Here's what we've been doing so far this week. Aaron continued his internet research for bike websites. I've been reading Mr. Revere and I and am more than half-way throught the book now. Aaron has been reading out loud from a reading textbook, and writing simple spelling words (each word three times).

For Social Studies we're learning about the Revolutionary War through the book, discussions, and the music of that time period. Aaron is much more excited and enthusiastic now about singing "The Dying Redcoat"... and it really is a good song. When I first brought it out he was uncooperative, but now he just loves it. We've been getting closer together by doing the homeschooling one-on-one this year.

Like everyone, we've been hearing about the sniper shootings in Washington DC and talking about that (current events). Aaron was distressed to hear about the Zodiac killings here on the west coast and worried that having them featured on TV might make the man start killing again. I told him I didn't think it would happen and that the killer is probably dead. I remember when those murders happened as I was a teen in the SF Bay Area at the time.

We've studied Latin a little this week... and Aaron has been doing math worksheets from School Express. Using the placement tests we did a while back, I'm getting worksheets that will teach him the things he didn't understand yet. When we're done with this phase we'll start Saxon Math 54. I'm looking for a copy now.

Aaron has been doing a lot of bike riding and designed a BMX track. He is planning to present his suggestions for a track to community meetings in hope of getting some support for building it.

For Ancient Wisdom, we looked at and discussed the I-Ching. That was interesting, as he'd never seen it before, and never heard of hexagrams or trigrams until Monday.

I took time with him yesterday to go over the California education code that lists the subjects he must learn - and I think that helped him see that I'm not asking him to do just a bunch of arbitrary junk studies, but that I'm really following what the law requires. I made a chart to record the various subjects and am writing down whenever we do something for a particular class. This way he'll be able to see that we're on course, making progress.

Today I let him do something different. He saved his money and bought a nice entertainment center for his bedroom - and I let him spend his school time putting it together. He has a gift for mechanical reasoning. I was glad to see that he was able to read and understand the instructions. He read the booklet first, then put everything together just right without ever looking at it again! I would have looked at the book one step at a time... but I guess his youthful mind retains more than mine.

  ¶ 3:39 AM