Almost There with Some Ups & Downs!

One month to go, and we'll be done until mid-August. Phew!

In general, a good week, though there were ups and downs as always!

The Very Good

I loved The Girl's story this week. To have her voluntarily writing is just amazing to me after her struggle with reading. And it means she can start writing more in the fall - to be honest, I was afraid she'd still be working just on reading, and not writing yet, but she's shown me otherwise!

The Boy loves the work he's doing on Khan Academy, mainly multiplication and division, but he also did some exercises on graphing! I wouldn't call it a complete program, at least not for us, but in boosting his math skills, it is invaluable. Out of idle curiosity, I had him take the Saxon Middle Grades Math Placement test this week, and you can read about that below, in my Not-So-Good section.

We're really enjoying The Trumpet of the Swan, learning so much about Trumpeter Swans! At bedtime, we're making good progress through both Heidi and Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone. Next up: Cheaper by the Dozen (daytime read), The Light Princess (The Girl at bedtime), and Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (both kids, bedtime)!

The Quite Good
We read more in A Little History of the World and A Little History of Science, with some additional reading on the Phoenicians from Builders of the Old World. Mainly the Phoenicians and Persians this week, with some Islamic, Greek, and Roman science in there, including Aristotle and Galen.

The Girl spent some time this week learning about colossal squids with a documentary, and then had me search online for a quiz she could take. When I eventually found one, she nailed it! We need to finish her book on rhinos though.

And The Not-So-Good

I had a major "oops" moment this week. As I mentioned above, I had The Boy take the Saxon Middle Grades Math Placement test this week, and crap, he's in the wrong book. He needed 15/20 in the first section to be in 6/5, and 16/20 in the first two sections to be in 7/6. He scored 18/20 in section one, so I had him take section 2, and he got 17/20. Guess we'll be going straight into 7/6 this fall!

And then there was my momentary panic about the more free-wheeling route we're experimenting with lately. I hurriedly re-wrote all our plans for fall, twice.

Then I stopped, and took a deep breath.

And realized that we can do this. Yes, it will take some diligence, but I am not afraid of that. And organization, but I am working on that. It does help that The Boy can handle his science reading and biographies on his own, so I'll have him working on those while I read through The Girl's with her, and then The Boy and I can discuss what he read, while The Girl watches a documentary, or works on her combo Main-Lesson-Note/LapBook. Or something like that. I think at this point, this age, it will do The Boy some good to have more responsibility for his own education, though of course, I am always right there to help!

So it has been a roller-coaster week, at least for me. Seemed pretty standard for the kids!