Weekly Report: Week 13

This week has been a really odd one - Renaissance Man has been on an international trip, so we've had regular video calls through Skype at various times of the day, which sometimes served as a delay to the start of our school day (his night is our morning, you see). Other late starts were due to our oversleeping & the fact that I had a few days where I was not feeling well at all. Looking back, things did get done, so here we go with the wrap up:

Bible: We finished the devotion book  A Young Person's Guide to Knowing God today. Overall, it was a really good book & I would recommended it to anyone for about grades 5-8. I will decide over the weekend what book to do next - we have a few in line. I am also looking at doing deeper Bible study as well. Our hymn this week was "Count Your Blessings."

History: I set history aside this week to spend some extra time on science. I think the trade off in time will be well worth  it. We will pick up some history next week.

Language Arts: Analytical Grammar is going along smoothly - rules for the use of quotation marks were the order of the day. We are both weary of doing grammar. Rocket Boy has a good start on NaNoWriMo - he's a bit over 1/4 of the way to his goal. He spends around 45 minutes each day writing his science fiction novel. It has been a welcome change of pace.

Mathematics: Moving along with Math U See Algebra I. This week Rocket Boy reviewed the distributive property and then what the author called "reverse distributive property." I am not sure why he didn't just call it factoring. Rocket Boy had an easy time with these concepts (they are not new to him) and made an A on his test today - a milestone for this year.

Science: The topic of the current chapter is "Solids, Liquids and Gases." Rocket Boy spent the week reading & answering questions. It's really exciting to see him use scientific terms to define his vocabulary words. He is able to bring it all together and synthesize the information in physical science well.  A lab on pressure and volume is up for next week, as is some review work and a test. It promises to be a busy week.

Art: This is the next to last week for the co-op. Overall, I am glad that Rocket Boy was able to get in another art experience, he loves it so. I do long for an advanced art class for him, though. After Christmas I may add Artistic Pursuits back into his schedule. He did the first junior high book in that series last year and enjoyed it.

No tennis this week due to the cooler weather, but we'll need to bundle up soon and get out there! First Lego League was a struggle this week. The team has not made much progress on the board. Only four more scheduled practices before the regional qualifier, so we'll see if they can pull it together.