Continued Homeschool Highlights...

What is it with Latin? The littlest mister had another meltdown today as the boys and I attempted to continue on with the first chapter. We accomplished a little bit... Still liking the new book!

For the past couple of years, I have been avoiding The Well-Trained Mind Curriculum Discussion Board (online) for the most part to avoid discontent with our own program of study. However, this past summer I needed inspiration and ideas when forming my plan for this school year. My purchase of Latin Prep 1 was the fruit of many recommendations on the discussion board. The board grammar discussions also led me to go with Analytical Grammar for Evan this year ~ another good decision! I love that this grammar program is incremental in its approach, each lesson building on to the previous, and every exercise requiring continued practice of the former concepts as well as adding on the new. I was a little disappointed when Evan got a 75% on his first test, but we kept going. On the next test he scored 80% and for the past two test, he scored 90%. It is exciting to watch him grasp the concepts and improve each week! The program attacks grammar intensively for ten weeks and then slows down to a once-a-week review for the rest of the year. (This is the pattern for three years.) When the grammar lessons slow down to once-per-week, I intend to ramp up on writing. He has been doing some copywork and dictation as well as content-area writing each week so far. Today, I discussed the adverb lesson with Evan and he did the first of three exercises for the week. Since we went to the mountains on Monday, he will take his grammar test on Saturday.

Yesterday, I wrote down Sophie's narration about Sargon and today she copied it:

In the afternoon, Matthew and Sophie and I read from Introduction to Biology and Mysteries and Marvels of Nature, both books part of the Sonlight Science Intro. to Biology program that we are doing together. Evan finished his lab report on the Module 1 Experiment 3 in Apologia General Science:

Experiment 3
A Chemical Reaction

I boiled three cabbage leaves with two cups of water. While the cabbage was boiling, I poured two tablespoons of baking soda into a nine inch balloon. I then poured two thirds of a cup of vinegar into a two liter bottle. By then, since the water was boiling, I put in a few ice cubes to make it cool down. I poured two thirds of a cup of cabbage water into the bottle with the vinegar. The once purple cabbage water turned pink. I then tipped the balloon, letting the baking soda fall into the liquid. It suddenly foamed up and instantly blew up the balloon.

A chemical reaction is when one or more substances interact to form one or more new substances. This experiment actually had two chemical reactions. In the first chemical reaction, I poured the cabbage water in with the vinegar, causing a chemical called anthocyanin in the cabbage water to react with the vinegar. This made the cabbage water turn pink. The second reaction occurred when I tipped the balloon, letting the baking soda fall into the mixture, causing it to fizz and bubble. The reason is that when the baking soda and the vinegar mixed, the chemical reaction formed two different substances: water and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide filled the balloon. Because the vinegar was used up, the anthocyanin no longer reacted with it, and therefore the color of the water turned blue instead of pink.

Matthew typed the first paragraph of a letter that he had previously handwritten to his Great Grandmothers. (The typing will help them to be able to read it!) I videotaped him practicing his piano piece so that he can see how he is doing with curving his fingers. Later, he accidentally cut his finger (Don't ask how!) and had to have three stitches. He may be allowed to play piano by the time of the piano recital in two weeks, but he won't be able to stay in practice in the meantime. Sigh. He was playing so well!

An aside: Earlier this week, my mom called, and in the course of the conversation, I found out that she did not realize that I have videos of the kids linked in my sidebar. The pictures in my sidebar under the title "Video Links" are indeed linked to dropshots videos. I really love the one of Sophie reading to Logan!