Week in Review for Duncan (wk 1a of 36) and a Little News about Grayson

This is the week for my 8yo, Duncan, and a small brag for my 17yo, Grayson.

We are beginning to ramp up into fall schoolwork. Next week we will begin more materials and I hope to add the hours from this week and next week together to count as 5 full days. Our first full day is scheduled for 8/8. Then we will have a whole month to find our groove before activities begin in September. The goal is to be able to complete 90 days by Friday, December 16th and still take off Labor Day, a Wednesday- Friday in October, Halloween Day, and the entire week of Thanksgiving.

T4L Page

This week Duncan began using Time4Learning. He completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:54:27
Math- 0:44:58
Science- 1:36:01
Social Studies- 1:19:05

As you can see this is a whopping total of just slightly over five and a half hours. I am viewing it as test prep for third grade standardized testing. I hope that after we start Classical Conversations this fall that there will still be enough time in the day to squeeze in T4L.

This is from the spring, but it is Duncan at our Kumon Center snarling at me to back off with the camera.

This week in math outside of Time4Learning Duncan spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day working on Kumon math. The little man also spent a whole whopping 29 minutes on Khan Academy for an average of less than 6 minutes each day. :-/

Khan Academy's Exercise Dashboard.

He read Encyclopedia Brown #3 and Landmark Books The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway. This week he began looking at Vikings in T4L, so this book seemed the obvious one to grab at the library.

He also practiced violin about 15 minutes each day and I am so proud of myself for managing to get that done.

Proud momma brag on my 17yo: Grayson finished his very first course at the community college. He took United States History 2 in the second short summer session and made an A!

Summer Is Flying By... Can I Make It Fly Faster

Duncan is 8yo and will be beginning 3rd grade in the fall. Grayson is 17yo and will be a senior this year. Christian is 20yo, home from college and hanging out with us.

I dislike summer greatly. I dislike any temperature above the low 80s. Don't get me started on how I feel about humidity. The short response is that I dislike feeling out of breath from trying to breathe liquid air. Of course, I can't forget the joys of grass pollen. I don't sleep well and I'm grouchy. So, there!

Back to the regularly scheduled program.

No school Monday as we were celebrating July 4th. We barely made it to our local fireworks. When we arrived, there was no music! Arghh, this happened last time we went to the local fireworks and I had just forgotten! Next year I will remember to bring my own i-pod full of patriotic tunes.

This week Duncan read The Chalkbox Kid, Help! I'm a Prisoner in the Library, and Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. These are on the 3rd-4th grade Kumon reading lists. Our Kumon center is doing a raffle for reading program this summer and thanks to the immediacy of receiving a raffle ticket Duncan is motivated to read.

Even with taking off for several weeks, the little guy is rolling along in Kumon math. He may actually finish this level before we start back to school.

Last week was Duncan's last lesson with our violin teacher, Aaron. He moved back to his home town and will be sorely missed. Last week we also started with our new violin teacher, Jessica. We will see how it goes. Aaron will be a difficult act to follow.

Duncan also watched a couple of science videos from the library.

In the last week of June, Grayson began a 5 week summer session American History 2 class at the local community college. So, while cramming a semester into 5 weeks, he is pretty much just doing American History. I wouldn't have considered it a good idea to take a short summer session class, but my oldest had this professor and absolutely loved her. When I saw that she was the instructor, I was all for it. This week he made a 94 on his first test. Some smarty britches made a 99. The class received a 1 point curve, so his finally score was 95. He was satisfied. Monday he has a paper due and there is another test next week. Whew, those short sessions are crazy fast.