Weekly Wrap-Up

Here I go, laying my records bare to the public eye again. This time I'm just going to put our book titles in my widget, rather than creating a zillion links from within the text. What can I say; it's been a long day!

Week of 5/5-5/10: (Abbreviated since I was gone for Monday and half of Tuesday)

Bible: Daily Old Testament reading.

Literature/History: We read, laughed over, and thoroughly enjoyed One Grain of Rice, which we noticed is based the same Chinese legend from which the picture book A Single Grain of Rice derives. Good stuff. In keeping with Asian theme, we read equally delightful Yoshi's Feast, and made sure they could locate China on the world map. We read three stories from James Baldwin's Fifty Famous Stories Retold, and the entire Welcome to The Globe: William Shakespeare's Theatre. Ian and I got through the first two chapters of The Shakespeare Stealer. We played Who am I? and What Came First? and of course, listened to Story of the World. The older two and I attended about half of a performance of 3rd-6th graders doing scenes from Shakespeare on the UT campus (while Caroline had lunch in Daddy's lab). Eliza read a BOB book with me (I wish I were more consistent with this ... but then again, she's not five yet ...)

Math: Ian did a logic puzzle and some word problems from edhelper.com.

Writing: Ian wrote two long pages of "A Knight's Journal," with illustration, another self-directed history project. He also copied out his Bible verse for the week. They both made birthday cards for Dad and Mother's Day cards for the grandmothers. They (mostly Ian) did some journaling on their scrapbook pages.

Science: Huh. I feel rather weak in this area. When the co-ops were going on, I at least knew they'd each have "science" once a week. Now, I'm relying on random backyard inquiry and the occasional readaloud. Good, of course, but sort of hit or miss (especially as the weather gets hotter). Tomorrow Ian will attend Acorn Eaters Nature Club, which is a once-a-month Saturday class at McKinney Roughs State Park. We'll tromp around among the flora and fauna while he's busy with that.

Music/Art: Listened to Mozart's Magnificent Voyage from Classical Kids. Each of the older kids did a scrapbook spread. Ian did some drawings for Tim's birthday, which Tim is going to scan and put on his website. I'll post the link when it exists. This is really his thing.

Foreign Language: Our last Spanish class! They reviewed, stuffed their faces with tamales, chips and salsa, and then burst into the backyard to work up a sweat, probably remembering very little Espanol. (Honestly? It's more of a social thing for us. No one's going to mistake my chiquitos for native speakers any time soon, but it sure was fun to have these five other families in our home once a week all year!)

All in all, not a bad week. It really helps me to look at this stuff and see that our week consisted of more than me stumbling through kid detritus all over the house and assigning chores and saying "no" to more computer-game time.

And on a personal note of victory, I got all the closets and drawers sorted out and did the official seasonal switch. Doesn't that always feel like a fresh start? I can't wait to unload at Goodwill, too! It's a pleasant, anti-hoarding feeling for a clutterphobe like me. :-)