Another week has flown by...

Seriously, where does the time go?

Anyhow, this week was a fairly quiet one, though looking back at it now, I can't say it was exactly slow or anything. Monday, as I was driving home from work, in the rain, one of my tires went out. Turns out that the tires my former step-FIL had put on the truck (which is on more-or-less permanent loan from MIL) were not at all the correct ones. New tires have been ordered, but won't be here until next week. Thankfully, my mom came to the rescue by loaning me her car, so at least we are not trapped at home!

Then, yesterday, we finally had our follow-up appointment with M's new doctor. M has officially been diagnosed as pre-diabetic, with some resulting liver abnormalities. What that means is that we really watch his (and therefore ours) diet for the next month - limited sugars, little to no white flour, no caffiene, no alcohol, lots of veggies & whole grains, etc. - and then go back in for another round of blood testing. On one hand, I view this as bad news - my husband is sick, but on the other hand, there were a whole host of other, and far more terrible, things that could have been wrong with him. I am trying to view this as a challenge we will all meet together. So I've told the kids that we are ALL going to work on being healthier with their dad.

Anyhow, school-wise...

Elf
Worked in Writing Tales this week for the first time in a while. I have given this program somewhat of a bad rap, as it is fairly repetative, but, he really enjoyed it this week! He did quite well using the dictionary on his own to look up the vocabulary words. His rough draft may leave a little to be desired, but it is a rough draft, and he didn't complain about doing it. His cursive handwriting is coming along beautifully too.

In math, I introduced him to the idea of squares and square roots. He seems to have gotten the general idea, but we'll see in upcoming weeks!

Fairy
We returned to Explode the Code this week, with great results! She actually put (3 letter) words together, and sounded them out, and then moved on to actually sounding out words in a Bob Book, instead of guessing. I think my mixed approach is working for her. I put another phonics dvd on hold for her at the library, and picked up a song album that helps with phoenomic awareness. As soon as she finishes in this ETC book, I'll move her right on to the next. I plan to continue her reading work right through the summer, with the hope that she'll be reading somewhat fluently by mid-August, when we "officially" restart our school year.

In math, she's plugging right along, still working in a unit on place value. This week, we broke apart bundles of 10 popsicle sticks, to show the concept of borrowing and carrying. Good review for Elf as well.

Other
We read more in The Twenty One Balloons this week, and are almost done. We watched a documentary on hot air balloons (The Way Things Work), and we read a book about Krakatoa. Today we'll read The Amazing Air Balloon. The kids also watched another segment of Life, which is a beautiful documentary series. This week's choice (we dvr'd all the episodes) was "Birds" (now if only we had the David Attenborough version, sigh).

I am having the darndest time with curriculum choices for next year. This plan (based on classical and Charlotte Mason methods), or Oak Meadow, or literary unit studies? I have decided on a light summer program - Fairy will work on reading, Elf will have some "assigned" reading, we'll play math games from Family Math, and I plan to read aloud a lot.