Jessie's 8th Grade
- Jessie has been working through chapter 7 of Foerster's Algebra over the past two weeks. She's been working with linear equations graphing them; determining slopes; and calculating x-intercepts, y-intercepts, and intersections between two lines.
- She's successfully completed 2 more lessons in vocabulary. Her grammar work has been focused on verbs: active versus passive, transitive versus intransitive, etc. She still owes me an oral report and a completed written report on the Oregon Trail as part of her grammar lessons. She's making steady progress in reading Austen's Pride and Prejudice as well as Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. Her CW work is a bit behind. She finished her 3rd writing project last week and has been working on analogy paragraphs this week.
- In Latin, she completed chapter 10 and her second unit reading and test last week. This week she has been working through chapter 11 and learning about the passive mood of verbs. In Greek, she had some more practice last week with future tense and had a review lesson this week.
Violet's 6th Grade
- Violet completed her IP section of speed and has spent most of this week working on review pages in the textbook.
- She completed her usual spelling lessons with flying colors. She has also been working on verbs over the past two weeks. This is her first introduction to passive versus active verbs. She also completed her first "research" paper on alligators, which we'll do some more editing on next week. For literature, she completed Tuck Everlasting and began reading Rascal this week. In CW, she has been working with the model "The Wonderful Weaver", which tells the Greek myth about Arachne. It's hard to believe she only has 4 more weeks left in CW Homer.
- Over the last two weeks in Latin, she learned the future endings for the 3rd and 4th conjugation and was introduced to 3rd conjugation "io" verbs. This week in Greek, she began translating her first (albeit short) sentences in Greek.
Benny's 3rd Grade
- In Singapore, Benny worked on multiplying and dividing by 7 and then by 8 over the past two weeks. He's been learning about exponents in Miquon.
- He finished his grammar section on nouns and pronouns last week and began a new section on verbs. He completed two more spelling lessons and his regular cursive copywork. For CW, we analyzed "The Lion and the Mouse" last week and did a narration this week.
- For literature, he completed The Family Under the Bridge and began The Cricket in Times Square. Our current read aloud is The Book of Three by Alexander, which is the first book in the Chronicles of Prydain series. He also completed his first Mind Benders book for the year this week.
HISTORY
We are working on the Civil War for history right now. Rather than go battle by battle with individual books, I'm having the girls read from
The Great Republic for the battles and then assigning biographies of notable people.
Last week the girls read from
The Great Republic about the beginning of the war and the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The also summarized
Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Frazier. This week, they outlined information on the Monitor and Merrimac, wrote a summary of Stonewall Jackson using
Stonewall Jackson by Hewson, summarized the events of 1862 in
The Great Republic, and wrote about the life of Admiral Farragut using
David Glasgow Farragut by Latham.
Benny's only history book last week was Abraham Lincoln by D'Aulaire. This week we read Duel of the Ironsides by O'Brien and David Glasgow Farragut by Latham. All three books are excellent, and I would recommend them. Henry enjoyed the O'Brien book and even had Jessie read it to him twice.
SCIENCE
Science has fallen temporarily by the wayside due to the time I've been spending working on Christmas shopping and decorating. Jessie and I did finish discussing the material in chapter 5. We still need to complete the lab, the review in the text, and the test.
Violet, Benny, and I began reading Properties of Matter. We've learned what matter is, the difference in qualitative and quantitative data, how the scientific method works, and discussed different instruments used in measuring. We also read a brief biography of Lord Kelvin. In the one experiment that we did complete, we placed butter on metal, wood, and plastic and then placed these items in hot water.
The metal won with the plastic a close second.
No music, art, or geography.
HENRY'S CORNER
Henry and I are spending the month reading Christmas books from our collection as well as any other books he chooses from the shelves. We added the letters P and p to the magnets on the refrigerator. Monday he decided to count the magnets and made it all the way up to 34 by himself with no mistakes. YEAH!!
Jessie's 8th Grade 
Violet's 6th Grade 
Benny's 3rd Grade
Henry and I just did the basics this week: reading Christmas books, reviewing letters, and counting (which is now one of his new favorite activities).
Jessie's 8th Grade 
Violet's 6th Grade 
We are working on the Civil War for history right now. Rather than go battle by battle with individual books, I'm having the girls read from The Great Republic for the battles and then assigning biographies of notable people. 
Last week the girls read from The Great Republic about the beginning of the war and the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The also summarized Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Frazier. This week, they outlined information on the Monitor and Merrimac, wrote a summary of Stonewall Jackson using Stonewall Jackson by Hewson, summarized the events of 1862 in The Great Republic, and wrote about the life of Admiral Farragut using David Glasgow Farragut by Latham.
Henry and I are spending the month reading Christmas books from our collection as well as any other books he chooses from the shelves. We added the letters P and p to the magnets on the refrigerator. Monday he decided to count the magnets and made it all the way up to 34 by himself with no mistakes. YEAH!!
