Week in Review

C is almost finished with 4th grade. She completed her math book 2 weeks ago, so our school days are shorter. I feel like we should be doing math. Then I try to remember how often I ever completed a whole textbook when I was growing up. Never. I can not recall one year, or even one subject, that we made it through an entire book. I didn't consider that when we began our year, and it's never been an issue here. I bought the books; we will finish the books. We are even finishing a month before public schools end their year, so we have a month of lovely weather to enjoy before softball season starts. : )

This week C finished all but the final test for her 3rd "Light Unit" in Bible. We are about 1/2-way through the last unit of science. She is on Lesson 121 of 180 in Language, and should easily finish the book by the end of May. The lessons are short, simple, review for her. We are around page 80 in Grammar, and will continue working on that next year. This coming week she will complete Unit 12 (out of 36) in her 5th grade spelling, and that was my goal for this year. We may or may not complete the book when 5th grade resumes. She doesn't really need spelling help, but I can tell she is learning some valuable skills from the book. (Dictionary skills, figuring out word problems skills.) We possibly have one unit left of U.S. History. I say, "possibly" because the unit skims over WWI and WWII, and I don't like skimming. I'm not sure how I could begin to cover not one, but both World Wars in roughly 20 pages.

Anyone who knows me knows I love History, and my "specialty" is WWII. I am fascinated by anything in that era, the people here at home, the soldiers, the European theater, the Pacific theater, but above all the Holocaust. I began my interest working with elderly in my pre-mom days. My step-father, and others I was close friends with fought in WWII. I've spent hours looking at pictures, reading letters, listening to stories, and as interesting as I find it all, it all boils down to the years 1933-1945. Hitler's years. And what our men and women went through serving our country pales in comparison to the Jewish people in Europe. How can I begin to teach my daughters about this in half of one chapter of a 4th grade History text? I had planned to spend a minimum of 1 semester, maybe at least one full year, on the World Wars when my daughter reach 8th or 9th grade. A friend of mine lives an hour from here. She was ten years old when her entire family was taken to Auschwitz. Only she, and her twin sister survived the war, out of a family of 6. They survived only by being twins. The infamous Dr. Mengele intentionally sought out twins for his "medical" human experimentation in the camps. I can assure you, virtually any other 10 year old would not have survived a concentration camp, because only the strongest, healthiest, adults were kept alive for their work value. What saved her life was Dr. Mengele's obscene fascination with twins. This lady now lives in the U.S., not far from me, and has a Holocaust museum. I hope one day to take my daughters there to meet her first hand. I have the book she authored, and hope to let them read it, along with at least 50 other books I own on the Holocaust. And even though my C is the same age as Eva was when she was taken, I'm not sure I'm ready for C to know the full extent of WWII. I've studied it extensively for 14 years now, and even I am still deeply affected by new information, new biographies. Conversely, I don't want to just skim an overview of dates, either. I don't want WWII, or any other war, to be "just another power/land struggle" between selfish rulers. So...while we have this one chapter left in C's history book, I'm still undecided as to how we will go about doing this chapter, or even IF we will do this chapter. My family knows my passion with WWII, and C probably already knows more than I give her credit for by living in the same house as me.

Back to the Week in Review. E had a productive week. She hasn't had much interest in school since about the beginning of March, so I was pleasantly surprised when she bagan asking for it again this week. She did quite a bit over 4 days. 12 pages of Math, her second-to-the-last unit in phonics. (ETC 2), 5 or 6 lessons in her Bible book, 2 pages in her other phonics book, 4 lessons in her language book, and reading practice. She worked on 3 stories in her Reading Primer. She is becoming quite fluent. I STILL can't get over the fact that I've taught a child to read. In fact, having never been to public school, I can take credit, or accept blame, (whichever may be applicable) for all my youngest knows.

E and C also made me some spring artwork. They cut and pasted their own designs to make me some beautiful, (and in E's case, very colorful) flowers. A few weeks ago we planted apple seeds, from apples they ate, and saved the seeds from in the fall. Somehow, out of 20 seeds, all but 3 disappeared by planting time. I wasn't expecting much in the way of results. However...all 3 seeds have sprouted, and we are eagerly hoping we can keep them alive. We haven't had much luck with things we've grown in the past, but I'm hoping apple trees will be hardy enough to survive our "brown thumbs".

The last major happening here has been that my husband has returned to work. Finally, after 5 months, he worked Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We are so blessed that he has this job. So many in the country are being laid off, and losing not only jobs, but homes. It actually felt kind of weird this week without him here.

B called us last weekend twice. It was hard to find things to make "small talk" about, and no one here really wants to talk to her. Well, the 6 and 10 year old do, but none of us that understands what's going on. Hubby has to go to court again Thursday. I won't be going. No one wishes to hear what a step-mother who raised her for 11 years has to say, and frankly, I have better things to do than waste time sitting in a court room trying to refrain from opening my big mouth. Step-parents in my state have no legal rights what-so-ever. Hubby plans to officially tell the judge he gives up, and B can have her way. I'm sure they'll say that after fifteen years he is a horrible father for giving up. They don't take into consideration the other 5 people this well benefit and protect.

Have a great week, anyone who reads this! Since my posts are fairly sporadic, I'll be back in a day, or a week, or a month....