Weekly Wrap-Up: How Homeschooling Can Survive Multiple Interruptions

We made it!  Our second week with Jasper went a bit more smoothly than our first.  However, taking Jasper out, playing with Jasper, training Jasper. . . this all takes time and, to the girls' delight, often usurps whatever mundane educational thing we've got going at the time.  Conjugating Latin verbs?  Oh, look, Jasper needs to go out!

Convenient, eh?  But every single time, Jasper did actually need to go out.

However, we still managed to have a successful week.  In history last week, we began This Country of Ours, by H. E. Marshall, an AO history selection (available here at The Baldwin Project for free).  We read chapter two last week and chapter three this week, both concerning Christopher Columbus.  Even though I consider myself fairly well-versed in history, my understanding of how an Italian managed to convince the king and queen of Spain to finance his questionable journey was sketchy at best.  And I had no idea it such a complicated situation.  I should have guessed, though!

We finished both the chapter on Koskomenos the Kingfisher in Secrets of the Woods, by William J. Long, (available here on The Baldwin Project) and the section about Jason and the Argonauts in Charles Kinglsey's The Heroes (available here on The Baldwin Project).  We enjoyed both of these AO recommendations.  Secrets of the Woods is an excellent natural history living book, and The Heroes retells the ancient Greek myths with which every child should have at least a nodding acquaintance.  I didn't study Greek myths until high school and then only a few of them.  So when I was in college, many a literary classical allusion zoomed over my head simply because I hadn't read these stories.

I'm enjoying our study of Marco Polo more than the girls are.  Frankly, this is yet again something I barely studied in school -- only in elementary school and very briefly.  After that, Marco Polo was just a game we played at the pool.  Even though it's not their favorite topic, the girls are learning a lot, as evidenced by their narrations.

In other subjects, shortening Miss Priss's math lessons has made a big difference in her attentions.  Also, doing a bit of Latin every day has been successful.  She is retaining more and doesn't feel so overwhelmed.  She's even stopped complaining about Latin.  Yippee!  They both are enjoying their spelling workbooks and copywork.  This week, they chose different verses from Psalms for copywork.

Spring is in the air where we live!  My daffodils are beautiful, and some pink-flowering tree is blooming everywhere around our town.  I think they are flowering crabapple, but I'm not certain.  Today was sunny and hit 70 degrees.  It's after 6:00 PM, and the girls are outside wearing shorts.

I'm going to say a reluctant fare-thee-well to reading by fireside with a cup of tea on winter evenings.  But spring has its own charms.