Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

Duncan is my 2nd grader.

Have I mentioned how much I like memory work? Here is Duncan’s for week 9.

Tell me about prime numbers.
Numbers that have exactly 2 factors are prime numbers.

Tell me about a clause.
Each group of words with a subject and a predicate in it is called a clause.

What are dwarf planets?
Dwarf planets are astronomical objects that orbit the sun and are round, but, unlike planets, they have not cleared their orbital path.

Tell me about the Punic Wars.
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage that resulted in the utter destruction of Carthage.

Poem 1
the witches’ chant from Macbeth

In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres. That reminds me- does anyone know of a good online explanation of aspirated sounds, guttural stop sounds, etc.? It has been a long time since my oldest was in speech therapy and I think a quick review would really help me teach this first section of Music of the Hemispheres. (I think that I will ask this on TWTMforum. Duh.)

Duncan also covered clauses in Grammar Island and some handwriting. After being sick last week and not covering SL LA, I decided just to start over. Something irritates me about being on week 9 of school, but week 8 of SL. Oh, well.

Duncan is moving along in Saxon 76. It is pretty certain that he will finish the book before the end of this year, so here soon I will be dropping down to 3 lessons each week. I am considering doing Hands on Equations and reviewing some before beginning Saxon 87 to give him time to master the material and approach some information in a fun, hands-on way. He really liked Cuisenaire rods and the MUS blocks, so I think that he would like some time with manipulatives.

Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei held on to their seats and did a fly-by of ancient Rome from Romulus and Remus through the Punic Wars. I use Gombrich’s Little History as our spine and all of this is in Chapter 13. I read aloud two Roman spreads from my handy old Kingfisher, a short version of Romulus and Remus, and information from Mr.Donn’s Roman history online. They made 5 little minibooks for a lapbook of ancient Rome. (Even in this quick overview we will spend 4 weeks on Rome including our week that covers Christianity. So, I decided that it needed its own lapbook. Mei is excited!) Without Mei, Duncan and I read Hannibal by Robert Green. Whew! So much history, so little time!

Mei's Left; Duncan's Right

In science Mei and Duncan explored Pluto, dwarf planets, the Kuiper Belt and the Asteroid Belt. They completed two lessons of GSA Space and filled in information on Pluto for their solar system book. They read about dwarf planets at Starchild and watched some space videos at howstuffworks.

Last year our Spanish was just fun relaxed exposure. This year I actually purchased materials, but rather than curriculum I just bought some books at Borders. Duncan and Mei are just having fun looking at the books and filling in the pages. I am not doing much in the way of instruction other than just reading the words on the page. Even though I don’t mention it often, we are still plugging away.

Latin for Children- Lesson 9: swimming through it splashing and having fun.