There You Are! And a Brief Weekly Report...

Look at all that rain we're eagerly anticipating! Of course, more would be even better, but I'll take what I can get!

On to reporting what we've been up to...

The Boy has been working on algebraic equations this week. While most of what he encountered in Zaccaro's Challenge Math made good sense almost immediately, he had some difficulty with negative number work yesterday. I think today we'll add in some Khan Academy for assistance. He's also been reading a Messner biography on Henry Ford. I absolutely have to recommend these books! They may be older, but they are written extremely well, and The Boy says he is learning so much that he didn't previously know about this hero of his. He started brainstorming for a Brave Writer writing project too.

The Girl and I are reading through a Messner biography too: Winged Moccasins, the Story of Sacajawea, which is also quite good. We're taking a brief break from Zaccaro's Primary Challenge Math to work on cementing basic multiplication and division with Right Brained Multiplication & Division. I think being more comfortable with these concepts will help her through Zaccaro. She's been reading aloud to me every day as well, this week from Ramona the Brave. She's struggling less and less each day with reading, though I'd like to see her keep working on fluency.

Together, we watched the third episode of Cosmos, and then we were delighted to see that Amazon has made Mankind: The Story of All of Us free on Prime, so we watched the sixth episode as we had already watched the first five with a library copy. We also read about the first Chinese emperor in Human Odyssey, started reading The Wind in the Willows (such a delightful book!), and finally finished the third Harry Potter title. Today I'm reading aloud from The Magic of Reality. And maybe today, or tomorrow, we'll do some painting!

I also put up a blank sheet of paper on the fridge for questions, an "Inquiry Board" of sorts. The Girl asked two questions... who was the first president to live in the White House, and who invented dental floss, and The Boy asked if a particle accelerator could be built at home. So we spent some time looking up the answers (John Adams, Levi Spear Parmly, and yes). This was a lot of fun!

This weekend, The Boy has his first épée tournament. He is very excited about it! The Girl has derby practice as well. M has another job interview, and I will tell you more about the whys behind that later. I hope to catch up on some book sorting, and get everything prepped for next week.

Next week, we'll have the Afternoon Basket back in full rotation. The Boy is going to choose a Landmark title for us to share, and The Girl an All About book, in order to delve more deeply into the parts of history and science that fascinate them. We'll keep reading our history overview book (Human Odyssey) at the rate of one chapter each week, and we'll be using Dr. Art's Guide to Science once a week as well, for general science. I am really hoping we can fit Mapping the World with Art back in as well.

Since the Inquiry Board is working well, next week I also plan to start using the fridge for more. I'll have a quote each week, art of course, and I haven't decided what else. Maybe a spelling rule, a scientific fact, a funny historical fact... I'll have to think about this.

Hope you are all having a good week too!