Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Tuesday

Henry continues to be turned frequently.  Going by the thermometer which used to tell us how miserably cold it was on the porch and now tells us the temperature under Henry's lamp, he is being kept at somewhere around 100 degrees.  Except that we never thought the thermometer was all that accurate, so actually it could be any lovely, warmish sort of temperature.

Travis finally finished his epic Latin test today.  He supposedly studied for it all last week, then confessed on Friday, when I handed him the test, that he had really just daydreamed while he was supposed to be studying and he didn't know anything.  If you'd seen the desperation in his eyes you'd have believed him too.  So I let him study more on Saturday.  Then Sunday.  And observed that his "studying" method is not good.  At all. So I helped him (meaning that I drilled him on his vocabulary and declension endings.  I don't know how to help him with the daydreaming-instead-of-studying thing).  Monday he took the test.  It took forever.  Really.  You would not believe how much of our day it took, so I just won't tell you.  And I looked at it and couldn't read his writing.  His writing is normally awful, but there were seventy-seven vocabulary words on the first page that each needed their genitive singular form, gender, and English meaning, and fitting it all in required careful work.  Ha!  So I made him do the whole first page over today, plus fix all the sloppiest stuff on the last page (grammar questions), and, after much pain and anguish, he finished.  Out of 369 questions (counting each item needed -- there weren't actually 369 numbered questions) he got 322 right.  A nice solid "B."  Not great, but we'll move on to the next lesson.  He knows his declension endings, and only missed two vocabulary words, but he gives 2nd declension endings to 4th declension nouns, and he doesn't know the gender of the 3rd declension nouns.  But I learned something (or, more accurately, was reminded of something) which I will try to keep in mind in the future, which is that the boy is Not Ready to be handed a textbook and be told to Study on his own.  He still needs me!  And also, five page tests should be taken over two days instead of all at once.  Good thing my poor little guinea pigs are patient with their slow learning mom!

And then there are the cats.  They like the school chairs, and if one is vacated, even briefly, the cats leap up and make themselves comfortable.

They are quite uninhibited.
And very affectionate.
Harry says I am intruding.  I say they need to take their party to the basement.

1 comment:

The Foil Hat said...

Your cats are hysterical!

I feel/share your pain on the Latin. I'm finishing up the LAST required semester with my twins and it's been painful thus far.

Great pictures.