Weekly Report: Week 4

Mondays help us finish up our previous week of CC.  Our day is full of memory work, final practices of presentations for community on the next day, and a bit of history work.  This week, we read about Charlemagne.  I found a great coloring page for the boys of Charlemagne and they worked on it while I read about this Holy Roman Emperor in Famous Men of the Middle Ages. This is a book that we have had for years;  I'm determined to use what I have in our personal library to supplement our timeline cards and history sentences. We also have a nice historical fiction story about Charlemagne that I'd love to read to the boys someday called Son of Charlemagne by Bethlehem Books. I'm not planning on doing it right now because we've got another read aloud going on right now (a YWAM book that we are reading for an upcoming review).


So, Classical Conversations' history sentences are providing our structure for our history class this year.  Since the boys are getting some science exposure at CC + are memorizing science facts, I'm not stressing about science right now.  Ecology is the theme right now, so we are using the memory work to dig a little deeper into the topics.  This week, we learned about how God designed animals' teeth to match their diet -- herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.  I just remembered that I purchased the Science Facts cards for this cycle, and I will need to break those out on Friday, which is our Dig Deeper into Science day.  The pace is quick but we'll try to do some additional history reading each week.  

For his first presentation on Tuesday, Levi chose to tell the story of Adam and Eve and Luke presented a retelling of the conversion of Saul from the New Testament.  As fits their personalities, Luke's was more demonstrative (he had handcuffs because Saul was going to arrest the Christians, ya know) and involved falling on the ground and other theatrics.  Levi, on the other hand, prepared a simple story and held up his old picture Bible. 

Luke turned in his first Essentials writing assignment.  He is enjoying it and I'm enjoying watching him work hard.  I'm playing secretary and typing out his stories;  typing has never been one of Luke's favorite things because of his trouble with spelling, but he is going to have to get over it this year!  I'm hoping by the end of the school year he can do at least 1/2 of the typing for each paper that is due. 

Luke has also been working hard at his charts for Essentials of the English Language (EEL).  I know this sounds foreign to many, but through the year, Luke will be memorizing various charts that help him organize his thinking about elements of English grammar.  I'm blessed to have purchased a used EEL set from a CC mom who had the foresight to enlarge many of the charts for ease in copying.  This has been a huge blessing.  To help with the charts, I did download some songs that aid in memorization, and so far, they have been helpful (look for AJT on CC Connected).

I do wish to be more involved with Ben's Challenge B, and I try to insert myself on Wednesdays when he is scheduling his week.  He is not using CC's recommended math program (Saxon) because Math U See works so well for us, so I am more involved there.  I try to engage in conversations about current events, scientist research as well as his lit. papers.  I'm trying to remember to match "glow" comments (positive feedback) with "grow" comments in his writing, since this is an area that Ben really struggles with.