Paddy is really changing these days. We have noticed that he and Aidan are able to play much better together nowadays. At homeschool Stations of the Cross, he can go off and play with the other little ones his age for a couple of hours without needing to come and orbit around me. All the kids in his age group at the homeschool meeting happen to be little girls, which is funny since our home life is so boy-oriented. He seems to do fine playing tea party and house though I notice that the girls occasionally close ranks and try to make him into the baby or the burglar or something like that.
Sean:
- Math went much better today — yesterday he had so much trouble conceptualizing a polynomial and graphing it that I put away the book and sent him out to shovel the top of the driveway where the logs were dumped last week, not as a punishment but as a reprieve. Today he finished the rest of the page without major difficulties.
- Latin Quia
- Greek
Oops, I don’t remember what else I gave him to do. Anyway, he read a couple of books.
Kieron
- Math — 2 chapters — he is up to chapter 60 now.
- Seabird
- Archimedes
- Latin
I was going to have him do Greek and read a couple of folk tales but ran out of time.
It’s interesting how the little kids like Hollings Clancy Hollings, not just the middle kids. I remember when I read Paddle to the Sea to Sean when he was about seven and Kieron was about four. Kieron listened to every word and eerily, could still remember large sections of it when he was seven or eight. Now I notice that every time I read the book to Kieron, Paddy zips over to listen and look at the pictures. Well, those whales are spectacular. I think I will look for whale books this weekend and also some of the Homer Winslow postcards since one of the illustrations reminded me a bit of one of his paintings. I think I could go off on a whole tack about whales… the connections are endless.
In general, it was an okay week. Nothing spectacular in the learning department with the middle set. As I mentioned, I feel the doldrum period is setting in. When I plan for next week, I’ll try to address my sense that everything is too disconnected for Sean, anyway, and really, too unchallenging for him. My problem is that I don’t want to simply pile more reading on him, but we aren’t really addressing science or geography at all. The preschoolers had a really good week.
