Oct. 23-27
World Geography:
Riley is learning about Arab Conquerors, Viking Explorers, Iceland's Landscape, and Sinbad's Travels this week. He gave a topic oral narration about Mohammed after reading about him in his Book of Discovery. He also used the maps provided in his WG full color Student Notebook to locate places Erik the Red and Leif the Lucky explored, raided, and pillaged. He wrote a written narration about Iceland, and I found that so interesting! Who knew such a cold place could have so many hot springs! I really liked Riley's written narration - his personal style is really developing!
We are doing school 5 days a week, so Riley is often finishing one unit and beginning another. He also enjoyed completed his Medieval Map of the World via his Mapping the World With Art book and DVD-rom, as well as some other mapping assignments. One of the things I enjoy most is the Practical Happiness devotion we are discussing together. Bob Schultz is always a favorite author of ours, and his book is full of timely advice not only for my 14 yo son, but also for this nearly 46 yo mama!
For Living Library, Riley has been reading Big John's Secret. I love to see him all curled up the fireplace reading awesome books for school! What a blessing! For Algebra I, Riley is using Foerster's Algebra. The helps on the flash drive by David Chandler are super helpful, and he is doing well with this course - much better than I thought! I especially appreciate the line by line Solutions Manual and the paired down list of assignments composed by David Chandler. I can see why this often considered an honors level course!
In USII High School, Wyatt has been reading some outstanding literature of his own! A Room of My Own is about the Depression, and it is a gripping story that shows the unexpected changes that took place in just a short amount of time as people despaired of jobs, homes, and even basic needs like having enough food. He's also studying I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, which is an outstanding study about defending our Christian faith based on scientific evidence and the Scriptures. For British Literature, he's been reading Jane Eyre, as well as watching a short matching segment each day on DVD. I love that after all these many years of homeschooling, he still loves to read! What's even more amazing is he loves reading classic literature! What a blessing!
Of course one of my favorite things to do is to see his USII full-color Student Notebook grow! Correcting his work has gotten fun for me! In fact, it's like an engaging, exciting, interesting history lesson for me! He reads his work aloud to me, making any editing changes he sees he needs to make, and then I look over it one final time. I love these times together! 
Written narrations and oral narrations are Charlotte Mason inspired assessments, and they are an excellent way to improve retention, to encourage personal creativity, and to produce higher level thinking that can often be recalled with clarity years later.
Emmett and I are enjoying our Bible Study called The Radical Book for Kids. It is an excellent accompaniament to our Ancients study this year! We like to cuddle up on the couch and read and discuss it. Emmett often gets out the electric throw blanket and sets out a coffee for me - how great is that! He has also been enjoying seeing the Prophecies About Christ he reads about in the OT come true in the NT!
I really am pleased with Emmett's CTC Student Notebook progress! His written narrations are getting better - more detailed, in a better sequence, with neater handwriting - hooray! He actually likes to write in cursive now, and often chooses to even when it is not specifically assigned. He is also getting better about writing neatly within each box's specified area. This has helped him learn to 'shrink' his writing, so it now fits within each box. I can tell learning to write within each box's parameter has also helped him learn to write smaller within the lines of notebook paper. I often model writing for him, so he can see the size and spacing I'd like him to use. This is especially helpful in R & S English and in Drawn into the Heart of Reading...
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