Rabbit Trails (Weekly Report)

Week of July 11, 2011:
J-Straco
Lively Latin- we declined our first noun!
Apples & Pears Spelling- Lesson 19
Math- He worked on filling in blank multiplication tables, as recommended for VSLs in "Upside-Down Brilliance"
Reading- books chosen from the book basket.  He has been REALLY into Greek Myths since we saw a traveling theater production of Greek Myths last week. Here is his current favorite book.
Guitar practice

Farm Boy
Lively Latin- declining nouns
Writing With Ease- summary, narration and dictation from Barrie's "Peter Pan".
Math Puzzles such as this from superteacherworksheets.com
Reading- books from book basket.  He has been enjoying poetry, especially "Where the Sidewalk Ends".
Piano Practice

I decided to push aside our normal math books for the summer.  Both boys will be working on solidifying their multiplication facts through games and fun worksheets such as the above mentioned.

We are still plodding through Early American History.  We are really enjoying Adventure Tales of America as our spine.  It is a really amazing history 'text' with a lot of comic type illustrations.  It is designed to be used by 'left brain and right brain' students.  It does get very in depth in may topics, so I'm positive we'll be able to use it again (in 4 years) during our next Early American History rotation. I bought the PDF download, and am seriously considering having it printed and bound. 

This week we have been learning more about Benjamin Franklin.  Through our text we learned that one of Ben's favorite books as a child was Plutarch's "Lives...". We found this as a free download for my Kindle and have been exploring that here and there.  Another of Ben's favorite books as a child was "Essays to Do Good" by Cotton Mather.  Benjamin Franklin was so influenced by Cotton Mather that, as an old man, he wrote a letter to Cotton's son declaring his success was largely due to Cotton Mather's ideas. Here is one excerpt from Mather's works that we like:
"A little man may due a great deal of hurt. And then, why may not a little man due a great deal of good!  It is possible the wisdom of a poor man may start a proposal, that may save a city, serve a nation!"

Well, now we were curious about this 'Cotton Mather'. We did some web searching on him and found his name related to the Salem Witch Trials.  So, of course we had to dig out a book on the Salem Witch Trials and read through that.  Farm Boy was very upset that hundreds of people could get swept up in 'Witch Hunts'.  It led to some very interesting discussions.

After a week like this, I'm very curious to see where next week will take us!

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul."
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe