Sunday, May 12, 2013

Transitions

Last Monday was our final co-op meeting of the year. George W. Bush, the Iraq War, etc. in history; the digestive system and Animal Farm in writing (the younger class wrote about the digestive system, the older about Animal Farm); Hamlet; truth and beauty in Philosophy (just a casual peek); a little Latin; and some good food! I can't say I am crazy about studying recent history, but overall it was a good year. Now we have a few months to finish up our science programs, Latin, grammar, and a little leftover writing. We'll also sneak in enough math to avoid the need to re-learn decimals and algebra in August, when we start up fully again!

Those are the things we need to do. But what I'm really looking forward to is starting in on ancient history and literature. I have quite a few Teaching Company sets lined up to start watching this summer. The first 24 lectures in the Foundations of Western Civilization (borrowed from my sweet parents), then Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations, The Iliad, The Odyssey,  Aeneid, Greek Tragedy, The Ethics of Aristotle, and History of Ancient Egypt. That should take us quite a way into the new school year, actually, but we all enjoy starting the morning with a good lecture (really!). And I plan to read aloud Greek & Roman mythology, children's versions of The Iliad & The Odyssey, Plutarch, The Boys' and Girls' Herodotus, and Herodotus and the Road to History. And of course we'll read the picture book series about Gilgamesh again and keep up our regular Bible study. Anyway, I think the kids will enjoy these, and I know I will, and they'll be primed for more serious history and literature studies when we start our new school year in late (I hope) August!

Speaking of the new school year, we had our co-op planning meeting last Friday. In less than two hours we divided up the classes, figured the times, and got a fairly good idea of what we'll be up to! I took on a little more than I'd intended -- philosophy, composition, literature, history, and geography with the older group, and composition with the younger group -- but I think it will work out okay. I hope. The other two moms do a great job with the stuff they will be teaching, so I'll try to hold up my end as well. My book budget will require a little more stretching than I'd anticipated, but fortunately I have time for hunt for bargains! It feels good to have a plan in place.

Also on Friday, Travis stayed overnight for an "airsoft war" birthday party, acquitted himself well (I am told), and gorged on deer meat. He had a marvelous time.


And on Tuesday my baby got braces!



They're pink! She was initially delighted with them, then dismayed when they hurt for the first couple days, and has now (five days after installation) gone back to being happy with them. Since her overbite is rather spectacular and she'll probably have them for a while, I'm glad she has a good attitude!

And the kids had their piano recitals on Thursday. Neither played without flaw (both played their pieces beautifully at home, of course!), but they mostly did fine, and they've made good progress this year. They also have seemed fairly agreeable (if not excited) when I've told them that next year we're increasing daily practice time to 45 minutes.




And finally, my parents headed back to Maine today for the summer. We'll miss them, but they've been looking forward to renewing the yearly battle with the black flies, and also to seeing old friends, working in their gardens, etc. Actually, I suspect that my dad plans to spend all summer memorizing obscure words from 19th century novels and nautical dictionaries in order to trounce us at Bananagrams again in the fall, but we can play that game as well!

We've dragged out the pool for at least one more year of swimming. The mice, while they chewed through the plastic liner, did not chew any new holes in the pool itself and we've got it about halfway full already! The badminton net is up, Ed bought us new deck chairs, and I think it is going to be a glorious summer!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

glad you got through g. bush. if only we could be done with the war, for real :(

question: have you been having problems uploading pictures to your blog? i have been for a few weeks now.

Melora said...

No problems loading pictures, although my poor old computer is so overburdened that Processing the pictures to upload takes Forever. Actually, I used to have to save pictures I wanted to show vertically sideways, and now it loads them the way I save them.