Weekly update for week of 2/6/2012

Once again we had a good week with RTR.  I didn't take many pictures this week.  It was day 4 before I knew it.  That is one thing I love about HOD, the days and weeks just fly by because everything just seems to flow. 

In Science he continues to learn about earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunami's.  This week's experiment was looking at the type of waves that are made with a earthquake.  He did the experiment fine, but it was hard to see the types of waves.  It worked better if I hit the table and he watched for the waves so I did help him. He continues to improve on writing up his experiments.  He wrote a written narration on how he can help victim's of earthquakes.  His science narration's tend to look more like summaries, so I am reminding him that they need to look like his history ones now look.  One thing I did like is that he added his own connection by mentioning a specific ministry here in town that he has volunteered at and he knows they send help to victims of earthquakes and hurricanes. 


In history he learned about the paintings of Sonfonisba Anguissola.  He labeled the paintings in his notebooking pages.  Writing this small is tough for him, but he did it by himself instead of asking me to do it. 

He researched the city of Madrid and wrote a written narration on Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier.  I am very pleased with his written narrations now.  He is getting so much better at giving them his own twist as well as capturing the authors words.  He is doing them independently and then looks over the written narration checklist.  I do come in at the end and just correct anything grammar wise or wording wise that he missed.  He tends to use words where they really don't fit so I help him with figure out what word he meant to say.

His history project this week and the following 2 weeks is working on pages in a Book of Hours.  He is reading "Gabriel and the Book of Hours" and he loves it.  I knew this history project would be tough and not a favorite.  I debated how I was going to modify it for him.  I finally told him he could write in cursive instead of manuscript and I drew lines to help guide him.  It isn't the neatest writing in the world, but honestly when he is writing that much it probably is the best he can do.  You can see when he was coloring his illuminated letters that by the third one his hand was tired and he didn't color it as nicely as the first.

He continues to read "The Sign of the Beaver" for DITHOR.  He really does enjoy that book.  I let him dictate the answers to his student workbook to me.  At this point I am more interested in him really thinking about his answers and that happens best if he doesn't have to write.

One other addition to our homeschool this week was I sold some old curriculum and that helped pay for a subscription to Discovery Education Streaming Plus through homeschool buyers co-op. I spent weeks looking over the list of titles figuring out which ones would compliment what he is learning.  He can watch the videos on the Ipad.  He is very visual so I figure it will cement his learning when he watches short video clips about the subject.  He also has already searched for things that interest him,like how dogs learn, and was watching videos on those things.  This is something the neuropsychologist had suggested for him.  I will only schedule a few short clips a week, but I imagine in his spare time he will find more to watch.