Another weekly wrap-up, etc.

This week we wrapped up our skeletal studies, and will now move on to the muscular system, and then the vascular system. We also finished our study of local rancho life during the 1840's. Since there are only a couple of months left in our academic year, we're just going to do a couple of field trips to finish up our local history studies for the year. Other than that, we are trucking along through Story of the World, which we'd love to actually finish! We're still reading The Twenty-One Balloons, and very much enjoying it. We have chosen The Borrowers as our next read aloud, one of my favorite childhood stories. We're almost done with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on audiobook, but the library should have The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia) ready for us soon.

Elf
Language Arts
Wrote a poem with similes this week (I'll try to remember to scan it in later). He also worked on his autobiography. He continued to read in A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning. We have at this point dropped Writing Tales almost altogether - it was just so much of a struggle to get him to do it! We're still doing the vocabulary work and some of the grammar, but not the writing. Instead, I am allowing him to do free writings, which are going much more smoothly.

Math
Back to Saxon. He's enjoying it now that he has the multiplication chart handy. This week he worked on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, story problems, measurement, and geometry.

Other
He watched a special on outlaws of the Wild West, and is busy being a cowboy. He helped cook a couple of meals, and helped with his sister's reading. In art class, he worked on a special present he is making for Fairy (I'll tell you more later).

Fairy
Language Arts
We worked more on phonics this week, and I am definately seeing an improvement. Part of it is that she wants to read, and so is a little more willing to work on it. I explained to her that reading is like a mountain - you climb it one step at a time. And Elf and I are willing to come back down the mountain to help her up. Somehow the analogy really worked for her! She still loves copywork too, so she's been doing some of that.

Math
Continued with place value. The popsicle sticks and laminated place chart are great tools! We also practiced skip counting by 2's, 3's and 5's in the car.

Other
Fairy has been a great help in the kitchen this week! We made potato-chip-&-herb crusted prok chops last night (yummy!), and she did most of the work. Besides that, we have had a lot of cuddly time this week.

In other news, we finally got a call back from the doctor, who had M make a follow-up appointment. The dr says the tests showed some abnormalities, but "nothing too serious" and he'll discuss it with M next week at the appointment.

And I have traded off the field trip coordinator position with our local homeschool association. Frankly, working on a website is easier, and I will enjoy attending field trips without having to set them up first!