Our Weekly Amble for February 27- March 3, 2017
This week started out with big challenges. Monday was such a difficult day. I think I posted something to the effect of, “The children have forgotten how to do school.”
I had an attitude of “OK, we rested last week, let’s hit the ground running.”
The children’s was more, hmmm, lackadasical would probably be the nicest way to put it.
I’m afraid I did not handle that tension very well.
After Monday’s struggles, Tuesday went somewhat better – but Jason still got an email from me titled “Laying down the law.” Thursday and Friday were much better.
Overall, we could all use our time better – work with more and leave each other alone better. What is nice is that at our Weekly Meetings, the children all recognized their need for improved Time Management and not being distracted by or distracting others.
Assent is the first step, right?
It was a rough week. We still accomplished the work I had for the most part.
We finally have a good routine for piano practice and organ practice and both children get to practice on a real piano twice a week this way. I love our digital piano and it has weighted keys, but it also has a volume knob. They can really work on their dynamics better by doing their piano practice opposite their organ times at Asbury. This also means that twice a week they don’t have to do piano during either school or free time. That helps.
We read Ambleside Online Year 5, Term 3, Week 7. There were some difficult things in this reading including the Armenian massacres and Boer War. We had some difficult reading this week regarding Socialism, Monopolism, and Roosevelt’s Trust Busting. Some of the readings were easy – like why we need sleep. N-boy was enthralled by Bullfinch’s retelling of the Iliad. I haven’t told him we’re reading the real thing next year. I found a cool 3D video of the Clifton Suspension bridge which we read about in Madam How, Lady Why. (It’s the only video we watched from the playlist I made).
In math, M-girl is still finding negative integers easy, N-boy is working between fractions and decimals, and R-girl is easing her way into multi-digit multiplication.
We did some geography every day either in Memoria Press’ Geography workbooks or by noting 4 locations in our binders. M-girl added some wonderful quotes to her commonplace and events to her Book of Centuries. She’s copying one verse a day of 1 Peter and doing a lovely job. The others are still working on their Westminster Shorter Catechism copywork, but R-girl is getting close to done.
Latin is going well. M-girl finished Lesson 5, a review lesson to start the new term. N-boy and R-girl are working on Lesson 3. We chant Lesson 3 vocabulary and one old page from Latin for Children A during Whatchamacallit, which is helpful.
Speaking of Whatchamacallit, we met all four school days this week. We’re still working on Psalm 34, are working our way steadily through the Catechism, and The Ology. We switched to ‘Nothing but the Blood’ for our hymn. We are continuing to memorize A Psalm of Life by Longfellow and finished reading the Whittier section in the AO Year 5 Poetry book. We read the second scene of the first act of Henry V. I finished reading a chapter of The Chestry Oak … so sad. We did a drawing lesson.
Attitudes all around and working diligently were our biggest obstacles to this having been a great week. I am hopeful that next week will be improved. I think this is the first OWA post with no pictures. How strange.