Week 2 in Review

I revised my Week in Review form. (see gif on left). I almost think it would work better as a planner.... maybe, if I have a space in some area, I can write down a plan instead of a happening?

Main Events

Liam went back to college; we drove him there on Sunday.

Household Incidents:

Olympics over; labs on Monday for Aidan, and a GI app't (checked out fine).

Needs Work:

Homeschooling doesn't take enough hours in the day. How to extend without getting into busywork?

Projects/Independent:

Kieron -- computer comics; Aidan -- pretending wooden beads are "blood draw tubes".

Discussions:

Presidential campaign; swearing ;-).

Milestones/Progress:

Sean getting more efficient with homework; Aidan improving at sounding out words (very slowly!)

Focus/Atmosphere:

Summer ending, trying to get into a fall routine.

Liturgical/Spiritual:

St Augustine's feast day; discussed Creed.

Nature/Outdoors:

Kieron and Clare went on hike; Aidan to Post Office with parents.

Habits Worked On:

control of screen time!

Core Knowledge and Skills:

Direct objects in Latin; pronunciation in Greek; decimals in math.
Phonics for little ones: still on CVCs.

Life Skills and Work:

Cutting (Aidan) -- shaping cookies.

Future Focus:

Study Teach a Child to Read
Plan writing for Year 7 child, start having little ones practice handwriting.


Whew, that was difficult! Retrieval is not my strong point!

Week 2 -- typing out plans

I typed out some of the plans I wrote out for Kieron for Week 2. I don't think I'll write it out in such a complicated form, next time, but I like experimenting with my Word 2007. These are in gif form, so you can click on them to enlarge them (I hope so at least!)

Originally I had just written this down in my binder, one page per subject, in longhand, and it actually seems to go well that way, but it's harder to re-access if I ever need it in future, and I don't much like my own handwriting -- trying to improve that!

I also wrote out plans for Language Arts, "Other Subjects to Keep in Mind" (things I'm not really writing out plans for but don't want to forget), and "review/reinforcement" (I write down ideas and concepts I want to keep reviewing in one way or another).

I also made a short list of plans for the little ones.... mostly just things to keep in mind and work informally into the day.

Day 70

Today we woke up to snow! So the kids went out to play in it and the day took a different shape.

Clare and Sean and Kieron started playing with Legos. This was so unusual that I just had to go with it. Clare ended up making a whole stop action film with her camera and the Legos. I think the film is based on the Magnificent Seven.

The younger three kids came in and out of the house, sledding and so on.

Sean did his Greek and Vocabulary. I had him do Math which turned out to be really difficult -- subtracting simultaneous equations. When I tried to help him I ran into problems too, for some reason.

Kevin spent the morning working on his model train -- it's his pattern to have seasons of hours and hours of work (when he's finalling a product; he is a computer game designer and a couple of months ago he was working basically 70 hours a week) and then some times during the beginning of a new product when he seems not to be working much at all directly on the game.

He's watching a video about model train building, too.

We can't go to our normal Stations and homeschool meeting, because of the snow and our car isn't winter-ready yet. If I get the motivation I may do some baking this afternoon because it warms up the kitchen (which is next to the garage and usually kind of cold and draughty in the winter) and makes the house feel even cozier. We have the fire blazing and I sat in front of it with the laptop and wrote out plans and other things.

A little later I am going to have Kieron do a bit of math (I am going to try previewing a chapter and its objectives ahead of time, since the Ignatian manual says that previews help build understanding). Also I will ask him about his recent reading, and show him the Jesse Tree ornaments, which I laminated and backed, and perhaps have him look through some of the craft books for ideas of what to do.

Kieron made waffles today, and I read to Paddy.

ETA: The younger four played outside in the snow for a loooong time. Clare finished her stop-action Lego movie and we saw the premiere and trailer ;-). I did the chapter preview for math with Kieron (he LOVED the idea of doing a summary ahead of time) and then he did some oral division problems (his fluency has improved). Then I had him do some curves and diagonal lines on paper, and we also looked at the Jesse tree symbols and we both tried to figure out what they stood for (then he went to consult the MacCaughrean book and told me what he found)

Brendan helped me fix a shelf today and is keeping the hearth stocked with logs.

Day 69

I thought I would try to list this day chronologically rather than by child. I haven't done that for a while.

We have been getting up later than usual for some reason -- in my case I've been staying up later and the kids have been fighting colds, I guess. I also notice that if we don't have to go out of town in the afternoon, it's more tempting to let the day take its natural course. Which ought to be fine, of course! So today I got downstairs to start the day at about 8:30. Aidan was already awake so we made breakfast together and I set out some of his "work" -- pink cards and number cards, and he got out his handwriting book as well.

Kieron and Paddy got up and started to play.

I asked Kieron to move their beds which are upstairs so that I could get to the Advent and Christmas stuff. I had Kieron and Aidan clean up the toys that had fallen behind their beds and then I did some sweeping. Meanwhile Kieron rediscovered the Christmas books which he immediately sat down to with delight.

Since they were all so wrapped up in the day and I really needed to get clean I zipped off to take a quick bath. Meanwhile Sean got up and started working on his Greek and Vocabulary.

I told the guys to do their weeklies. Then I brought the wreath downstairs (I know, it's already the 6th, but we are slow!). This caused the day to go rather wrong because Aidan wanted to play with it and Clare told him not to. I was trying to start Sean on Algebra and Aidan got very upset and to put it mildly, had a meltdown. I am not sure if moving the furniture plus the wreath etc were just too many changes for him. The aftershocks of his ill mood lasted for some time and made it difficult to focus on Algebra. We did various things to try to change the situation but it wasn't until Clare put on the Clancy Brothers that Aidan was able to get a grip on himself again.

Meanwhile, I had given Kieron a checklist of things to do (easy things because of the feast day and because he finished his math chapter yesterday). He started right in reading Nicholas the Wonder Worker and read it for a long time.

After math, I had Sean do a free writing exercise. He was not too thrilled with this. I told him to free associate on paper for a few minutes and gave him the explanation that it helped to pin down ideas that he could develop later for a paper. He reluctantly did it but obviously felt his space was being a bit invaded, which indeed is a reaction that he probably came by through his family lines. He didn't mind us reading it; in fact, that was his favorite part of the whole thing. He just didn't like dumping his brain out on paper. When you're not doing it for your own personal reasons it feels like a psychotherapy session, which is what Clare compared it to.

At that point I set Kieron to writing curves and lines, while I got ready to go exchange Paddy's boots which were too small (before the rain we are getting turns to snow). Then I took Aidan, Kieron and Clare to the store. Meanwhile Brendan of his own volition was getting the deck snow-ready, and cleaning up the front yard and putting tarps on the stacked firewood.

When we got back I gave the boys verbal quizzes on Latin and Geography. They know the Latin pretty well, but we are having some trouble with geography. This hasn't really ever happened before; the older set all knew their geography since Brendan was so into it. I am not talking complicated; they still get countries and continents mixed up at present. But they know their oceans at least.

Then I left the boys to play with their Bionicles while I came upstairs to write this. Clare is trying to figure out what to sing for Christmas at the church (she was asked to do a solo). She is just a bit stressed. The boys followed me and are now wrestling/quarreling on the bed. Brendan is cleaning the bathroom.

Later on I will explain the Jesse Tree to Kieron. We haven't done one before. He loved the MacCaughrean book though and was following me around narrating it yesterday. So hopefully he will like the symbols and the explanations.

This is Thursday so I am going to try out my planning flowchart.

Our laptop came yesterday and Kevin has been spending the day rerouting our local area network. So along with the beds out of place and all the other different things, I suppose I can see why everyone is a bit on the edgy side today. Not that we're all snarling at each other; but we seem to be a bit more extroverted and volatile than we usually are. We introverts seem to need our equilibrium ;-).

Evita was good yesterday, I hear, and tonight Sean has his football awards ceremony, which he is dreading (because he was injured the whole season and didn't really play, therefore he will be humiliated to get an award and all that). He is hoping for a blizzard so we have to stay home.

Day 68

Oh, I am enjoying this quiet week at home. It makes such a difference in the pace of our homeschooling. This was a day of conversation in front of the fire, of laughing and a rhythm of tasks fitting in between discursions. Yesterday was much the same, with the quiet joy of Paddy's birthday thrown in (our tradition is to have quiet birthdays with only family and sometimes a friend family around).

We discussed:

• Whether religion causes more trouble to the world than non-religion? (Kevin raised that one and we kept it up after he went back to the office). We all agree on this so we don't get to hear the "other side" except by Kevin quoting someone or one of us playing "devil's advocate". So it is all permutations of the one side, but is still lively and interesting.
• Then we discussed some other similar question, but have forgotten what it was since I neglected to write it down.

Sean:

• He had no math today, so he did his Greek and Vocabulary, then read Screwtape Letters and Church's Stories from the Aeneid. Then I gave him Luke chapter 1 to read, and had him copy out part of the section on the Incarnation from the Penny Catechism.

• I did Latin with him and Kieron together -- review, declension quiz. This took quite a while and the whole family got into it with discussion of the vocative ("Et tu, Brute?" and "Ave Maria") and pronunciation, etc.

Kieron

• He did his math test, so he gets tomorrow off. I had him read the first page of the chapter on Incarnation in the Baltimore Catechism, then I asked him the questions. Then he started reading MacCaughrean's Jesse Tree, and continued for quite a long time. I had him draw curves and up to down lines.

The Little Ones:

• Mostly playing with Paddy's presents from yesterday -- Katana swords, and Candyland, and a table basketball game.

Then Brendan came out with a box of things he was getting rid off and presented them to the little ones -- we call them "Hobbit presents" after Bilbo's birthday party. This is an Advent and Lent tradition -- decluttering and gettting rid of things, passing them on to someone who can use them. We have talked about it many times through the years (because it's an issue of my own -- detaching from my "treasures" that are just clutter). Obviously Clare and Brendan have internalized it because they do it now independently.

This reminded me to tell the middle ones to try to do the same during Advent. Then this brought up all kinds of family reminiscences, including how I used to pay the older kids to throw away or give away their things. Doesn't that sound crass? but at the time I explained it as a sort of rummage sale or recycling project and tried to show them that things mobilized outwards were more valuable than things piled up around one and cluttering up the mind and heart. Brendan used to cling very ferociously to his mementos when he was young and paying him helped him make concrete the value of negation.

So I will mention it to the middlies later and perhaps help Kieron work through his store of "treasures" and junk. It is nice symbolism for clearing a space for Jesus in the heart and home, too.

So -- a nice informal day. This afternoon Sean will lift weights with his Dad and then Kevin and Clare are going to the production of "Evita" in town -- Clare is really looking forward to it.

Day 67

I spent the morning working with Sean, plus getting into a discussion with the teens about the role of literature in education; meanwhile, Kieron played with the little ones. So I'll write out what Sean DID and then what Kieron still is to do.

Sean

--Prayer-- didn't get to it -- I need to collect some kind of a prayer book or something to have handy.

1. Greek
   
2. Vocabulary
3. Math -- he did the summary and review of Jacob's Chapter 6. That means that tomorrow he gets the day off. Pretty soon I am going to get all the algebra Test Masters up till now and have him do some review and then a couple of tests to send to Kolbe since his first quarter is pretty much over.
   
4. Latin -- exercise 34 (first half) plus some vocabulary drill and warm-up declension exercises. He seems to be doing much better after those 3 weeks of review.
   
5. Memory -- order of planets in Solar System (I gave him the list to work on)
   
6. Chores -- tidy room, normal mealtime jobs.
   
7. Reading -- he wanted to read Screwtape Letters. I also gave him a book to read about Jesus's Life (I forget the title of the book; oh well, I'll type it tomorrow). He did a notes narration from it. I asked him some catechism questions about Jesus's life and he did very well.
   
8. Narration or Notes -- on Roman World at time of Incarnation. Also we discussed the simple clergyman at the preface of Screwtape who wonders that the advice in the book seems almost "diabolical" (LOL).
   
9. Free Reading
   
10. Outside or Exercise -- he is going to practice with his Dad later.
    

Kieron has to do:

• Math -- review chapter, then practice writing numbers
• WRiting -- practice writing curves
• Reading -- The First Christmas, and Faith and Life Christmas Supplement
• Latin
• Greek
• Memory: Order of Planets
• Science: Look up Planets in the Encyclopedia
• Free Reading: Book of Dragons ( he already narrated from it yesterday so we have narration covered unless he wants to talk some more)
• Optional art project -- drawing dragons, or dying coffee filters (if we get to it)

The little ones have mostly just been playing. Aidan played pretend birthday games (today is Paddy's birthday and Aidan is very excited about it).

Aidan has some GI issue going on -- he doesn't seem sick but he has been a bit restless. The OT did craniosacral work with him yesterday; also, with Kieron. (She recommended focusing on writing curves and up to down lines to retrain his motor memory so that is what we are going to do).

ETA:

Kieron did the math, Greek, and handwriting, but we did not get to the reading. He did help me wrap Paddy's presents, and has finished Book of Dragons.

Day 66

Today was a hectic but productive day. I think it helps that we don't have any afternoon appointments in town this week. We have several evening events and several appointments closer to the house, but those don't take such a big piece out of the day.

Sean

• Greek
• Vocabulary
• Algebra -- chapter 6 lesson 6
• Screwtape Letters -- he read chapter 8 and we discussed the big picture a bit.
• Earth Science -- read about Saturn, he did a structured narration where he found the main point of each paragraph.
• Book of Discovery -- he read chapter X about Ptolemy but no narration.
• Geography -- continents, and countries of North America.
• Latin -- exercises 31-33
• He is reading Blood Sport and the Unknown Shore for free reading.
• Weekly jobs
  

Kieron

• Catechism quiz particularly facts surrounding Incarnation. We will continue doing this throughout Advent.
• Activity Card -- 65 -- about dictionary meanings.
• Latin -- verbal and card matching drill
• Geography -- continents, and countries of North America.
• Research/Science -- looked up weather in encyclopedia, but instead found Octopuses and Squids and read/narrated.
• Wrote a couple of sentences about squids.
• Math -- dividing mixed fractions. I tried the 3 part lesson I mentioned in my earlier post and it worked pretty well. He still struggled with the writing. I will have to cut down even more on that.
• Weekly jobs.
  

Aidan and Paddy

They both went to town on their activity cards.

• HWT letterforms (Aidan)
• matching words and pictures (pink cards)
• word-building (Paddy)
• simple addition with ladybug cards (Paddy) -- Kieron got involved in this too and we even got to simple multiplication.
• matching Christmas cards (I brought a bunch of old Christmas cards downstairs planning to make some kind of Advent Box, but Aidan got a jumpstart on the idea by transferring his favorite matching activity to the duplicate cards -- hooray for natural learning!)
• writing letters and using ruler (Aidan)

Our day will continue to be lively this afternoon, with an occupational therapist visit scheduled, and a trip to the local store and library, and Paddy's birthday preparations. I wrote a list of things I want to get to this afternoon, since we actually HAVE an afternoon today (can you tell how much nicer things are on the days we don't have to drive over 100 miles???)

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Here is the checklist I gave Sean, which he seemed to appreciate following (he always likes to have it specified what he is going to do; I'm going to make it into a form later but for right now I'll simply type it out:

--Prayer--

1. Greek
2. Vocabulary
3. Math
4. Latin
5. Memory
6. Chores
7. Reading
8. Narration or Notes
9. Free Reading
10. Outside or Exercise (he alternates weight lifting with bike riding/jumproping/passing the football with his Dad)