Trio + One

We started out by checking, correcting and discussing our homework. This always takes longer than I want it to, but I think it is one of the most important activities of the day for both the students academic skills and work habits.

A little before nine o'clock, we went to the auditorium where students from the Colburn School of Music had a chamber music concert for us. We had an oboe, a violin, a bass, and a violin. Chamber music isn't easy to listen to when you've never been exposed to it, but our students did pretty well. The violinist played a couple solo pieces - a Bach partita and a Paganini Capriccio - and the other three played a couple selections from a Bach trio. The students took a lot of questions and cheerfully explained how their instruments worked, when they first started to play, and how much time they practice each day, among many other queries.

In other areas, we read chapter 17 of By the Great Horn Spoon! In this chapter Praiseworthy and Jack, after making their fortune at Gravedigger's Hill, return to Hangtown where Praiseworthy has to fight the fearsome "Mountain Ox." But since Praiseworthy has been studying a book on boxing, he easily beats the larger man who is illiterate and therefore a mere "street brawler." We watched the second part of the American Experience film on the Gold Rush as well. In math, we turned our attention to perimeter, usually the easiest area of geometry for students to understand.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words ten times each in cursive and write a sentence for each word. The words are invincible, reprieve, vigilant, millimeter, decimeter, perimeter, and compromise. (2) Do the study sheet for chapter 17 of By the Great Horn Spoon! (3) Do "Perimeter" pages 359-360 in the math book and "All the Way Around" on the back. (4) Do pages 29-34 in California Content Standards: Practice and Mastery book. You may mark in the book.