Weekly Reports - Weeks 3 and 4

I guess I should call this the semi-weekly report. I can't seem to get around to doing an actual weekly report.

History - We are two weeks into our study of World War I. We have studied the causes for the war, trench warfare, the use of poisonous gas, the use of airplanes, and several other parts of the war. We've also studied the first term of Woodrow Wilson and continue to read about Fanny Crosby.

For a project, Robert did a diorama of trench warfare. He actually asked this summer if he could do a diorama, so he was very excited to work on this.

See the smoke in the background? Once Robert started working on the trenches, he noticed that the box was upside down. He didn't care enough to turn it over, though. Since it's his project, I let him handle it how he wished.



Do you notice the soldier in the trenches who has been mortally wounded? Actually, it's not looking too good for the British soldiers. They are are not even out of the trenches yet! The Germans are definitely winning at this point.

Literature - For Week 3, we read a collection of O. Henry short stories. One of them was The Gift of the Magi. I remember reading that story and knew Ruth would love it, and I was right. It was her favorite. They both enjoyed the stories.

Now we're reading Anne of Green Gables. Ruth actually read this on her own this summer, but she loves the book, so doesn't mind reading it again. In her words, "I feel sorry for anybody who hasn't read Anne of Green Gables." I agree with this sentiment. :) I worried that Robert would think of it as a "girl" book, but it has enough funny parts that he's enjoying it, too.

Science - Robert started Apologia General Science and is doing pretty well with it so far. I've increased my expectations for him and was worried that he would balk at the extra work. However, he's adjusting well. He's not quite up to the level I would want, but I figure he will be by the end of the year, and that's my goal.

He did two experiments - on density and atomic motion. I hope you appreciate how I cleaned off my kitchen countertops before taking the pictures (ha!). Keepin' it real, people.

Ruth finished her chapter on earthquakes and volcanoes and has moved on to weathering and erosion.


Grammar/Writing - We finished our first grammar chapter and have moved on to our writing unit. This week was Unit 1 of IEW, which is just writing out a key word outline and telling it back. I almost skipped this unit since we've done it before, but finally decided it wouldn't be bad to have an easy week. Next week we'll start Unit II and do some actual writing. I am really liking alternating grammar and writing.

We're up to a full schedule now and we've been getting done by about 2:00 each day, so that's good. We have been getting a late start, not beginning school until after 9:00, when I'd prefer 8:30. Still, since we're getting the work done in a timely fashion, I'm happy.

Notebooking - As much as I love doing the scrapbooking notebook pages, I've found that they just don't get done as often as I would like. We started out this year with some free TOG pages I found, but they really did not fit our notebooking style. I started looking for pre-made notebook pages, but was having a hard time finding ones for a study of 20th century history. I finally found them at History Scribe. A bonus is that I was able to buy the whole History Scribe set (including History Scholar - their high school level notebook pages) for $8!! This is the download version, but that is what I prefer, so I don't mind. (they are still on sale at the time I'm posting this)


One thing I like about using these pages is that is very quick and easy. I just print out the pages that go with our history topics of the week and assign them to the appropriate reading. This way, they are using them for their written narrations. If there is not a page for a certain topic, I don't worry about it. It's a way of controlling the amount of narrating I'm requiring of them. It's working very, very well.