Busy Week

It's been a busy week for us.  Misha's elbow is healing.  We took a field trip with the homeschool group to the apple orchard, which was fun.  Alyosha finished Hatchet, Liza finished The Halloween Tree, and Misha and I finished the first volume in Tales from the Odyssey.

Misha will be 7 on Friday!

My Poor Little One

My little Misha broke his elbow.  He now has a bright orange cast from his shoulder to his wrist.  <3

Tipperty Toes

The smallest elf.  He's a lesson in red, watercolor painted by Misha.

I'm nursing a cold so my lovely husband is making this tremendously wonderful cream of chicken soup that I love.  Just the anticipation of eating it makes me feel a little better.  A little.

Even with a my cold we've had a productive day.  Liza is reading Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree (we've read this before but she loves to read it every autumn.  It's a children's book but really quite creepy.  She read about ancient Egypt and wrote definitions for her vocabulary words (note to self: the children's dictionary is no longer sufficient for her.  I must dig out the collegiate dictionary).  Shortly I'm going to take her to the library (trying not to breath on anyone) so that she can gets some books for a research paper she is going to write about mummification.

Alyosha read about Jamestown and the journey to America aboard the Mayflower.  He wrote definitions for some of his vocabulary words (I only assign him half on Mondays; he will finish tomorrow).  We read a chapter from Hatchet.  He did a worksheet from his Saxon book; we still need to do his lesson.

Misha painted the picture of the elf.  We had Circle Time (Seryozha joined in), did his language arts lesson in OM1 (we drew Ee in his main lesson book) and copywork, and we played with these wonderful acorns I found at Michaels.  I use them for math manipulatives.  We added and subtracted with them.  It's all review but is good for him.  We read another chapter about the Cyclops in his Odyssey book.  

We still have our afternoon block to do but I was enjoying a quiet moment eating baba ganouj (one of the best batches I've made) and toasted pitas.  I have my first exam of the semester tomorrow--math--so I really must get the kids involved in their studies so that I can do some studying of my own.

The weekend was quiet and rather enjoyable.  Saturday began the new semester for the kids' Russian class.  There are several new children, four of whom have lived for the last three years in the Ukraine.  Another group of siblings speak only Russian at home.  Then there are some children from last semester and, of course, my three biggers (Seryozha sometimes plays with Masha, a little girl his age, but otherwise has no interest).  Then Liza's semester for dance company (a performing arts troupe she's a part of) began as well.

Yesterday my husband had to work all day so my mom and I took the kids to the park for a family member's birthday.  It was very enjoyable, a nice gathering before the cold comes.

This week Liza reviewed Mesopotamia, which I think is one of the most fascinating times in history.  She made a clay pot, which looks like this:

Misha and I completed the nature table.  

I've downloaded Homeschool Tracker and have been entering the kids' information in it; I will post their schedule for next week so that people can see how it works with Oak Meadow.  

Yesterday Liza and Alyosha went to a Paleontology Club with the local homeschool group.  I got to meet the mother who is organizing a mother's classic literature group that I've joined, so it was nice to put a face with the name.  That reminds me, I need to find my copy of Orwell's 1984.  I took the little boys to the library and park.  We emerged tired and loaded down with books about autumn.

I signed up for spring 2011 classes.  These are my last prerequisites before I can apply for the nursing program.  I'll be taking anatomy and physiology 2, chemistry, microbiology, and algebra.  

Week One is in the Bag

I'm avoiding anatomy and physiology in lieu of working on next weeks' homeschool schedule for Misha.  Last week went better than I could have expected.  He used his hand weight 100% of the time, which was the goal (to give some background, he has epilepsy and some other issues and his hands shake.  His occupational therapist gave him a hand weight that he is supposed to wear when he writes.  Not only has he traditionally not liked to write but he hates the weight, which is heavy--to him--so a 100% is tremendous).  Oak Meadow is an excellent fit for him and he did the extra copywork I asked of him without complaint--in fact, by the end of the week he was enthusiastically copying letters and carefully circling the ones he thought were best.  He loves the math gnomes (I'm making them from wooden peg people and felt, I'll take pictures when I can) and carries the multiplication gnome everywhere he goes.

Liza and Alyosha had good weeks as well.  Liza reviewed the Stone Age (she's done all of that before with Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World) and she really loved the flexibility of OM6.  She likes choosing her own assignments from a list of possibilities.  Saxon 7/6 seems to be a good fit as well.  In addition, she studied Russian and read several chapters from The Cricket in Times Square.  Ironically I'd stopped by Goodwill and found a large stack of (what I consider to be) children's classics and that's the first free reading selection of the school year for her.

Alyosha learned about the first (white) people to settle America.  While I'm not a fan of Christopher Columbus he did read a book about him and also Marco Polo.  Eh, at least OM5 handles the issue without making Columbus seem like a demigod.  So. not. a. fan.  Saxon 6/5 seems to be working out for him and his free reading selection is Hatchet (yes, he studied Russian too).

Seryozha's vocabulary went nuts this week.  He is repeating everything including, I'm sorry to say, jackass.