Learning Notes: January 5-9

Scenes of the Week

Did get back into school this week as planned. It’s always hard to start back but it’s better than not starting or everyone begins to drive me crazy. I am never able to add all the subjects back at once. We usually manage Math, Spelling and other basics first and then gradually add others. Next week we should be back to our full schedule.

Monday

Got to the store in the morning. Can’t remember anything else. Think the children did practice the piano but that was probably it. We probably cleaned ahead of mission group.

Tuesday

Bible Study and then, while I had a meeting, Elphine and Alouicious did math and spelling and they all read and practiced piano. Then I waded in to a long dreaded day of cooking. Everyone had a chance to learn something. Alouicious made two soups for the week, Elphine made bread, Gladys learned to fry an egg and Romulus to scramble one. I baked chicken drenched in Harissa for Epiphany Supper. And we made a cobbler. A long long day.

Wednesday

Piano lessons. Got into memory work around 11. Returned to Treasures of the Snow. Bible reading was Jacob moving to Bethel. Gladys did copy work and read Paddington, Romulus worked on Astronomy (Orion), Elphine did a history chapter on Vikings and Alouicius did science. Two chapters math and spelling.

Thursday

Up early to take dog to groomer. Got through everything pretty well by 1:30 when it was time to get the dog. Well, everything I’m responsible for. Elphine, Alouicios, and Romulus still had work. Bible was the death of Rachel and Isaac. Did math, spelling, Treasures of the Snow, Isaiah 55. Did read to the little girls. Had to finally stop and go do Shepherd’s Bowl.

Friday

Reading day. Everyone does math, spelling, piano, reading and is supposed to write a paragraph. Skip bible generally speaking on Friday. Read two chapters Treasures of the Snow, a short page about the Transcontinental Railroad and the building of canals in America, a chapter about planets, a chapter of Around the World in 80 days and three chapters of Math. Put up a picture for the week and read the description. No one copied it and I forgot to write it down.

General Successes

I was pretty happy that we did school at all. I really pushed in spelling and it seemed to pay off by the end of the week. Math was good too. Read some of Romulus’ “book” that he’s working on all the time and it’s pretty good. There’s a real plot developing and he occasionally has a nice turn of phrase, like “death was everywhere” and “then the darkness fell over them”. Elphine wrote a coherent paragraph at one point. Alouicious was pretty well perfect in math and spelling. Trying to continue to squash my impulse to go more quickly because of the panic I always have brooding in the back of my mind. The progress we’ve made is so good and real it would be stupid of me to ruin it by panicking and going faster.

Failures

No latin, no French, no writing instruction, no Elphine and Alouicious doing all their subjects each day. Not enough work with Gladys. Have forgotten to order her next book. She still doesn’t understand what it means to practice her spelling words. She loves to have a spelling test but she doesn’t really get out to review on her own. Romulus continues to be very bright but very lazy.