Week in review 1/9/12

This was a little bit of a tough week since N. wasn't feeling well for the last part of the week. He managed to get all his school done until day 4.   By Thursday he ended up doing most of his boxes, but skipped Math and DITHOR because I knew his thinking wasn't clear enough for those and those are his most taxing subjects. 

In Art Appreciation we read about the uses of various pigments to achieve the colors.  We looked at Monet's Water-Lily Pond.  He was pretty excited because his assignment for his Discovering Great Artists Co-op class was to bring in a Monet picture and try to paint it.  He said it was much harder to do those little brush strokes than he thought.  His co-op class and the things he is learning in RTR really compliment each other well.

In History reading he read about Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and several other painters.  He also read about Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borge.  We had some good conversation about some of the quotes in Machiavelli's The Prince and how they were the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches.  I love how HOD teaches him to look at things and then compare that to what the Bible says.

To go along with his readings his history project was painting like Michelangelo.  He found out this was much harder than he thought. 

In Science he continues reading A Child's Geography of the Earth and learned about Ocean Currents. He did an experiment involving currents and used his Ipad to write up his lab report.  We decided he needs a stylus to be able to draw the pictures the way he wants. 

In Boyhood and Beyond we talked about not being a spectator in life and if you have something you would like to achieve you don't just sit around and think about it.  You should take steps towards doing it.  He said "I want to experiment with tape and string so can I do that?"  I agreed and walked out later to find he had done this after school.

I don't know that this was exactly what the book was talking about, but it made me laugh.  Also discussed if you see something that needs done around the house doing it and not waiting for someone else to do it.  I have seen him put that principle in to action a few times this week.  I love our time with Boyhood and Beyond.

In Rod and Staff he did an oral presentation about a story from his life.  He presented it to his Dad who thought he did a great job.  In CLE math he has been working on calculating how much he would pay for something if it is a certain percent off.  It is not his favorite thing, but I told him it will come in useful the next time he sees Lego's on sale.