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.