Week 26 School Work....

This week continued in a similar vein regarding our Bible studies, math, language arts, geography, and foreign languages.  Music and art lessons continued, as well as chess and P.E. (which really is turning into a bit of a health study, too - fine by me!) 

Folks are beginning to line up classes for next year and I'm thrilled.  This is the first year in the almost 13 that I've been doing this when folks have actually started to put plans in place earlier than the month before school starts!  It makes planning for next year SO much simpler....

In Bible studies, my son began reading through a book entitled The Miracles of Jesus, James Harpur.

  




He's getting ready to begin his last book study for the year in his lit/writing class, then they will be finishing up the year with short stories and work related to those.

I didn't manage to get a thing done in chemistry at home this week.  I have no idea why, but all he did was finish up his lab questions from last week and read over this week's lab to get ready for it.  I think it went well today and continue to be excited about the opportunity for him!

This week in history/lit we covered the Haitian revolt during the first part of the week and then returned to looking at the later portions of the Industrial Revolution (which we will continue next week).  We're also reading selected topics related to the early 19th century.  He read those couple of chapters in SOTW and outlined one section.

Here are some of the books in addition to our anchors that we used regarding Haiti:

Haiti: Enchantment of the World, Jean Blashfield; Footsteps: Toussaint Louverture and Haiti.

              http://www.footstepsmagazine.com/Toussaint.asp

Regarding Haitian folklore, I read aloud from The Magic Orange Tree and other Haitian Folktales, collected by Diane Wolkstein (Caution!  Discretion advised!)

 This is the new CD version of the book.  The one I have includes the musical scores in the back so that you can play the music, yourself.  They also have some of the music online:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-two-donkeys/id385742066?i=385742103

For those not familiar with Haitian tales, there is talk of the Devil, demons, some sexually related talk, etc. in some of the tales, so these are not for little children or sensitive kids....

My son read:

Toussaint L'ouverture: The Fight for Haiti's Freedom, Walter Dean Myers; and Haiti, June Preszler.  He also finished up some books from earlier topics, including A Little Tiger in the Chinese Night (another book by Song Nan Zhang), and Life on a Plantation, Bobbie Kalman:



   

Regarding studies of the later Industrial Revolution and the beginnings of the 19th century, in addition to our anchor works, I finished up with The Industrial Revolution 1800-1850, Pier Paolo Poggio and Carlo Simoni; and recapped the period following the American Revolutionary War (not getting too in depth into the War of 1812 at this time) using Scholastic's Encyclopedia of the United States at War, June A. English and Thomas D. Jones:

    

I read Thomas Jefferson, Cheryl Harness.  I generally really like her books, but she makes some really bizarre, unexplained statements in this book!  We were left a little confused....

 
And I read the section on the Early U.S. from First Facts (Tecumseh, Stephen Decatur, Oliver Hazard Perry, Dolley Madison, and Andrew Jackson).

My son finished up reading Eli Whitney, Judith Alter, from our early Industrial Revolution studies, and also finished up Napoleon, Alan Blackwood, from last week.

He also read Napoleon, Lucy Lethbridge; and Nelson, Minna Lacey.  Both are part of the Usborne Famous Lives series for children.  Some of these books contain more mature content, even though they seem to be marketed toward younger kids....

        

             
We also read a little more about pirates this week, with regard to the Barbary pirates, pirates of the Caribbean, Jean Lafitte, etc.  I read from Eyewitness Pirate, Richard Platt; and my son read Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter, Richard Platt.  He has read it before but likes the book, so I pulled it for him to read again this year.

     

We attended a Children's Theatre play today:  Anne Frank and Me.  I'm sort of sad that my son is aging out of these plays as we've been regular patrons since we moved here almost 13 years ago....

My son had his "Hollywood Nights" recital this evening.  He was dressed as Schroeder from Charlie Brown, playing the Linus and Lucy theme, complete with his Beethoven bust and Snoopy reclining upon the piano....  I think everyone had fun.

I miss Charles Schulz!  I grew up with the Peanuts....

 And he had his thirteenth birthday on Thursday.  I have no more "children," only teens now!  I'm really, really getting old.  He wanted to wait and eat out with his older brother tonight, because he couldn't come in town last night, so we went over to Carraba's right after his chem lab and before the recital.  It's nice to have everyone together....

Regena