundering a bit about where to go, what to do and when. Over Christmas vacation she and Feche Boy went to a youth ministry conference http://www.ihop.org/ and, while it didn't add or subtract anything along the lines of fundamentals, she really connected with a group of other young adults. Since then she's been more clear about now, even though the what next is still a bit fuzzy. She's strongly considering some vocational training again, in one area of art or another and reading, reading, reading (to find out what, check out her blog http://www.flowersinthewinter.blogspot.com/. She's hosted another Girls2Gether and the party games were all based on The Dream Manager (which I reviewed here: http://goldengrasses.blogspot.com/2010/02/52-bksbk-6-dream-manager.html) Even though it was pretty serious the response from the girls was terrific so she's thinking about doing that more regularly again. She's also doing much of the read-alouds here, as well as substantial areas of housework, doing lots of babysitting and looking forward to seeing "home" re-established.

Thursday morning our house contractor stopped by so school work halted for awhile and we shoved math and English off the table to make way for blue prints. We've had some creative thoughts about re-configuring the 2nd floor and are now looking at cost vs. usability vs. re-sale vs. etc. We also talked kitchen cabinets (his son is a cabinet maker) and I think we've landed on cherry for the cupboards. We'll stick with the set in doors, craftsman style and, though I know white is the rage they are hard to keep looking clean. We USE our kitchen - 3 meals a day and lots of preserving from mid-summer through fall. Cool additions are a laundry shoot off the kitchen and 2nd floor, and moving a closet in a bedroom that was an odd and definite "L" shape. If you have any fun, cool, interesting ideas for house make-overs, please don't hesitate to share with me!

O.k. so that was the school week with a little to come 2morrow, though Flower went to bed exhausted and feeling not so well again. Still processing The Matrix and want to watch it again with the older kids and haven't even started my book for 52/52.