This was a bad week. The children were mouthy and unmotivated, and had some difficulties with varying concepts. I was rather unmotivated myself, which didn’t help things any. But we soldiered on, and managed to end things on a positive note.

We did start reading Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!, which was a bright spot in the week. It has been popular with the children, and fascinating to me. I didn’t really know anything about his personal life before, and it’s quite inspiring the way he overcame so many obstacles and trials in his life to become the Rough Rider everyone knows. This book fit in well with our history lessons on the Gilded Age, as well. We had an interesting discussion, trying to determine whether John D. Rockefeller was a good guy or a bad guy. Turkey decided that he was an anti-hero, which I guess fits.

In science, we learned about the circulatory system. We had the chance to do a few fun experiments, including building “blood” using corn syrup (plasma), candy red hots (red blood cells), sprinkles (platelets), and a jelly bean (a white blood cell). We also used a strong magnet to discover just what it means to have an iron-fortified box of cereal. Even though I knew what it meant, I have to admit, I found it a little disturbing to see the iron filings collect beneath the magnet!

To combat our week of doldrums, I spent last night and this morning rearranging our school room a bit. I thought a fresh perspective might give us a new outlook. It went from looking like this:

To this:

Now all of the bookshelves are in the school room, which is nice. There really isn’t room for our “project table” anymore, though. I’m probably going to leave it up through our Christmas School activities, because it will get a lot of use, but then it’s going to have to be put away…it’s just taking up too much space!

Next week, Christmas School starts…hopefully, we’ll have a better go of it!