I know it is Sunday, a little late for an update, but I figured better late than never. The kids and I had a busy week this week, and the first thing that gets neglected when I get pressed for time is my blog. Today is a nice relaxing day though, so I thought I would spend some time recapping the last few weeks.
Decca and I started one last unit in his animal studies, and he is enjoying it. We are using an Intellego unit study on dolphins, and I have to say I am somewhat surprised by how happy I am with this study. I have looked at Intellego many, many times, and I was always underwhelmed by what I saw. It seemed to me, from the samples I looked at, that it was just a collection of links and nothing more. Well it is a collection of links, but there is a good deal of thought put into the structure of the unit, and the links chosen are there to demonstrate and support the learning for the lesson. I have been so happy with this unit that I am planning on using Intellgo next year for all of Decca’s science and social studies.
In addition to the Intellego unit Decca is reading Dolphin Adventure and Seashore, which is another One Small Square book. These are both easy reads, but I find as we head into summer this is all he wants.
Decca is not doing too much else on our summer schedule. He practices piano everyday, works in a few review workbooks, and writes his own stories. He has also discovered Italian Scooby Doo books, and he received his first book in the mail this week. 
This has led to a new summer project which I have labeled, “The Great Google Translation Project – Summer 2012″ which I have nicknamed “Another Horrible Project That I has Been Sucked Into”. Basically he wants to translate all the Scooby Doo Italian books that he gets. He said he would do this himself, and to his credit he has worked on it everyday, but he is a s-l-o-w typer, so I have stepped in to help him along. It has not been fun, especially because the translations are a little weird (Fred is very angry through most of the book, and he cusses quite often), and I am translating from Italian to English, and then from English to Scooby Doo lingo. I am not sure how many books we will end up doing, but I am hoping he looses interest in these fairly quickly.
Grandma taking Autry to her last Classical Voice concert of the year.
Autry had her last week in conservatory this week. She is off until September, and although she was very sad to see it end, I was very happy. I am amazed at all she has learned in one year at OCHSA, and I love how close everyone in her conservatory has become, but I am tired. Tired of all the driving, tired of the rehearsals and concerts, and tired of the late nights. I am looking forward to her second year, and I can’t wait to see all that she learns next year, but I am so thankful for the break. It came just in time!
Here is a short clip from the season ending song. It was great to hear the whole conservatory sing as one choir.
This last Friday Autry and I went to the Great Homeschool Conference in Long Beach. I was considering not going because of the controversy surrounding the group that sponsors the conference (if you would like to read about this click through to this thread from the WTM), but I decided to go because I wanted to her some of the speakers, and I wanted to peruse the vendor hall. Autry wanted to go with because she loves to hear about homeschooling, as a formally homeschooled kid, and she wanted to meet Susan Wise Bauer.
We spent just one day at the conference, and we listened to several talks given by Susan Wise Bauer, and between those talks we perused the vendor hall and went out to eat for lunch. It was great to spend a day with just my daughter, and I was so happy to see how enthusiastic for homeschooling Autry was. She loved hearing Susan Wise Bauer speak, and when we left one particularly good talk on literature, Autry proclaimed that she was going to homeschool all her children. She also got to meet Susan Wise Bauer, and she got her autograph on The History of the Medieval World. It was a great day!
