Weekly Happenings: Freaky Busy But Keepin' On

The autumn leaves have been putting on a glorious show this week. The days are bright and clear, cool in the mornings but warming up in the afternoons. The nights are on the bracing side. What a beautiful time of year!

We've been busy, busy this week getting ready for ANOTHER horse show (thus, more time spent at the barn), doctor appointments, and our usual activities. So I considered this a week of essentials only. Spelling, French, poetry, grammar, copywork were all short-changed. While we spent some time on each of them, none got the full attention during the week that it deserves.

We kept up with our AO readings, math, piano, and Thinking Skills and Latin Roots for Miss Priss. In math, Miss Priss has been reviewing long division. I've been pleased with our choice of Math Mammoth for her; she is not as thrilled, but math is not her favorite subject, either. So I'm not surprised nor chagrined at her less than enthusiastic response. Long division has been challenging from the outset for her because she has trouble remembering all the steps of the algorithm. This week, we wrote out the steps together, and that helped some. As long as she remembered to refer to the steps.

In MEP Year 5, Tiny Girl has been working with time and measurement and plotting and interpreting data, as well as basic computations. I'm getting a bit of noise from her because her sister's math lessons are a bit shorter than hers. Injustice! (I find it interesting how quick they are to point out -- vehemently -- injustices as far as they themselves are concerned.)

We are completing our AO Year 4 readings. This week we finished George Washington's World! And what a great book it is. It's a world history spine in the Year 4 curriculum. All that remains is Abigail Adams:Witness to a Revolution.

We received from Netflix the first DVD in the PBS Liberty! series and watched the first episode one evening. Himself popped the popcorn. A combination of actor monologues, historian commentary, and vague dramatic scenes (you know, wagon wheels splashing through a creek, mist on a mountain, etc.), this documentary does a good job of bringing the era to life and explaining events, policies, and people within context. I especially like that the actor monologues are actual quotations from letters, journals, and the like. The girls, who balked at watching the DVD at first, ended up enjoying it. They often asked us to pause the DVD so they could comment or ask questions. I love it that they are learning so much about this period of history and actually making connections themselves! Caveat: there are some instances of strong language; e.g., Sam Adams says "kiss his ---" in one of his monologues. Best suited for older children.

I'm linking up with The Homeschool Mother's Journal and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to share our week.

I've also been invited to join a new link-up:





Stop by all these and have some fun, get some ideas, and find a bit of encouragement from others!

Have a great weekend!