Homeschool week in review (week 4)

Bible: This week's Name of God was El Kanna, which means Consuming Fire and Jealous God.

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.  

Deuteronomy 4:24

But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one 

who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire.

Deuteronomy 9:3 

Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, 

let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God 

an acceptable service with reverence and awe; 

for our God is a consuming fire.  

Hebrews 12:28-29

Math: Fractions still, and they're going really well. (This is significant, because last year, we just about killed each other trying to teach or learn this same stuff.) We're also beginning to move into decimals, which this book describes in a totally different way than I've ever seen before. I held my breath, but either Will didn't remember having it explained differently last year or this explanation made more sense to him. He was able to sail through it, thank you God.

Grammar: Katie had a test over subjects and predicates and did very well on it. Will started a chapter on nouns, which he could do in his sleep. At least, he could do it in his sleep until we got to plural nouns. He made a noun plural by adding apostrophe-s and I freaked out on him. (Apostrophe-s is one of my biggest grammar pet peeves. You never make a word plural that way! NO WIRE HANGERS!!) I don't know if he thought it was funny or if I scared all the previous pluralizing knowledge right out of him, but next he wanted to "drop the Y and add -ing." That would be strike two for Mom. "I.N.G.??  The plural of city is citing??" Thankfully, next we moved on to collective nouns, which we always think are fun. A pride of lions, a class of students, a murder of crows, what's not to love?

Literature: Everybody is still finishing their biographies, and I'm working on a template for their final projects on these books. I predict Katie will really get into the final project and Will will do the bare minimum, which is a shame, because I think C.S. Lewis (Will's book) could yield a fascinating end product.

History: We talked about Ireland, the IRA, Sein Fein and also India and Mahatma Ghandi. (I was surprised to learn that Ghandi's famous hunger strike lasted only 3 days. Did you know that?)

Science (co-op class): The General Science class was focused on the scientific method. It could have been pretty straightforward, but I'm noticing the textbook repeats itself by restating what it previously said regardless of the wordiness of the section being repeated. Or restated. For clarity. I find that distracting, confusing and irritating.  The other class--Physical Science--was covering air pollution. Also in exhaustive detail.

IEW (co-op class): They each had two paragraphs to write, and they did great work with them. Each paragraph had to contain two clauses, which is a surprisingly sophisticated construction, because a clause has to have a subject and a verb. See what I did there? "Which is a surprisingly sophisticated construction"is a phrase, but "because a clause has to have a subject and a verb" is a clause. Okay, enough nerdy grammar talk. They're using strong verbs and adverbs like old pros. It makes me so proud.