After ups and downs, crazy-busy weeks and me getting wound up and tense about whether we're on track, in later October I started to look for ways to be more relaxed and yet continue catching up on the essentials. It worked!

Our absolute essentials are math, Latin, writing skills (for Son1 primarily through his history curriculum), and, for Son1, science. Everything else can be done as we have time and opportunity. I realized the boys' secondary subjects truly get done over fewer days and in less time than I planned. I chose to stop fretting over whether each boy gets 20 minutes of reading in each of three different subjects every day.

Also, I started looking for opportunities for discussion with each boy. In particular, Son1 and I discussed his history topics rather than making him do yet another three-level outline or create a presentation (the history projects are fast and furious lately). This allowed him to catch up in history while still practicing analysis skills. Son2 and I discuss the books he reads. I've asked dear husband to conduct a weekly Socratic dialogue with Son1 about his current physical science topics.

Somehow all of this has freed me from the recent tyranny of my daily and weekly plans, making homeschooling more relaxed and yet successful. The boys are back on track with their essentials, and not far off with the secondary subjects. I rejoice, also, that reading time is being enjoyed again, now that we do it "after school".

The boys' weekly checklists felt like another tyranny of the "must do", so yesterday I reworked them. I removed the mention of specific days, kept the checkboxes (four per week, two, one, whatever), and rearranged everything into three groups: essential, important, and occasional. Now the boys will be able to see our weeks the way I am looking at them.

Hurrah!

Before I forget, I'm trying to note what we did last week -- our first week of our 2008-2009 homeschooling year. We started our homeschooling year on Monday, August 18... and then took a goof-off day on Wednesday, the first day of the public school year!

The kids are so much happier -- in better moods -- cheerful -- with a daily routine than they were all summer. I'm not sure what lesson to take from that, since our summer was so busy, but maybe there's something I can try next summer.

On our first day, I introduced them to some new responsibilities. We will each do one thing daily to contribute to the house upkeep beyond the regular chores (so we can make headway around here!). Each boy will do one load of their combined laundry each week (Son1 -- brights & darks, Son2 -- lights & whites). The boys will also learn to cook and bake some things, so we brainstormed a bunch of meal ideas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that they would like to make and to eat.

Daily

Handwriting practice. Continuing where they left off in their workbooks; on Monday, they also shared writing down all of their meal ideas (two pages!). Piano refresher. Reviewed all of the short pieces learned in the current book.

Throughout the week

Math. Math facts refresher with dice (6- and 12-sided) and skip counting. They looked through their not-quite-finished math books. After that, they began reading and thinking through the problems in Primary Challenge Math (Son2) and Challenge Math (Son1), to "get their math brains working again".

Latin. Son1 and I reviewed all of the vocabulary flash cards (nouns, then verbs, then adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, etc.). Son2 browsed through his Minimus book and listened to the Minimus audio files on the computer.

Composition. Son1 is Scribe for his Boy Scout patrol, so he created an agenda template document on the computer for his upcoming patrol meeting, and printed it for his meeting notes. He typed up his minutes from the previous patrol meeting and emailed them to the patrol leader and the scribe mentor. After the patrol meeting, he typed up those minutes and, likewise, emailed them as needed.

History. Son2 read a chapter in The Story of the World v.2: Middle Ages, but I delayed Son1's more challenging history and composition curriculum for the second week of school.

History & literature reading. Son1 read a chapter in Our Island Story (British history); This Country of Ours (USA history); and Monks & Mystics (church history). He also began reading The Lord of the Rings (literature). Son2 read a chapter in Our Island Story (British history); This Country of Ours (USA history); and Kings & Queens for God (church history/biographies). He also read a chapter in O. Coolidge's Greek Myths.

The boys also watched some science and history TV shows, and finally watched most of the Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony.

Both boys did lessons and games at FreeTypingGame.net on several days, and Son1 did a lot of typing for his patrol minutes.

By the way, our Wednesday goof off day was breakfast at Panera Bread with my friends whose kids started school that day. Bowling at a local alley. Library visit. Home to read and play video games. Fun day!

I'm finding it hard to focus on the week past! That's because after our work was done on Friday we started a week-long fall break, woohoo! My mind is filled with thoughts of decluttering and dejunking of clothes and toys and papers, meal planning, thoughts about more consistent quiet time and reconnect time in our homeschool days, and ways to shift gears with the arrival of fall weather (early fall, so cool nights but warm days). I shall attempt a weekly update despite my scatterbrain. (Pictures will come tomorrow; I'm posting right before a big ol' thunderstorm line hits -- I can hear the rumbling, and the wind is picking up, sounding the wind chimes and the house's creaks. No time to scan and insert pictures now!)

In general this week we stayed close to my original daily schedule/routine while Son1 used his daily assignments checklist to figure out what to do. Right now it's working okay; my current goal is to give him responsibility without it driving me crazy!

We started the week with a little bit of emphasis on Columbus Day. Not too much, because we'll come back to the related themes several times this year. Later this year in world history we'll study native Americans in the Americas and, some weeks after that, their encounters with European explorers. In their American studies reading, the boys were reading about Christopher Columbus. So... this week Son1 finished the fast, enjoyable book Christopher Columbus, by Mary Pope Osborne (great pen and ink illustrations!), and Son2 read the Columbus picture book by the d'Aulaires. The DVR was set to record two special programs on Columbus for viewing later in the week, and we talked about Columbus and related topics for a bit. On Tuesday morning I was surprised to find that Son2 had gotten up before me and watched an hour of the two-hour program about Columbus's voyage to the Americas! We'll watch some or all of both programs this coming week, and call it a wrap for now.

Also, on Monday we took an unusual music appreciation break mid-morning. Son2 found a live Pink Floyd album in my dear husband's music collection, so I astonished the boys by cranking it loud for, oh, 45 minutes or so! They loved it! It was a great break in our day, and I chuckled all day about it.

Math

Son1 plugged away all week at the word problems in Singapore Math 6A Intensive Practice for the topics of ratio and fractions, and ratio and proportion. Each word problem is a different twist on the relationships among these concepts and ways they can be put to use. Both his brain and mine are getting a workout!

Here's a sample: Three sisters, J--, A--- and N--, share a sum of money. The ratio of J--'s share to A--'s share is 3:2. The ratio of A--'s share to N--'s share is 4:5. If J-- gets $78, what is the total sum of money shared by the three girls?

Son2 worked through the two review sections at the end of his Singapore Math 2A textbook and finished it on Friday. We did a little celebrating with him. It's not every day you finish your math book, right? He also spent some time with an online math game, doing addition and subtraction flash cards!

Latin

Son1 spent Monday revisiting his most recent lesson in Latin Book One because he had, um, er, not bothered to read the grammar section when he did that lesson the previous week. I pointed out that the grammar section was kind of important for doing the exercises correctly. (I also made a mental note to check the gist of the exercises when I preread the chapter so I know what he should be doing, rather than rely on a backwards translation from his work to see how it compares to the original; I must be more hands-on now.) We went over the lesson's grammar and vocabulary together, and he corrected his previous work using the "new" information. The next lesson was a review lesson that was indeed a good review for him, followed by the first substantial Latin reading, the (rather bloody) story of Latona's children. We read that together and talked about the story, trying not to translate but rather read for understanding.

Piano

The boys continue to love playing the piano. They're having a ball revisiting every song they've played in the last year. I realized it's a lot like reading: there is the forward-facing challenge of learning new concepts, the current challenge of applying learned concepts (learning several pieces to basic mastery), and the pleasure of revisiting familiar stuff and finding it much easier and, often, rather fun. This tells me that I should choose an enrichment music book that's a bit easier than their current level of study! We also did a rhythm exercise, and I'll continue teaching Son2 rhythm basics while we catch up with Son1 in this. A friend and neighbor stopped by, and both boys insisted on playing a song or two for him; that was neat.

Short stuff

We did memory work this week! My goal is to memorize 3-4 stanzas of the 20th century hymn, "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God," by All Saints Day, November 1.

The boys did less handwriting practice with workbooks this week, because... well, that's just how it worked out. They did copywork, and this week both boys had the Latin version of their Bible quotes. I chose sections of my favorite saying of Jesus, from St. Matthew's Gospel.

Son1's copywork, Matthew 11:28,29

Son2's copywork, Matthew 11:28

We got back to our Bible study this week, squeezing it into our relaxed Friday.

Composition and writing

Son1 spent his writing/composition energy on his History Odyssey lessons, so Classical Composition took a backseat this week. Son2 enjoyed a book about body-related idioms ("tongue tied," "butterflies in her stomach") that I reserved, sight unseen, in a search for kids' books about the human body! The boys' copywork contributes to their writing skills as well.

History

I finally got to a good stopping point (yes -- stop! cut it out! perfection is not a reasonable goal!) with my plans for Son2's medieval history this year using The Story of the World vol. 2. Now the weeks match up reasonably well with Son1's History Odyssey Middle Ages level 2, I've noted pages to explore in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, and I have notes on what projects, which pages we'll need in the activity guide, and what music and art, architecture, etc. I want to pull in if we can. Soon I'll post it here, after removing the references to SOTW2 activity guide info.

Early in the week, while both boys were studying the medieval Jews, I played klezmer music clips I found around the Web. We all loved it!

Son2 did a very nice map full of purple arrows showing the medieval Diaspora of the Jews. Also, to my surprise, he really wanted to color Herod's Temple. He also read about St. Brigid (Early Saints of God) and about Alfred the Great (Our Island Story, British history).

Son2's map of the Diaspora

Son1 finished his mini-timeline about the Jews from the destruction of the Temple to being expelled from England and France.

Son1's mini-timeline (about 2 1/2 inches tall)

After that, he started what I'd heard was an unusually frustrating lesson, No. 7, in which he was to write short summaries of 4-5 religions of the middle ages. The low-down I've heard is that there's not enough info in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, but I've got to say, it didn't seem that hard. Maybe it's because I adapted the lesson... and we borrowed The Usborne Book of World Religions from the library (which Son1 poured over for a couple of days)... and he worked on it for most of the week.

What I meant about adapting the lesson is that I printed some History Scholar World Religions pages for the religions Son1 chose, and told him we were going to use them our way. For each religion I asked him to note several "fast facts", copy an interesting statement of his choice from his reference book, and make note of what reference book he used. For most of the religions he also drew a related picture in the space provided. He did five religions, and taken as a whole I like his work for this lesson. I expect he'll add to these pages later, but perhaps not (there's a place for a brief bio of person of importance, and maybe more facts).

Son1's page about Islam in the Middle Ages

After our fall break, Son1 will research and write a biography of an important person in one of the major religions of the middle ages. He's chosen Saint Francis of Assissi.

Son1 also finished Peril and Peace, and got within a hair's breadth of finally finishing The Door in the Wall (which means he will do a writing assignment that has been pending from Lesson 3).

I let the boys get a little behind in their reading this week while I dealt with keeping our days on track, cracked down on dawdling, stepped up the level of household chores being done during the week, and attempted to get back to quiet assigned-reading time twice a day, a simple key to daily happiness in our homeschool. Maybe they'll catch up on their assigned reading during our week off (in that twice-daily reading time...).

Science and nature

The human body was a big part of our week: Son2 had a bloody nose outside, he watched "Inside the Living Body" AGAIN, and he poured through a bunch of different kids' books on the human body (that I got from the library because he is generally interested).

Both boys watched a very good, fairly up-to-date TV program about climate change that was first shown last January. Later in the week we watched a program about Venus and global warming that presented climate change on Earth very differently. Sure enough, the second show was nearly six years old.

We've sighted a hawk numerous times this week, less than half a mile from our house. The kids played a lot outside, which I chalk up to the cold front that brought early fall weather for the week, and to my new walking program that draws me to our neighborhood park for a walk after dinner most nights. We ended the week with a visit to the little nature center at our city's reservoir/lake, and then went to the earthen dam and walked it. That was fun!

Hmm, I guess that's it. This week, our fall break, is mostly unplanned, but the concluding weekend will include Oklahoma history and reenactors, and plenty of time in a beautiful natural setting. Mmmm, wonderful.

I've come to realize, though I'm sure it's obvious to any who stop by and read, that I write long weekly updates as a way of thinking through our week!

The big news this week was that I wrote up a daily checklist of assignments for Son1 to work through somewhat independently. This was because I wondered if our struggles were somehow related to me running his life, er, I mean, his school day, and only offering information about his lessons as we came to each subject in the day. Thanks to some related discussions on my homeschooling discussion board hangout, The Well-Trained Mind boards, I decided to try providing him with a daily assignment checklist.

It was a good idea and I plan to continue, but here's a tip: don't hand your preteen an assignment checklist, expect him to work on it steadily, AND let him work out of your sight... when he has finally gotten from the library the latest book in a series he really loves. OOPS. Next, he thought having a checklist meant he could do all of the easy subjects first and then dawdle and balk at the stuff that requires some mental focus. Ahem. After those glitches, the rest of the week went fairly well. The checklist/independence idea was most successful and least frustrating when I nudged Son1 along to his choice of acceptable-to-me subjects, rather than leaving him to his own devices, and told him what time he needed to be done with his work for the day.

Math

Son1 continued with his Singapore Math 6A textbook and Intensive Practice workbook, doing ratio and proportion. Through checking his work (working the problems myself) I learned some stuff I don't remember ever learning!

Son2 is nearly done with the Singapore Math 2B books. He did a review of addition and subtraction of money (making change, etc.), and had fun with some geometry and an introduction to the concept of area -- I got out the pattern blocks for that. He completely finished the Extra Practice workbook and has one day's work left in the textbook. He also played some math games online, practicing addition to shoot the asteroids or some such thing, and learning about angles.

Latin

Son1 did two lessons in Latin Book One over four days and took it in stride, yay! He also wrote out conjugation drills twice and did some Latin copywork (see below).

Son2 did Latin activities most of the week. Day 1: we made word slips with verbs and with Latin versions of friends' names. Day 2: Son2 cut them out and put them in the baggie with the previous slips. Day 3: he made sentences with the slips and decided he needed more "est" slips, so he made some. He also did activities on the Minimus Web site. Days 4 and 5: he listened to the current lesson on my iPod.

Piano

They both played the piano a lot. They spent most of their time mastering a song they found at the end of Teaching Little Fingers to Play -- not actually their current piano book! -- and playing every song in TLFtP. We never quite got to a lesson this week, but I can live with that. Oh, and I worked with Son2 on a rhythm exercise/challenge; I need to give him a good foundation in all that rhythm stuff before he gets much further in music study.

Handwriting and composition

The boys did their regular penmanship workbooks on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I introduced copywork for Tuesday and Thursday, which for Son1 is more handwriting practice but for Son2 is also practice in grammar, mechanics (capitalization, punctuation), and a model of good language.

After they got over the change in expected routine they seemed to enjoy the copywork. I gave Son2 blank notebooking pages from History Scribe files so he could draw a picture if he wanted to (um, nope). I've been working on character and discipline issues with the kids, hence the Bible selections for Tuesday. On Thursday I chose the John 1 verses, and then realized I could look up the Latin and did so for Son1's copywork. I think he thought that was kind of cool, actually.

Son2's Tuesday copywork, Ephesians 4:31

Son2's Thursday copywork, John 1:6,7

Son1's copywork, Ephesians 4:30,31 and John 1:1,2

In Son1's Classical Composition program, he picked up where we dropped it last week. He finished the rewrite of the story using the outline, and learned and added two figures of description. He'll continue with the lesson next week. This fit pretty well with my new plan of smaller bites of CC, doing a lesson slowly over two weeks, while also doing the writing and analysis in his History Odyssey lessons. Indeed, late in the week he outlined a text as part of his history lesson.

Music and art

In history they've both read about monasticism and early Christianity, so one day this week I played a CD of Anglican chant -- sung Morning, Noontime, and Evening Prayer and Compline, in English. Another day I played "Chant," a CD of Benedictine monks chanting their daily prayers in Latin. None of these are strictly of the correct time period, but I decided to go for music and art that are related in some way. As far as general music appreciation goes, the boys also got a little exposure to Elvis Presley, the foxtrot, and the cha-cha; we watched the "Dancing with the Stars" TV show...

No particular art study this week. There is still much doodling on Son1's papers and workbook pages. Oh my word, there's a lot.

History and literature

Son1 kept working on his monastery floor plan -- the graph paper turned this into a fun rather than frustrating project, hurrah -- and continues to avoid The Door in the Wall. To his surprise I made him move on to the following lessons and finish those other lessons on his own time. He did two substantial, writing-oriented History Odyssey lessons with little complaint, which is downright wonderful. One lesson had him outline the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia text on the medieval Diaspora of the Jews and record in his notebook the definitions of a bunch of relevant words. The other lesson had him map the Diaspora, write a one-paragraph summary of the origins of medieval anti-Semitism -- I typed as he dictated, in order to focus on the analysis and structure rather than the agony of writing on paper, haha -- and create a mini-timeline of related events that folds up and fits on a page in his notebook. This was a great, steady week in history for Son1!

Son1's map of the Diaspora

Son1's outline about Jews in the Middle Ages

Son1's summary of roots of anti-Semitism

For Son2's history he really needs more activities and reading, and the basic map work annoys him, so I worked on a year-long plan of activities and resources (see below) and decided to add the advanced map work from the SOTW2 activity guide.

This week, anyway, Son2 did a map of St. Augustine's travels to Britain as sloppily as possible (which is when I realized this map work was too simple, "easy," boring). Mid-week we all had a "monk's supper" for lunch, with a delicious lentil soup (I used the recipe in the SOTW2 activity guide), and bread and butter. He also watched "Timeblazers" episodes (Discovery Kids?) about revolutions, and another about disasters through history, and a couple of episodes of "Liberty's Kids" (PBS) set in the American revolutionary times.

As for reading, Son1 pretty much caught up with Our Island Story (British history, currently Alfred the Great, etc.), Famous Men of Rome (Cato the Censor, etc.), and This Country of Ours (Amerigo Vespucci and the name "America"). I put off the planned Tales from Shakespeare reading for literature because he'll be assigned some in a few weeks with History Odyssey. As it turns out, Son1 also picked up and really enjoyed reading the original Pinocchio story, a translation of C. Collodi's Italian tale, that I borrowed for Son2's literature reading. No church history reading this week 'cause Son1 read way ahead last week.

As for Son2's reading, he started Collodi's Pinocchio and also read the story of Saint Genevieve, the first half of a Mary Pope Osborne book about Christopher Columbus, and a chapter in The Story of The World v.2 about medieval India.

Science

Last weekend Son1 camped with other members of his Boy Scout troop when they attended the Oklahoma Centennial Camporee... with 5,000 other Scouts, adult leaders, and family members. Wow! He had a great time, spent the whole weekend outside, and came home pretty tuckered out.

We looked at weather data after a cold front came through, because I have a little desktop program that plots the last 24 hours of humidity, temperature, pressure, wind speed, wind direction, and rainfall. The cold front was easy to see in the data, so that was fun.

Son2 brought home seeds from pods that fell off a tree down the street, and we discussed seeds and the acorns that will soon be all over our front yard and driveway thanks to our young oak tree. Son1 and I spent some time watching spiders in spiderwebs outdoors; we have noticed a lot of them this summer, for whatever reason.

I recorded a National Geographic TV show, "Inside the Living Body," for the kids. Son2 watched it twice! Since then, he has talked about the blood vessels in his body, and mentioned that when a baby is born its heart is the size of a walnut. He also watched an episode of "Survivorman" set on the African plains.

Other stuff

Hmm, I didn't mention Bible study or memory work, did I? On the other hand, I am delighted that everyone did well with the core studies all week and we even added copywork to the mix at last. We had a difficult day on Monday that I didn't even mention, a meeting that I combined with a library visit on Tuesday morning, chess club on Wednesday afternoon, and plenty of work all week on character, discipline, and how to tackle an assignment list. So, I'm very pleased.

Alongside all that, this week I worked on a year-long plan for Son2's history. I decided to reorganize his The Story of the World: Middle Ages chapters and activities to fit with Son1's History Odyssey Middle Ages 2 order of topics, so the other activities, music, and art would fit both boys' history studies. After setting that up, I chose activities from the SOTW2 activity guide for each lesson AND scanned the ones I thought we would use this fall (for easy printing later) AND brainstormed and researched art and music for as many of the lessons/chapters as I could. It didn't help this week very much for Son2, but next week should be better.

I'm off to reserve books for Son2 and get my ducks in a row for the coming week.

A week on a pretty even keel, even with some big waves to manage. This week included a day of hospitality ministry at church, and two big milestones for Son1: the first "real" lesson of the History Odyssey (Middle Ages level 2) program, and the first of the Latin Book One lessons at a faster, two days per lesson pace. All went quite well, no big upsets signaling frustrations, the week was fairly cheerful, and I'm content.

The biggest challenge was probably Monday. We spent most of the day at church preparing for and running a funeral reception. Wonderfully, the boys still got their core work done and I didn't fret over it. Son2 has a light load and cheerfully tackles it nowadays. I did assign Son1 most of his as homework for the rest of Monday afternoon since he chose to read at church rather than do his work. Interestingly he didn't argue about homework. Perhaps that set the tone for the week: Mom will assign homework if need be, and Son1 will get it done.

= Math =

Son1 worked steadily through his Intensive Practice workbook word problems on ratio and fractions, and then had some troubles. At that point I realized there was a separate lesson -- after the ratio lesson -- on ratio and fractions... and Son1 hadn't gone through that in the textbook. Oops! I backed him up, and got him working through the actual lesson. He found it a lot easier, LOL!

Son2 likes to skip around in his book. Problem is, he ends up in a similar situation to Son1: frustrated because he doesn't think he needs to work through the related lesson (sound familiar?). The rapscallion is now sentenced to review work for a little while. He is working through the practice pages after each lesson, starting at the beginning of the book he's nearly done with. So... in the latter part of this week Son2 set aside time and capacity, and got back in practice with multi-digit addition and subtraction, and multiplication and division of two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers.

= Latin =

Ah yes, Latin. Son1's week was a good solid one, with no real complaints but some serious dawdling and assigned afternoon homework on a few days (done cheerfully!), and in the end plenty of good work. He started with a review lesson that I used to introduce him to recalling the cases by their names (nominative, genitive, etc.). Until now we'd focused on function, but now it's time to tackle this part. Over the next four days he did two full lessons, with good comprehension and vocabulary recall! I'm reading ahead of him again, since he's doing this work mostly on his own. What a change for both of us!

Son2 had a less eventful, less varied week with Latin. He read Minimus lesson 5 several times on his own, with and without the CD, and he and I sat down with it one day and talked about the various words and concepts. Minimus is so fun! He ought to have had some activities too, but some weeks are like this.

= Memory work =

Ha.

= Piano =

The boys are back to being unable to keep their hands off the piano. Today I had to declare the piano closed (as is the kitchen often declared) to gain some quiet! Yet it was so enjoyable to hear them work on the various songs they were assigned last week, and master or nearly master most of them. This week's lessons with me went well. Something new: Son1 has been assigned a piece from Schaum's beginners book of "popular pieces" -- well, if you're talking about the 70s! In that book I found three fine, lively pieces and two okay ones among the many maudlin, sappy 70s songs. Henceforth I'll avoid such "popular pieces" books and prefer Schaum's graded books of folk songs, patriotic songs, and so on.

= Handwriting =

Moving along. Son2 becomes quite creative with invented handwriting styles on occasion. See his History Odyssey notebook page, below.

= Bible study =

I changed Bible study time to after Math and Latin, and that ended up in reality as, after piano and handwriting, too, and we only actually did it once this week. The kids like it, so we'll keep aiming for the intended three times a week.

= Music and art =

Partway through this week I had the bright idea to plan music from my CD collection to play when we're doing history stuff. Since we're still emerging from late antiquity in the middle east, with Son1 doing monasticism and Son2 already reading about the Byzantine empire, I played middle eastern music. That is, Peter Gabriel's "Passion" -- ethnic/traditional regional music similar to what he used for the soundtrack to the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ". The kids love it. Next week we'll do some Gregorian chant and related stuff -- I have a lot, oops! -- and Ofra Haza for middle eastern.

As for art, Son1 is becoming a master doodler, the boys love to draw all over their Bible study activity pages, and they had a ball working on their illuminated letters from Son2's history activity guide.

Son2's illuminated letter, with markers:

Son1's illuminated letter, with colored pencils:

= History & literature =

Son1 found History Odyssey quite a change from our relaxed tour through the ancient world! On Tuesday and Wednesday he did his History Odyssey lesson 2, which includes reading a two-page spread on monasticism in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (with lots of great pictures) and writing a series of summary notes in his new binder for history. He fancied it up with some invented handwriting styles. Next week I'll gently point out spelling errors, but I wasn't ready to do it after he had poured a lot of effort into pulling together the information. The picture is one of his pages.

Son1's notebook entry on monks:

Funny, church-nerd moment: reading aloud to Son1 from my copy of the Rule of St. Benedict after he learned about it, while he unloaded the dishwasher. What? Doesn't everyone own a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict??

Son2 enjoys the projects and activities from the activity guide for The Story of the World v. 2. This week he did some map work, and both boys got the chance to color an illuminated letter at last (as you saw, above).

Son2's map of the migration of Angles and Saxons into Britain:

Son1 started and finished the week behind in his reading -- for history (two chapters behind and the last of Outcast), classical studies (three chapters), and American studies (one chapter). On the other hand, he caught up and read way ahead in church history (Peril and Peace)! He also started The Door in the Wall for History Odyssey at my urging, setting aside Outcast for the week. I'm generally okay with this, though he'll have big chunks of assigned reading time early next week to help him catch up.

Son2 read ahead last week, so he had just a bit of reading this week: The Hero Beowulf picture book, a last story in Osborne's Favorite Greek Myths, a final story of his choice in Viking Tales, which he does not like at all, a couple of chapters of British history in Our Island Story, and a story from Early Saints of God. Ever heard of St. John the Short? Me neither!

I still like the different reading topics on different days. I think I need to go ahead and buy one or two of the three books the boys are reading online (Our Island Story, Famous Men of Rome, This Country of Ours). It would simplify their reading time, even though the boys seem to enjoy reading from the laptop.

= Writing/composition =

Son1 started over with the Classical Composition lesson from last week (total meltdown day), and worked steadily on it. Unfortunately, we began to run out of time in the week, so I decided that the summarization he is doing for his History Odyssey lesson is enough composition work for this week. He'll continue with the CC lesson next week in smaller amounts of time while we see how much time the various types of History Odyssey lessons will tend to take. I'm digging deeper into the History Odyssey program, and I may modify some of the HO work so he has time to do Classical Composition lessons about every other week... or perhaps he could do CC lessons more slowly, in small amounts per day over two weeks. Hmm.

I really need to set up some copywork for Son2. Probably drawn from his history topics or his reading.

= Science =

Last weekend at Son1's campout he had the opportunity to stargaze with a telescope! Son2 and I sat on our entryway bench during a rainstorm today and talked about what we noticed. That was pretty neat.

Breathe, breathe, grin.

What an up and down week!

I streamlined on the fly to make sure we got our core subjects in (math, Latin, history etc.). This week we were adding/adapting to new work: Son1 started his History Odyssey program and another lesson in his Classical Composition, and Son2 did more history activities. The streamlining continued all week because we had a Terrible Tuesday, a fun yet exhausting field trip on Wednesday, and recovery the rest of the week.

Monday was fine (yay! finally a start-the-week good day!), but Tuesday was... eventful. Son2 surprised me by doing his math and half his Latin before Son1 got up and before I'd had my coffee. Unfortunately I allowed this to result in a major, major problem.

When Son1 got going on his lessons I didn't keep a good eye on how long he was taking at his work, he dawdled a huge amount, Son2 wanted to do subjects the rest of us weren't ready for, I struggled to balance the different demands, and both Son1 and I ended up with major meltdowns. What a mess.

At the end of the school day I reflected, and apologized to the boys for dropping rather than relaxing our routine and then getting mad when Son1 didn't stay on task. I also told Son2 that next time he wants to start lessons before everyone else, he'll have to choose assigned reading instead of core subjects. Seems sad to do that, but it was amazingly hard for me to keep to our routine for one son while the other was completely off the routine. Arrrgh.

On Wednesday we went on a field trip to the state fair with our homeschool group -- great fun! We had never been. We visited lots of kid-oriented hands-on exhibits, ate fair food, etc. No rides or games; there was plenty to do without going there. More details are below, under "Science." Even though our lessons that morning went very well, the fair outing affected us the rest of the week because we were exhausted afterward. Son2 fell asleep in the car and slept all the way home, something he NEVER does. So, the next day had its ups and downs. We worked our way through it, and in the end I'd say it went reasonably okay. On Friday I resisted the lure of trying to catch up on our lessons, and we relaxed after math and Latin. A very good decision.

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By the way, I list our subjects in the order we do them.

= Bible study =

Didn't do it at all this week, which is okay with me. We struggled all week, and I dropped Bible study to make sure we got our core subjects in every day. The kids missed it, so I think there will be no problem getting back to it.

= Math =

Son2 encountered fractions. At first certain aspects puzzled him, especially the comparison of fractions (is 1/3 greater or less than 1/4?). We worked on the concept -- most successfully like this: if Daddy eats 5/8 of a pizza and you eat 2/8 of a pizza, who had more pizza? Hahaha! By Wednesday he was much more comfortable with it. He moved on to some aspects of telling time (25 before the hour, 35 after the hour, etc.), and then started capacity, first metric and then English. I have a clean one-gallon milk jug for him to use in pouring water into different containers -- different shapes and sizes/capacities.

Son1 worked most of the week on algebraic expressions, doing all of the word problems in the Singapore 6A Intensive Practice workbook. Late in the week he had some fun with solids and what shapes can fold up into what solids (all mental work), and finished the week with some work on ratios.

= Latin =

Son1 did chapter four in Minimus, which is focused somewhat on verbs and has a fun story about the various household slaves. He read the chapter several times both with and without the CD, and I urged him to read the non-story section of the chapter as well. He played some games on the Minimus Web site (not everything works in Firefox on the Mac OS, arrgh). He also read some of the later stories in the book, played a little with the noun and adjective slips of paper from last week, and read the stories aloud with me, taking different parts.

Son1 reviewed lessons 9-11 in Latin Book One, doing all of the English to Latin translation exercises. By the end of the week he's become much more comfortable with putting together the Latin equivalent sentences with the appropriate word endings. My way of checking his work was to try to read the sentences back into English; I had fun being puzzled in gently silly ways when he hadn't gotten the endings right. We also started reading aloud the readings, and I began to prepare him for the idea that next week he will start doing entire lessons, probably one lesson over two days. The first lesson next week will be the last lesson we did in May, and then we'll be in new territory. I think he's ready.

= Memory work =

Ha! Let's see... we recited our normal evening meal prayer in Latin on Monday evening. Benedic, Domine, nos....

= Piano =

This went very well, despite worries early in the week. Last week at their first official piano lessons (with me) they were given assignments, and early this week it seemed as though they were only practicing favorite songs and not what they'd been assigned. By the end of Wednesday, lo and behold, they had worked on all of their assigned songs.

At Thursday's lesson each boy played for me what he had been working on, and the result was the same for both: two songs mastered (kudos!) and two songs to continue working on. Son2 was assigned two new songs as well, and Son1 was assigned four new songs because he was nearly at mastery for the previous week's songs.

The next day, our relaxed Friday, the boys returned to the piano over and over all afternoon, with Son1 teaching Son2 a couple of his new songs. I think they've both mastered most of their songs (and Son2 several of Son1's). They also had a lot of fun messing with the minor key sounds from these songs, and Son1 experimented with playing a song he really likes in different places all up and down the keyboard. Amazing. How fun.

= Handwriting =

Steady progress. I have a picture of some of Son2's work. The little star is for pretty good letters, and the big star is for very good letters, words, whatever. I'll ask Son1 if he would like me to show some of his cursive.

= History & literature =

Son2 is done with his assigned reading for the week. He read ahead a bit in American studies, and I stopped him from reading the middle ages history chapter for two weeks from now! He read chapters 2, 3, and 4 of The Story of the World v.2: Middle Ages (Roman Britain, early Christianity, and the Byzantine Empire, I think); several stories in Viking Tales; two chapters in Our Island Story about post-Roman Britain; and four chapters in This Country of Ours (Columbus's story, and the origin of the name "America").

Son1 is behind on his assigned reading a bit, mostly because of our rough Tuesday and our relaxed Friday in which some of his free time was spent getting ready for a Boy Scouts campout. Also, he has decided he doesn't like the historical fiction book about Rome and Britain, Outcast, but I'd read it; it's a pretty good story and a great window into that world, so he doesn't get to quit. I'm making him put 20 minutes into it every day and he decided he's okay with that. He also read a chapter of Our Island Story about post-Roman Britain; two chapters of This Country of Ours (Columbus); and two biographies in Famous Men of Rome. He is behind by a chapter or two of church history and a chapter of This Country of Ours.

New this week, we all sat down together and decided what projects and activities the boys were interested in from the first several chapters of the activity guide for Son2's The Story of the World v.2: Middle Ages. I don't feel the need to exactly synchronize activities with reading, so I figure we can take another week or two to do as many of these 5 or 6 as we like. So... on Friday the boys played Defeat the Romans, an interesting board game that as usual frustrated Son2 who hates to even imagine losing. Oh well.

Son2 also did this mapwork for the Roman Empire. I was very impressed with the great care he took in coloring the Mediterranean Sea blue. Perhaps you are wondering why Great Britain and Ireland are blue? Son2 explained that he chose to do that because the Celtic warriors painted themselves blue! Son1 is very interested in doing the illuminated manuscript activity, and that may draw Son2 into enjoying it as well. Not 'til next week, though.

Son1 did the first lesson in his History Odyssey: Middle Ages, level 2 program, hurrah! That was Wednesday, and by Thursday I'd decided to wait on the next lesson until next week; too much upset and weariness this week. Son1 seemed to enjoy the first lesson, though. He read the assigned two-page spread in our Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and then did the map work. We pulled out a nice children's atlas that I'd bought used in August, found a map of the continents that he needed to know for his map, and discovered a nice spread on Europe (geographical features and political) that was quite helpful to him. We ended up talking about Great Britain vs. England vs. Britain, and the atlas had a nice page on that as well.

= Writing/composition =

HA! After a total struggle on the Terrible Tuesday, I pushed it off all week and gave up Friday. I think Son1 will be fine next week to do the rest of the lesson solo as usual.

= Science =

State fair -- Clydesdale horses, lots of farm animals in the kids' hands-on area (chickens, baby chicks, rabbits, butterflies, piglets, milking cows, earthworms!), fried peaches and fried peanut butter cups, the view from 300 feet above the fair (yikes), milkshakes vs. snow cones, fountain spray that cools you off, etc. Another day, candy making demonstration at a local candy store. Dead dragonfly on our entryway last night. Son2 teaching himself to do small wheelies with his bicycle, and to ride no-hands, oh my.

In related news, last week Son2 received a passel of belt loops and pins for completing several academic and sports electives in spring and summer, and Son1 passed his Boy Scout Board of Review, moving from Scout class to Tenderfoot to Second Class Scout all in one hour. Woohoo!

There was proud congratulations and celebration for both boys, and a promise to buy an official Cub Scout belt for Son2 so he can wear those belt loop awards. Later, dear husband and I talked with Son1 about pacing himself from this point onward. In fact, he doesn't even need to go as fast as one rank per year, because he is 11.5 and has until age 18 to make Eagle. Our troop tends to aim for Eagle by 16, but we don't see the point of doing it so early. There is so much the boys can do before Eagle, why not spread it out while gradually working on the Eagle requirements?

Son1's favorite, favorite thing about scouting is the camping. At this very moment he is the sub-patrol leader at a weekend troop campout, leading half of his patrol, responsible to keep them organized and make sure everyone is fed. He'll have a very experienced patrol member as his second in command. Go Son1!

One final note. On Monday night, after a good day, we had a wonderful conversation with dear husband over dinner. I was having the kids tell their dad what they'd worked on that day. In the midst of dear husband asking them to tell him more about Latin word endings, Son1 said, "To be or not to be," as a joke related to something. Dear husband took off on a wonderful discussion, starting with where that came from (Shakespeare's Hamlet). He mentioned that it was a soliloquy or monologue, told the boys what Hamlet's dilemma was, talked a bit about power and choices, and about suicide and various perspectives on what God/the Church thinks about it (!). Then the kids and their dad started talking about the phrase Pandora's Box, the story of Pandora and what was special about opening the box (the kids were familiar with the story, cool!), comparison with the phrase "put the genie back in the bottle, " where that idea came from (Aladdin's story in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights), and whether in the stories genies were easy to control. It was so fun! I mostly kept quiet; this was all dear husband's thoughts, connections that he drew, and so on. Very cool.

= My goals for next week =

A reasonable, steady schedule that includes History Odyssey and Classical Composition for Son1 and more history activities and a little copywork for Son2; continuing character work with the boys (making good choices, being kind, being generous, self-control); a reading quiet time at morning break and/or lunchtime because mom needs it to recharge.