Our Week Ahead - 29 October 2012

According to our schedule we seem to be ahead in our SOTW4 readings and lagging behind with read alouds and readers.  Might have something to do with me dropping the reading load while Dn was away ☺

Here is our proposed weeks work:

History:
I'm putting SOTW on hold until we get through our current reading list. However we will carry on with:
- Kingfisher and UILE readings this week.
- Builder's of New Zealand: NZ in the 1970's.   pg 154
- How Parliament Works in NZ: The Constitution.   pg 11-12

Read Aloud's:
The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss (which is back in print with updates .. seems a little pricey after purchasing our copy for a few dollars second hand ☺)
We are really enjoying Doss' book  - it's a favourite read,  from my late teens - and it's become a family favourite with Dn & the children requesting, "Just one more chapter".

We've just started: Escape to the Jungle (SIM stories) which I'm not sure we'll continue with, the stories are not quite what I thought they would be  yet we'll give it the ole school house try.

If  Escape to the Jungle continues to be a non-fit  I'll swap in the longer missionary story  Torches of Joy (a Core 5 book).
ETA: We've dropped the SIM stories book and will go with ToJ instead.

I had scheduled in In Search of the Source but after my initial read through it .... I think I'll pop it aside for the children to read at a much later date, if they wish too ...... or even pick it up as a read aloud again, sometime, since it is a good book.
(I should know better than to pre-read real life books like that when things in my immediate world feel 'off' ☺ - the books always fall flat.   I think the real clincher is that I've run out of puff to read it again, out aloud.)
 
Readers:
Bobs:
It's a Jungle Out There (SL7)
(I'm having an interesting time to keep him focused on Modern Ages books, when he sees all the ancients titles I'm sorting through. Ha.)
Kensuke's Kingdom - Morpurgo

Daisy:
Catching their Talk in a Box (SL 2)
In the Land of the Small Dragon  - Clark

Daisy has just completed Gone Away Lake, and, Return to Gone Away Lake and enjoyed them immensley.

Last week we listened to The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit    (not for my dear friends who are adverse to fairy tales and magic!)
I think this title could go very well alongside the Ancient Greece portion in SL Core G (used to be Core 6)  since Nesbit endows the book with repeated accounts of greek gods and goddesses.  Neither the children or I thought the storyline, the tone of the book, or her intended humour came up to par with that placed in our all time Nesbit favourites: The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, or, The Railway Children.   Others will be happy to disagree ☺

I feel C.S Lewis may have the right of it, George Macdonald is the modern writer of fairy tales.

Our academic subjects:
We'll continue on with the next lessons in:
Language Arts: WWS, WWS, and AAS
Math: LOF, MMM, and Khan Academy.... and regular practice with Math-it.

Both children are making a valiant effort to get regular typing practice  and music practice in.
They have their end of the year concert looming up in early November so they are needing to master their piano pieces now.

Other:
I've looked back over this year and we haven't been able to maintain a regular stride with art, or Latin ...... next year, hopefully.

For the next 3 weeks:
Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Composers: Prokofiev/Stravinsky
Poet/Poetry: Banjo Paterson (The Walker Book of Classic Poetry & Poets. pg 104-109)

Delight led subjects:
Ornithology:  Both children are currently on, again, an avid bird watching spree.  We're noticing a few birds in our backyard that have not visited before, we've identified some as Yellowhammers  the others ... still not sure.
The children are hoping the kereru pair will, once again, nest in the trees along the back of the neighbours section since they are just so beautiful to watch.

Bobs is totally immersed in his model ship building which is a continued flow on from his Battle for Midway book, a while back.

During Wednesday baking Daisy is working on perfecting her skill with a favourite family chocolate cake , much to our males delight!
She is pretty is excited about the huge leap her colouring in technique has taken and is s ready to pull out the card making stamps, and card, to create some customised coloured in cards for gifts ... christmas is coming.

I'm working on our history scheduling, reading a small stash of books, and we're all working on getting a plot ready for a vegie garden.