Weekly Review - Weeks 32 - 38 (April 12 - May 27)

School's out for summer! We are very excited and very much in need of a break. Our last several weeks of school had a lot of scheduling changes and difficulties. We have reached the end of the year, having had many successes and shed many a tear! So here's what happened when I wasn't posting:

Bible - we completed reading Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Ruth. 

Middle School Essentials - We finished reading What's Right for Me? and Rocket Boy read Chapter 6 of Total Health: Talking About Life's Changes and made use of some of the pages in the workbook. We took one morning to concentrate on cleaning and organizational skills. After a few review lessons from Spectrum Test Prep, Grade 7, he completed the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

Fine Arts - Rocket Boy finished up the year with his weekly guitar lessons. He is taking the summer off. His acting class finished with a performance at our co-op Family Night. 

Early Modern History - This was a race to the finish line. We covered a lot of ground. In addition to learning about Napoleon, Rocket Boy read  The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin and The Two Grenadiers. He wrote several summaries, including summaries on Nat Turner, William Wilberforce, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Napoleon Bonaparte, Captain James Cook and Davy Crockett. He completed a world time line of slavery from the 1600's through the 1888 abolishment of slavery in Brazil. He did a lot of map work and completed information sheets on the War of 1812, The Mexican American War and the Trail of Tears. To wrap up the year, he selected several events that he determined to be important, condensing them in a chart format and then summarizing five of them in paragraph form. History Odyssey has been a good fit and we will continue with this program next year.

Language Arts: Spelling - Rocket Boy completed the  Apples 2 spelling book. I expect this to be the last spelling program that we use.
Language Arts: Composition - He completed a 5 paragraph essay on the second amendment to The Constitution of the United States. He chose which amendment to write about and detailed the possible  consequences of not having this amendment. Personally, I was hoping he'd pick free speech, but with his current interest in the military, I am not at all surprised that he chose the right to bear arms.

Language Arts: Literature - In keeping with our goal of introducing original documents and first-hand accounts, Rocket Boy read  Davy Crockett: His Own Story by David Crockett. After a lesson on point of view, he read The Captain's Dog. It is the story of Lewis and Clark told from the perspective of the dog. Yes, the dog.

Pre-Algebra - in math, we made it all the way through multiplying binomials. We will have to continue math through the summer, so we will have a "Math Clinic" every day.  Hopefully, this will keep math fresh for next year.





Science - We had an off topic field trip, attending Nanodays at a nearby state university. Rocket Boy thoroughly enjoyed the nitrogen ice cream and breaking the rubber tube. He also learned about ongoing research into nanotechnology safety concerns. As far as Life Science goes, we finished up the introduction to genetics and human body systems and called it a year. Again, the Science Explorer curriculum is a good fit and we will continue to use it next year, moving on to Physical Science.

And so, the school year 2009-2010 has closed. I am much more tired than I usually am, but this has been a highly unusual year. Which brings me to....

Getting A Head Start on 2010-2011C

So far I have written the vocabulary lesson plans for the entire year. We will be using a combination of three books: Vocabulary from the Classical Roots, Book A, Prefixes and Suffixes from the Learning Works and Greek and Latin Roots, also from The Learning Works.

I have  written the lesson plans for Season Three of Analytical Grammar and have figured out that I am going to teach comma usage in lists slightly differently than the book does, but consistent with common usage. This is not a big deal to change.

I have also written lesson plans for the first two chapters of Physical Science. I will probably write two more chapters before the start of the school year.

No wonder I'm tired!