Week 15 Work....

We continued our Advent study this week and will continue it while we're off from school, through the holidays, too.  I think we're both enjoying it!  We are listening to the last tape in our Bible series right now. 

Ds continued with Lessons and Carols copywork, as well as some related to the Age of Reason.  He's finally beginning to write in cursive more now when doing any of his work.  He's always had difficulty in writing, so I"m encouraged by this!

He continued with his outside algebra class and we're working through a chapter on fractions in Russian Math right now. 

He continued with his 50 States workbook. 

He attended his outside Spanish class and worked on grammar using the Barron's book.  In Latin, he did lessons 15 and 16, as well as taking a test.  He completed chapter 15 in Greek.

He's working on the verb section in Easy Grammar right now.  He started work in his Lit class on The Green Book.  He continued in his Vocab book. 

In history, we were primarily studying Russia under Peter the Great this week.  I introduced the topic by reading from our history encyclopedias, atlases, Eyewitness Russia, etc. and also read aloud from these books related to Russia: 

The Empire of the Czars, Esther Carrion

Folktales of the Amur, Dmitri Nagishkin

I love this beautifully illustrated book!

Peter the Great and Tsarist Russia, Miriam Greenblatt

 Since ds had already read two bios of Peter, I only read the portions about everyday life and "Russians in their own words"....


Ds read about Peter in Ten Kings and also read the Diane Stanley bio of him.

He also read the chapter on Russia in SOTW.  I did not make him outline this week.

Russian folktales that ds read this week:

Baba Yaga, Eric Kimmel; The Sea King's Daughter, Aaron Shepard; The Lang. of Birds, Rafe Martin

He's also reading from Russian Folk Tales, James Riordan:

I continued read alouds we started in past weeks.  I was able to pick up some further readings about Native American groups from the colonial time period that I didn't have time to start earlier.  I read aloud from:

William Moyers - an old, old book that my husband and his brother had when they were children....

I also read Nations of the Eastern Great Lakes, Bobbie Kalman




He continued working in his Matter workbook this week and also did the chapter on Water from Tiner.  Chemistry books I read aloud this week for further discussion of topics we've been studying this semester included:

Acids and Bases, Chris Oxlade; Chemical Reactions, Louise Spilsbury; The Periodic Table, Sharon Cooper

Ds also read Acids and Bases, Carol Baldwin




He did about 5 experiments from Adventures with Atoms and Molecules, as well as several experiments from some books we finished in past weeks and these we finished this week.  I've found this year that it's working out better for us to do blocks of experiments, covering many over the course of an afternoon, and discussing them.

Today, we saw a play, The Neverending Story, at our local children's theatre.  I have no idea why they decided not to do a Christmas play this year.  Then we went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the afternoon, so we've been in parallel worlds most of today, LOL!

It's been nice to have a few less outside activities this week so that we can get things wrapped up nicely before our Christmas break.  I hope everyone else is able to wind down before the holidays, too!

Tonight, we had to go to a 9:20 indoor soccer game.  I'm pretty annoyed with the facility where he's playing.  They insisted that all games would be on Saturdays.  Our first two were on Sundays, right in the middle of church time, and now our next two are late, late on Friday night.  Oy....  Needless to say, we won't be playing there ever again....  At least he's still really enjoying his soccer clinic, which is at a different facility.  I think we're going to be playing there for the second winter term....

Perhaps I should comment on our reading.  I know that I have him reading shorter, simpler books for lit in general this year, but I'm trying to move him into doing more science and history (non-fiction) reading,  and with the time that's being devoted to languages, too, something has to give.  Also, I'm not concerned with his reading speed or comprehension, and we're still enjoying read alouds with discussions very much.  Because he attends well and seems to be learning well this way, I plan to keep it up for at least this school year. 

He reads longer works on his own time, too.  He finished up all Paolini's books this summer (I don't really like them, but both my boys do) and started in on the Redwall books.  He just finished Salamandastron and got out the next one, Martin the Warrior, I think.  I thought he might be tiring of all the name calling by now (as I did), but the food descriptions seem to be keeping him hooked, LOL!  (That was my favorite part, too....)

We've got to get around in the warmer weather tomorrow and finish up Christmas shopping, get a tree, and get decorated.  We would have done this sooner, but the weather has been bitterly cold here and we've had snow on the ground until today....  Old age seems to have hit me suddenly this year, and I've been freezing to death the past week.  I actually went shopping tonight between the movie and the soccer game and lucked up with no crowds, so I'm just about done!

Regena