Weekly Report

Time to talk about what we did this week. It was a pretty productive week, considering we spent Mon and Tues at the hospital where my Dad is.

Math: Life of Fred lessons 8 through 12. He’s doing really well with the math and confirming that he was ready for the Early Algebra book. He picked up a lot last year (I’m sure his teacher would be happy to hear that, she didn’t get much evidence of it at the time).

Grammar: Continued prepositions and touched on helping verbs and verb phrases with another 5 worksheets in Easy Grammar Plus. He’s got the prepositions down pretty well but didn’t get the verb phrases piece well. I was in class today so Anthony covered school today. He wasn’t ready for the grammar so Connor didn’t get the guidance he needed. We’ll be covering verb phrases again on Monday.

Bible reading: He made it to the Commandments in Exodus this week.

Vocabulary: He completed Lesson 3 and we discussed missed items in Lesson 2. He’s doing pretty well with this. I need to find more ways to incorporate vocabulary in other things, there aren’t enough exercises in the workbook.

Writing: He did assignment 4 in the EIW Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons. I’m not expecting the Great American Novel from him.

History: We started with the TRISMS series (it arrived Wednesday)!! For Unit 1 he has done the unit worksheet, Music (Jubal from Gen 4:21), Architecture (the ark), and started Art (cave paintings). Next week we’ll work on the map items for Geography, Science questions, and timeline, as well as discussing various flood stories for Literature. He’ll also do another Architecture worksheet on Çatal Höyük.

Free Reading: He finished another book this week! This is one his Dad got for him last weekend. He read Blood of the Heroes by Steve White. Seems to involve ancient Greek heroes so it fits in with our classical education schedule too! I plan to read it soon so I can see what he actually read.

What are we missing? Haven’t gotten into General Science yet. We also haven’t started the Logic book. That is going to be very dependent on conversations and we just haven’t had time for that yet. We also haven’t come up with a good physical activity. We have equipment for him to work in the house, but he isn’t really taking that seriously yet.

We will have another art option soon. A friend from my EMBA class is opening an art school where his wife will teach 2-14 year olds in varous art techniques. Snook Art has classes starting in October. I can take him Thursday as I head down to study group at Queens, and then Anthony can pick him up when class ends.

Concerns: Typical beginnger concerns I’d say. Is he doing enough work. Am I spending enough time with him.

Of course, while I’m writing this I’m watching video from weather.com about Hurricane Ike and I’m not sure if Galveston will be around after this weekend. Plus there was a run on gas around here today and some local gas stations are out of gas. Makes my concerns look small.