Week 2 in Review

A pretty no-nonsense week around here, continuing with the usual subjects of math, language arts, science and history.

The older boys took their first vocab quiz for Lord of the Rings chapters 1-3, and did well.   We've been alternating days of listening to a chapter, and then using the next day for discussion and vocabulary review at lunch time.  This has worked well so far, and everyone is enjoying it all.  

 I added in World Religions for the older boys this week, too. I plan on getting to this subject a few times a month, when we can slip it in.  We started with a lesson on Creation Myths that can be found at World History for Us All, Big Era 1, Landscape Unit 1.1 Scroll to the bottom for a link to the lesson, or, a direct link to the PDF lesson is here.  We had some interesting discussions on this topic.

Ben is continuing to work on his amateur radio antenna tuner project, as well as reading Around the World in 80 days.  

Charlie and I finished up reading Ribsy together, and enjoyed it very much.  A simple, sweet story.  Now we're on to Knight's Castle by Edward Eager.  Meatier vocabulary and writing, and quite humorous so far!

Charlie's biosphere project from last week is working out nicely; plants are growing and thriving.  

This week for Charlie's science, we read about Mars, and next week we'll do a lab to make rust, the substance that gives Mars its orange-red color.

I choose an art project from That Artist Woman for Charlie that  used thinned acrylic paint in warm colors, and featured a leafless tree created by blowing paint along the page for fun branching effects.  

Will and I did the first 2 lessons from Unit 1 of Artistic Pursuits grades 6-8 book 1; learning to use space.  We did some quick sketches of an elephant chasing his attendant, at full size and then half-size.  The idea of the lesson was to become comfortable with fitting your subject into a given space.

Will's sketch

my sketch

Well, that's the highlights for this week.  I'm glad it's Friday!  Looking forward to a relaxing weekend!