Spring Cleaning & a Weekly Report...

I decided once again to tidy up the blog a bit, and to get it looking more like spring!

Now on to a weekly report. This week, we tried something new, as I am back in classes one morning and one longer day per week. The kids took their basics (math and language arts) materials with them to their Nonna's house, and she did homeschooling with them on those two days. Apparently, it went very well.

Cyrus
Worked through a few more lessons in Saxon Math 5/4. He worked on addition, subtraction, multiplication, carrying and borrowing, telling time, and reading gauges/charts.

In language arts, he's continued to plow through the second Percy Jackson book, although no progress has been made with The Whipping Boy. He worked in Writing Tales again, although I do want to try Intermediate Language Lessons with him. He is finally doing his own versions of the stories in WT without trouble. I haven't made him do a final draft of any of them... I just want him writing.

Cassia
She's making good progress - STEADY progress - in reading. She loves doing Explode the Code again, and I think it is helping, since she reads and writes the words, and has pictures to refer to. She, like her brother before her, loves the pages with silly sentences to choose from.

It works well as a complement to The Reading Lesson too, so much so that we've dropped any other supplements except Bob Books, which do give her a wonderful sense of accomplishment!

In math, she's just trucking along. Her number identification is really going well, and she's doing more and more of the work independantly, once I (or my mom) read her the instructions.

Both
History went well this week. We got through lessons two and three in Time Travelers New World Explorers. We ate dried fruit and beef jerky, much like the explorers. We still want to make some hardtack. Cyrus colored a picture of a sailing ship cross section, and we carefully cut the flaps outlined on it to show the names of all the ship parts on the contrasting papaer below. They colored Ptolemaic maps and the Royal Standard of Spain. We also learned to tie stopknots, boline knots, and a sheepshank knot. I asked Cyrus what he thinks of this program, and he is really enjoying the balance between hands-on and listening types of learning. Yaaay! Cassia enjoys it too, but participates at a different level... so far. I have a feeling when she sees Cyrus's finished lapbook, she'll want to finish her own.

Science
This was a free-for-all science week, since I just finished getting my flow for BFSU down on paper, and then figured out what books and videos I want to supplement with. So they watched documentaries, and Mythbusters, and Life After People. Next week we should be back into the swing of things!

Other
No piano lesson this week, but Cyrus is continuing to practice 4 out of 5 days. Cassia had ballet and was slightly disappointed that her new teacher was out sick, so her old teacher was there as a substitute. Not that she doesn't like her old teacher - she was just excited to work with the new one! Cassia also painted her first real still life this week - I'll have to scan it and get a picture of it up on here. I was amazed by it. Cyrus has been doing fine line ink work, with a quill, which I will also have to scan.

A good week, all in all. I am so glad my mom offered to help out.. it is making a world of difference. We haven't managed to stick to any particular schedule and I doubt we will, but we're still getting things done, and having time to tie knots, listen to stories, etc. I am trying now to find a balance between giving them a good education, and allowing for the freedom of hands-on, explorative learning.