Weekly Roundup, The Not Gallstones Edition

It turns out that I don't have gallstones, but no one is quite sure what is causing the pain in my side right where my gall bladder is. So I still have a lot of pain, but no answers.

In any case, this turned out to be a great week. We had a couple of missing books and one child that just sat there staring at his book mystified but not wanting to ask for help, but really, that's just normal. I did have a couple of appointments and will have more next week, but it's turning out to be a good thing. I don't want the kids to miss out on schooling because of me and I can be in pain moaning about it or doing lessons. So I think it's kind of spurred me on in a weird way.

Harry:

• wrote his "pre" poem.
• raced his Pinewood Derby car.
• learned about fractions in math. He did really great with this, so far. We haven't gotten into least common denominators yet, so it could be premature to rejoice, but I'll take a happy kid doing his math happily any day without worrying what might come in the future.
• read more of Sentence Island. We're almost to the end and we'll all be sad about it. We love Mud the fish. 
• worked on more sentences in Practice Island. He was working on sentence 51 I think when all of the sudden he looked up and said, "Mom, almost all of these sentences are about the ocean and fish!" He's still having a hard time with prepositions so we're making a list of the ones he sees. That way he'll have a visual reminder and won't get frustrated when he can't figure it out.
• got to parsing in Latin. This might be his downfall. He is having a really hard time figuring out what to do and then how to do it. So we're taking it very, very slowly. We look back in the book for clues, he tells me what he knows and I use the answer key to guide him along. However long it takes is cool with me. Latin was his idea, not mine. Mine was Swedish.
• read about India and Pakistan and Israel and Palestine. Fighting over land just mystifies him. I love that.
• did some science too. He's finishing up the second of two chapters on electricity in his science book. I will be so happy when he is finished. I'm dying for something new!
• began Number the Stars, I think. He might have started it last week. If so, he continued with it.

Sam:

• made a ger and a Genghis Khan to live in it.
• began his new Singapore Science Cycles book by searching every book in the house for info on kangaroos. Apparently we have no good books on kangaroos. I can't believe we're even allowed to be parents, let alone homeschool.
• continued adding and subtracting with regrouping. What can I say, it's MUS Beta. He only has two more lessons though, then we get to move onto multiplication!
• read about the Silk Road and China. Impressed our German guest with his knowledge after the guest told us that he lives in one of the towns on the end of the Silk Road. Classical education is really good for impressing people. 
• Worked on two lessons from Writing With Ease 2 and a bunch (we've doing a few each day) of lessons from First Language Lessons 2. We're past lesson 20 in WWE and it takes away some of the summary questions for the narrations. It's been tricky but Sam's done well with it. His problem is that he wants to tell me everything that happened in the book, down to the word. It's hilarious and very long.
• raced his Rhino-shaped Pinewood Derby car.
• read The Silver Chair, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and is now in Prince Caspian. To say he reads fast is a huge understatement.

The week went well. I just hope I don't have to be in pain every time I want to have a good week.