Weekly update for the week of 2/13/12

We finished week 23 of RTR this week.  It is hard to believe that we are already that far.  This week in History N. studied about the Spanish Explorers, William Tyndale, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Bartolome de Las Casas.  He enjoyed all these readings.  He was having a little trouble remembering all the explorers and what they did so I called up a very short video on Discovery Streaming that highlighted each one.  This really seemed to help.  He also mapped the Spanish/Portuguese Empires.  Here is a picture of his map before he finished coloring it in.  He struggles with writing small enough, he really just can't do it.  As long as he puts his best effort forth I don't make a big deal about it.  I will even write something for him if the word is just too long for him to fit it in.

In Storytime we finished up Mr. Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation.  The ending gave us a great chance to discuss plot twists. 

In Independent History Study he is still reading Gabriel and the Hour Book and for his history project he was supposed to write his own prayer and then illustrate it with a fancy border.  He worked so hard on this project.  I was amazed how much time he put into it.  He also used ideas from the book to add in nature elements that the characters saw as they sat in the woods.  For him to apply what he has read like this is a big step for him.  He also got creative and made the border continue from above his prayer and picked it back up below his prayer.

In Science he studied the Parallels of Latitude and how it is measured using a sextant.  Again when he did his oral narration I could tell he wasn't quite picturing it in his head so I had him watch 2 short video clips on Discovery Streaming that showed exactly how you use the sextant to measure latitude. This is proving to be a fantastic resource for him and it really doesn't add any time to our day.  He usually watches them right before lunch while he is waiting for S. to finish up fixing her lunch so he can get in the kitchen and fix his.

In Medieval History Based Writing Lessons he finished up his King Arthur story.  I was very pleased with how this turned out.

In his bible quiet time he continues to study Philippians. I have been neglectful in really pushing him to recite his verses. He works on it, but he doesn't have it memorized like he should.  He and I have talked about it and he is making a renewed effort to memorize the verses from here on out.