James's School Day

MacGuffie Lesson XXXVI
All the MacGuffie stories are a little preachy, but this one had some charm. It was about a boy who found a lost pocketknife and could only enjoy it once he'd made an effort to locate the original owner. New words included "critical," "anxiety," and "breathless."

First Language Lessons, Lesson 3
We just did the first half of a very long lesson in James' new language book, a review of material he did in the third grade text about the rules for forming plurals. ES after s, sh, ch, x, and z; y to ies in words with y following a consonant, straight s in words where y follows a vowel.

Writing With Ease Week 30 Day 3
Took down the following dictation exercise
"The Spartan girls, who were brought up by the women, were, like the boys, taught to wrestle, run, and swim, and to take part in gymnastics of all kinds."

Saxon Math-Assessment 26, Lesson 135
Math is the longest part of James' day. He starts by recording the date and temperature outside, then solves a function line (+8 today), solves for the composition of a sum of change (29 cents) and makes the change for a dollar from that amount, solves a word problem (about the difference between two jumping toads) and recites a couple of multiplication counts. (12s to 120 and 8s to 80 today.)

His new material today was learning PEMDAS and solving a bunch of long multiple-operation problems. Then he took a speed test on 100 division problems, did his assessment, and a worksheet with a bunch of material from previous lessons. He had to measure line segments in centimeters, do a division word problem with a remainder, label acute/obtuse/right angles, show digital and analog times on a clock, solve a multiplication problem about wait times, solve for some three digit numbers divided by single digit numbers, solve for some squared and cubed numbers, and to write in the missing numbers (and rules) for four more function lines.

Gulliver's Travels
We just finished The Last Battle yesterday, so we are starting a new read-aloud book. Today was Chapter 1-Shipwrecked!

Latin
We also just finished the Latina Christiana course that we started at the beginning of the year, so we are doing Wheelock now but starting over from the beginning and reviewing everything that he already knows. Today we went over the present active indicative verb endings again, did ch. 1 vocabulary (there were a few new words) and did some examples of active/passive voice and introduced the concept of imperative and subjunctive moods.

History ch. 27 pt 2
The great Boer migration following the fall of Cape Colony to the British. Conflict with Dingane and the Zulu kingdom. The founding of Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal Republic

Science Lesson 5.4
The construction, parts, and different types of bridges. James is now interested in visiting the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.