We have finally reached the end of our one hundred and seventy something days of school and are ready to call second grade complete. I think it was an excellent year. I started the year with the intent to get CC to write more, improve her handwriting, move into more complex math, be ready for multiplication, increase the length and complexity of the books she is reading, and discover that Rome isn't the only time period in history worthy of study. I think we accomplished that and more.
ART She took several classes at the local art school. Plus she had weekly art at a Public School enrichment program. She loves art.
Math We had a rough start in math. We started out the year with her in tears over 5+7, and ended with her whizzing through complex, multi-step problems in her head. There were two - or three - great changes in our math thinking. First, BB explained to her the stuff that was stumping her and she then instantly "got it." Second, I realized that her love of word problems is my key to her math mind. And finally we found MEP. She now loves math.
Again, this was more of a journey than a curriculum. She discovered that she loves writing tiny, and it transformed her handwriting. She discovered old-fashioned ink pens and cursive. We tried several things, but decided that copywork and spelling would cover all that we needed. We took copy work from beautiful sentences that she chose and from poetry that she memorized. She learned several poems of her choice including Jabberwocky.
History We read through SOTW2 mostly, but still have some of it left. She discovered the middle ages, Shakespeare, Robin Hood, castles, knights, feudalism, King Arthur, Richard the Lion - Hearted and much more. She also did a unit on westward expansion and a unit on ancient Greece in her enrichment program. Rome is still her favorite, and she spent a lot of time reading about that on her own. Science We did a unit on earth Science with our friends and had lots of fun. We also did a short study of Darwin. Other than that, she did science at her enrichment program and covered life cycles and physics.
The Literature - She reads daily on her own, but this is literature that we share. I have been focused on myths and tales. We have loved the stories we read this year. The Arabian Tales was especially loved. When we read the Shakespeare Stories, it inspired her to go deeper into A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has read about 5 versions of that now and loves it. She recently also decided that Hamlet is her next favorite. Celtic myths - Norse myths - 1001 Arabian Tales - Shakespeare Stories -
That was Second Grade. We finished differently than we started. I don't think we completed a single workbook. We changed a great deal. We learned a great deal. Most days were very short, but in the end my dd knows some history that she didn't know, knows more math and enjoys it more than she did before, writes better and more clearly, knows more science, has learned new techniques in art, and loves Shakespeare, Norse mythology, and the Arabian Nights. I think it was a VERY good year.
This cute girl is going to be our puppy. She is currently only 4 weeks old so we need to wait until she is older before she can join us.
CC has been saving her money since Christmas and has spent a lot of time researching dog breeds and learning about dog training. The puppy is a full-size American Eskimo which is a member of the sptiz family.
This is my baby with his dinner in his apartment in Tokyo with the beginnings of the beard he is growing for finals. The plan is to quit shaving so that he has more time to study. I think it should probably work better than my osmosis plan that I had in college - I would sleep on my textbooks so that some of the information would get into my head through osmosis. Well, everybody needs a plan.
And apparently he somehow managed to learn to study for tests and work on collaborative projects even though he was home schooled. And just to prove that he can cook here are pictures of the breakfast he made and yummy contents of his dinner bowl which he also made.
Two weeks left for the summer semester, then he is home for a month so I can cook for him.
We played I Spy while drove the 20+ miles through a national forest to find the Lost Campground. Here is a sample of I Spy in a national forest.
"I spy something green." "A tree" "Right!" "I Spy something tall and green." "A Tree" "Right!" "I spy something tall and green with needles." "A tree."
It turned into a game of who can describe a ponderosa pine in a new way. The campground had much more to see than could be seen from a car including: trees, flowers, boulders, a stream, rocks of every color, animals, birds, and millions of trees. One of the things I love even more than a national forest is a national wilderness area.
By the way - When you find the Lost Creek are you lost or are you found?
Mmmm. Summer. We love summer. We've been to the Renaissance Festival, Camping, Hiking in the Wilderness, Lazing in our overgrown backyard, redecorating, Playing at the many wonderful parks in town, Splashing in fountains, exploring the farmer's market, reading, learning to play UNO, learning to shoot a bow-and-arrow, relaxing, and being together. I have some great pictures to post maybe this weekend of our camping trip to a local national forest.
Today we are painting flowers on the walls of the girls' future bedroom and going to the park.
This was a fun week. We went to the zoo with friends, had friends over to play, went to the circus, and worked very hard on converting BB's room into a room for the girls. We also learned the first four lines of the Guy Fawkes poem because we have a friend named Guy and CC's new Nesbit book references the Gunpowder Plot. So we've spent the week walking around prompting each other to Remember, remember the fifth of November. Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.
We've packed up BB's stuff (sniff, sniff) that he didn't take to Tokyo with him, moved the furniture, purchased new paint (and watched how they mix the colors), and removed the carpet and padding. In the process, the girls learned how to use hammers to remove things with a lever and remove nails using the claw end as a fulcrum. We also removed lots of staples from where the padding had been, and have lots of staples left to remove. We have started working to remove the texture (popcorn) from the ceiling. Lots more work still to be done before we can start putting the room back in order.
At the circus, the girls spent two hours staring with giant eyes at amazing things. There was just too much to be amazed at. I think one of the favorites - besides the animal acts - was the people being shot from cannons. I thought they only did that in cartoons. I was glad that it was during the week so that I could be there to see the looks on the girls' faces. I love that wide-eyed look of wonder.
Does it count as a week of school if we only "schooled" one day? The day we did school, we sat at the dining room table after breakfast, and I called out math problems from Singapore 3B. After CC answered a problem correctly, the brave knight shot an arrow from her homemade bow through the kitchen and tried to hit a box of cookies by the stairs. After she used all of her arrows, her trusty squire LB would retrieve her arrows for her. We had a wonderful morning and plugged through two lessons of math before I finally made her stop so that we could clean house before we went to play with our friends.
If that is a day of school, what does a day off look like? The kids played lots this week - outside when the sun peeked through the clouds and inside when it stormed. CC zoomed through a the rest of her latest Nesbit book and an Edward Eager book which she agreed was much easier. She decided it was time that she learned more about Egyptians, so she's now reading the Egyptian section of our history books.
We have one chapter left on the King Arthur book we are reading. It is a great book, but is too exciting to be a bedtime story. I have had a terrible time getting both of them to sleep at night after reading this. I'm almost glad to be getting back to reading from the history book and the Norse mythology book - which is also a problem some nights. Maybe the extra sunlight at night is infringing too - who knows.
LB is happily reading one Bob book each night, but has recently decided she would rather read the same book over and over instead of reading new books. That is fine with me. She still doesn't want reading lessons, so I am just following her lead. I know it is easy for them to read when they are ready.
Despite having a high temperature of 42 one day last week (the day we did school of course), summer is firmly here. We'll spread our last few days of school out far enough so that CC doesn't forget her math, and we get plenty of time to just enjoy the days.
This week we spent a lovely afternoon watching the Thunderbirds . I love how a little thing like an air show at a graduation can lead to so many discussions. Hubby and I shared about tossing our caps at our graduations. We discussed what is so special about the Air Force Academy that their graduates get their own fly over and air show. We talked about the speed of sound and why the planes seem to drag their roar behind them - is it so they can sneak up on enemies? We even spent a good deal of time with LB going over the number 6. "There are two, where are the other 4? Oh there is one, and there is another one, where are the others? Look, there are 5, where is that last one? Look they are flying 3 in the front and 3 behind. " We talked about why the sound from the plane over us made our tummies rumble.
The rest of the week, we watched a lot of science shows - we love Mythbusters around here and the sun didn't shine for several days. CC is more than halfway finished memorizing The Tiger, and we have been using that for copywork and cursive practice. We also worked on multiplication over breakfast with me reading word problems from Ray's. I like the problems that have prices for things. Here are some prices: apples, 8 cents a pound; watermelon, 5 cents each; opium $8 per pound. Gulp. That is an interesting breakfast conversation. "Mommy, what is opium?" And the problem in question was asking how much 7 pounds is. Well, "That is enough to get you put in prison for a very long time honey."
We have postponed reading the rest of SOTW2 for a while. I didn't want to leave the Middle Ages, without reading more King Aurthur and at least one more Robin Hood book. The Renaissance can wait a little while longer.
And LB has now read 5 of her BOB books. I love watching new readers read. She sounds out the word, then blends it, then gives a little jump, her face lights up and she repeats the word. Then she rereads the whole sentence so far. She also does something that neither of the other two did. When she sees a word that she has read before, she flips back to where it was, then keeps one finger on the previous copy of the word and sounds out the new copy of the word, then flips back to the other page and seems to almost verify that that word said the same thing last time she read it. It is interesting to watch how her mind works.
Last night we went to the bookstore after dinner, and hubby pulled out the box 1 of Bob's for LB. Well, she read the first book with no trouble.
She sounds out the words and then blends like a champ. I think my strategy of not teaching her to read is working great! Now we are once again, the proud owners of boxes and boxes of Bob's books that will be read and read until the reader finds them easy.
This is the new apartment in Tokyo for the Big Brother in college. His space is eight tatami mats large or 12 x 12. That's a big step up from the 9 x 9 (4 1/2 mats) dorm room he just moved from; he even has a bed long enough for his 6'6" self to sleep in. He ended up sharing an apartment with two girls that are from our home state. The world often turns out to be smaller and more connected than you think.
This week at school we started bumping against those multiplication tables again. I've been letting CC use a reference chart of multiplication facts so that she can continue to be challenged in math without waiting for her to memorize those facts. She has been able to do quite a bit that way, including figuring out division with remainders, prime number factorization, and two digit-multiplication with carrying. This week, I gave her a copy of Times Tales to read through to supplement her math. I think she liked it because she was not only giggling while reading it, today in math when factoring 36, she lit up and said, "Oh, Thirsty Sixes! That is 6 x 6!"
I am currently reading the girls a book of Norse Mythology and Knight's Castle . This week the two disparate works both talked about giants. I love it when things like that happen because it give us good literary ideas to discuss. LB woke me up this morning and asked if I would read Jack and the Beanstalk to her. It is one of those great stories for children that not only let them run around with a "Fe Fi Fo Fum. I smell the Blood of and Englishman.", they also reassure children that the giants can be defeated by children.
“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” G.K. Chesterton
BB left for Tokyo again yesterday morning. It wasn't any easier this time.
Maybe it was even harder. He is just a little bit further away from the boy he was and gradually becoming more comfortable in the path he is choosing. He seems to really love Tokyo so I guess I have to be happy for him even if it means he is so far from me. We went over budgeting and had some discussions about how he is going to move toward being more self-sufficient. We packed his suitcases with food and sent him back to the biggest city in the world.
School this week revolved around BB. He spent time playing board games with the girls and teaching them how to use K'nex. They built a well from the directions in the K'Nex Simple Machines set.
Yesterday, we worked in the yard, and I worked on repairing the sprinklers. We spent time measuring the broken section, sketching the parts we need, and shopping for replacement parts. Then they watched while I cut PVC, and cemented the new section together.
Today, we went for a nice walk on the trail by our house and LB collected wildflowers. She had me look up the names after we returned, then she proceeded to play house with them. They had personalities and became a family.
We are up to the beginning of the Renaissance in history. We read more Norse mythology. CC and BB spent many hours reading Calvin and Hobbes together. CC is also reading The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit and Knight's Castle by Edward Eager. She spent a couple of hours working on a comic book for her brother that she will finish next week so we can mail it to his new apartment.
Slowly, we are returning to our rhythm. We miss BB.
I know I have a great, detailed set of long-term plans, but. CC told me she wants to study like the Roman children did and I want to do American history next year. So this is kind of what I am planning. Its a start. It changes over time. I have weeks before I will decide. Also, what to do with LB is the biggest problem. I think I need something more structured so that I don't get done with my school day before I get her schooling in. Then again, its better if they are doing the same things. I'm going to put links in to the books tomorrow.
My CC loves Ancient Rome and has spent this year studying it on her own. She wanted to have her school next year reflect more of a true classical education that a Roman child might have gotten. She suggested some of the content based on her research about what Roman children learned. I am also folding my youngest in to more formal studies next year, but gently.
Writing & Grammar Classical Writing Aesop using my own models.
Latin Lively Latin Mater Aserina - Poems in Latin for Children by Milena Minkova
Roman History and Culture To Be a Roman - Topics in Roman Culture ]by Margaret A. Brucia Once Upon the Tiber by Rose Williams
Early American History and Geography My own plan I am working on based on Colonial Living by Edwin Tunis, A History of US by Hakim, some activity books, and the Core Knowledge history sequence.
Science We were recently given a really good, free, telescope so we are studying astronomy. Kids Book of the Night Sky Child's Introduction to the Night Sky Also doing the Kinex phyics modules. We also have a Discover and DO dvd and Sonlight science kit
Math MEP and Singapore with maybe some Life of Fred Fractions
Literature for her to read She is reading though the Lang color fairy books. In Search of a Homeland by Lively Little Women
Other - Continuing Spelling Power She wants to memorize selections from Homer and Virgil next year instead of "just" poetry. She takes art, music, Spanish, PE, and science at a once-a-week cottage school.
For the K child who is too young for K in our district: Reading - using whatever method works for her Copywork Miquon math Poetry memorization I'm going to make a shelf of books that I want to make sure I read to her. My American history plan will include weekly picture book and easy reader selections for this child to keep her in the loop. She does science with us. Lots of play and helping out around the house.
Last week Hubby asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, but before I could say that I don't need anything - I am happy, LB jumped in and answered confidently, "I know what she wants."
"She wants hugs and kissess."
She is correct. What more could I ask for? Nothing could make me happier.
School this week was reduced to its essential - math, spelling, and art plus reading in history, literature and mythology. Hubby's dad was here, and BB is home so hubby took off a few hours every afternoon for some family time.
Outside of book work, our week included some of our favorite places with plenty of sunshine, fresh air, rocks, blue sky, caves, trees, sticks, picnics, mud, and family.
We read a great story about Loki this week, and LB had a cute idea about what kind of lies Loki told. She said that maybe sometimes he would say that he was going upstairs to go potty, and then he would sneak into his room to play. That trickster Loki.
I still love MEP. This week we used symmetry and perimeter in geometry to reinforce multiplication. We also did multiplication and division using Roman numerals. CC thought that this was really cool. Today, I had her work some from the SIngapore CWP3 book just to make sure that all of this different math wasn't changing our wonderful word problems, but after she read the problems, she said that she knew just how to solve them and went on to easily solve word problems that used multiplication, subtraction and division in the same problem without even slowing down. I love it.
I also spent more than two hours on the phone with Sallie Mae, but that is a whole 'nuther discussion.
We have 31 days of school left for 2008-2009 school year.
Can you spell JetLag? Poor BB, left Tokyo Monday at 5:30 pm and returned home at 3:30pm. His body is a full 16 hours off from our life, and he lost a day in the Pacific. He fell asleep at his sister's art class at 5pm only to be wide awake at 11 when I was going to bed. He looks like he has lost twenty pounds off his tall, thin frame. But it is good to see him and know that he is okay. I just want to tuck him into bed and feed him and keep him home. Except, he's 19 and scheduled to go back to school in two weeks. He told his sisters to not grow up too fast because being an adult is hard.Can I reverse time back to when he was little and do it all again more slowly?
Speaking of doing it all over again more slowly - LB is growing up too fast. Since she is the youngest, I am finding that I have to make sure I let her take turns to lead when we hike and explore. She loves to play with a younger friend so that she gets to be the older one for a change. This week she brought me a piece of paper with a hangman drawn on it and wanted to play with me and BB. She had a lot of fun being the one to write the words and letters. Now that she can spell a few words, she's excited to be able to play this with us. We used to play with BB when he was little, and we went out to eat, and now its her turn to play.
CC's once-a-week school had a talent show this week. As soon as she heard about it, she wanted to perform Jabberwocky. She already knew the poem; she just had to get over being nervous saying it aloud. We practiced several times this week with her standing in conspicuous places, and us doing silly things to try to distract her. Here is her performance, a bit shakey - yes, at least a unipod next time for the camera.
She was awesome!
We did some actual school this week, and MEP is the best math program ever. Okay, at least I am still loving it. One of the problems she did this week was ___ x 7 - 12 = 4 x 4 I was prepared to explain and give some hints per the teacher notes, but she looked at it and said that was easy since she just needed to see what times 7 is 28. What? Wait, I was ready to help, but she said it was easy and went on 16 / 4 + 1 = ___ / 3 . Where has this math been all my life? She hates doing a page of multiplication and division facts, but eats this stuff up.
Other than that, we read history through the Aztecs and Incas, did dictation, spelling, art, and went on a lovely nature walk. She also read daily, recited Jabberwocky, and learned a new acronym - R.I.C.E - rest, ice, compression, elevation. I love our family doctor. He took the time to explain to her how to care for her injured, bruised hand (thanks to playing London Bridge with a friend too close to a bookshelf).
The poor dear has a terrible, deep purple bruise on the carpal bones in her hand - the doctor also named all the bones and described the functioning of the hand, small bones, tendons, and muscles. If she hasn't improved significantly by Monday, we might start lessons in writing with her alternate hand.
I think I'll spend next week trying to convince myself that my youngest isn't growing up too fast, my oldest isn't leaving too soon, and my middle isn't going to leave me someday too.
This week we went to one of our favorite parks with our friends. the lake has finally thawed and the kids enjoyed the sun, water, and just being outside.
Here is CC working on a slide for her playground she is building for her toys.
And LB is making beautiful playdough cookies.
I finally finished the second hole for my second apple tree and planted them (almost). I'll take lovely pictures when I have them all mulched. In the meantime, the kids had a great time with all of the intermediate steps of hole digging. This one was a boat, an island with buried treasure, and a castle with a moat. Notice CC is rigging the boat, and LB is chasing chickens with the would-be sails.
We did school this week too - but not on Monday. We have officially canceled Monday school. We just spend the day enjoying each other, and catching up on house work, gardening, or playing in the sunshine and not at work. That leaves us with 40 more days of our 180 to finish in 4 day weeks. I think school will last a while longer.
We found a new way to do grammar.
I give CC a dictation sentence that exemplifies a grammar or punctuation rule, and she rolls her eyes and explains how she already knows that rule. Isn't that fun? Well, instead of letting it get to me, I have embraced it (only not the eye rolling part). I looked at the next dictation sentence (from WWE workbook 2), told her what the rule is going to be and asked her to look for examples in her reading. Then when I give her the dictation sentence next week, I'll have her explain the rule back to me. It will accomplish the same thing, but with more style and hopefully less eye rolling.
For writing this week, we did dictation one day, copywork one day, and she worked on a story she is writing two days. She worked on her cursive with the dictation and the copywork.
For math, we have finished up through lesson 112 in MEP. This week, she told me that she loves math.
For history, she learned about the Great Dust Bowl at her cottage school, read about Roman homes and villas on her own, and we read up through the Moghul empire in Story of the World.
In spelling, she finished the Group 2 words. LB decided to join us at spelling so I started her on the List A, group 1. I call the words just like I do for her sister, but then I spell them for her and she write them down. Later in the car, the girls were quizzing hubby on spelling words, she told him to ask her how to spell MAN. He asked her, and she spelled it, "MAN. M-A-N. MAN. Daddy, you are a man." Now, guess what sentence I used when I dictated man. She actually wrote about 8 words that during that spelling lesson.
All four of us went to see Earth on Earth Day. It was a terrific movie. The girls would have happily skipped the scary scene at the watering hole at night, but the rest of the movie was amazing. We were the people in the back of the theater talking through most of the movie, but we really couldn't help it. There were too many reasons to say 'Wow.'
We read a beautifully illustrated version of Ivanhoe this week. At the end, CC declared that she wants to grow up to be like Rebecca, and before she went to sleep, LB was wishing she could be like "the princess" Rowena.
Since I work until the wee hours of the morning, I have spent lots of time scraping ice off of my car. When it is 10 or more degrees below zero, my fingers start to get numb and hurt even inside my gloves, and my ears will go numb before I feel them get cold. I have had my doors freeze shut from 12 hours of sleet freezing on them. For the last couple of months, I have tried to not complain when I am scraping the ice and to find some way to enjoy the moment. Friday night, I think I finally achieved what I have been working towards. As I brushed and scraped the windows, I started to notice the large, downy flakes falling around me. I noticed how there were distinct layers of snow on the car that varied in texture. I enjoyed the full quiet that you get at 2am when the snow is falling and the world is asleep. I even dug in the car to find the camera to try to capture the moment.
I had known there was something here to enjoy if I just tried to find it. My life is made of little moments. I can't control whether the snow freezes on my car, but I can control my attitude toward it.
LB is my last, best hope for teaching a child to read. I have failed miserably with the older two. I was determined to teach this one.
BB learned to read on his own while he was in pre-kindergarten. I had planned to try to teach him to read, but he learned how before I had the chance. CC wanted to learn to read so that she could read to LB after she was born. I tried to teach her, but she wasn't ready at 3 or even early 4 so I put everything away. One day, I found her reading Go, Dog, Go to herself.
Today, LB climbed into my lap while CC was having her spelling test and wanted words to write. After I asked her what she wanted to write, she hopped down and returned with the wooden letters and spelling set. She happily spelled cat, bear, duck, and car with her wooden letters then copied them onto paper. I looked at the remaining letters and spelling words and asked if she would spell frog while I was gone to rotate the laundry. As I came back from downstairs, I heard her telling her sister, "Mommy wants me to spell frog, but I won't do it. She doesn't know that princesses don't like frogs." Of course that was the end of our spelling. I couldn't convince her to spell anything else after insulting her by asking a princess to spell frog. I am not going to be able to teach her to read.
First do you know what Graupel is? Yesterday, we had rain, graupel, and thunder which finally all surrendered to a snow storm early this morning. You gotta love spring and forms of water that you never knew existed.
We had a wonderful week. I am starting to think that second grade might actually work out for us. We had a visit from home schoolers that live a hop, skip and jump from us on Monday, then we walked to their house. It is great to know somebody that close that home schools. It is like we aren't so weird after all.
First, BB is taking finals this week and next at the university in Tokyo. He feels like he is doing well. So far he knows that he received a 95% on the Japanese oral final. Excellent!
Before I say anything about school for the ones at home, let me say that I love MEP math. CC, who used to fight over every little problem in math, dreamed last night that she was a famous mathematician.
We completed lesson 103 in MEP2. CC is breezing through the multiplication and division. She is doing multi-step problems. She is not complaining a bit. I love this math.
We finished Spelling Power List E, Group 1. We have a routine that seems to be working for us this week. I test for 6 minutes, starting with any words she missed from the previous day. Then she spends 12 minutes "playing with words". She comes up with her own ways to practice words during this time, and she has so far loved that. We are finding words and patterns of words that she doesn't know how to spell. For instance, she spelled except as accept.
We received the Sonlight Science 2 Discover and Do dvd and the science kits this morning. The girls had already made a circuit and tested most of the kitchen to see what conducts electricity before I left for work. Hopefully this will help to add more hands-on science to our week. The kids wanted science experiments that they could do by themselves. LB smiled proudly at me when she was explaining what she had done (while I was drying off from my shower). She said that she likes being a scientist. Hubby looked concerned when I told him what the kids were doing, but I explained that even if they tried, they couldn't hurt themselves with Double-A batteries.
We read about Joan of Arc, the War of the Roses, and Ferdinand and Isabella in history this week. The girls decided that wouldn't want to be inline for a throne during the middle ages. We also read some stories about Robin Hood, and are getting ready to read an illustrated version of Ivanhoe. Those are in preparation for rereading Knights Castle by one of our favorite authors, Edward Eager. We have read it twice already for fun, but never in relation to history and the other works of literature that it discusses. Eager is great about making CC excited to read other authors and learn about the timer periods that he writes about.
Other than all that, CC has chosen The Tyger by William Blake as her next poetry project. LB chose Hurt No Living Thing as her next poem to learn. They are funny, because by the time they both learn them, they will also know each other's poem.
We also had writing, art, and other such stuff, but these were the highlights and important things (that I still remember as of Friday night).
Today, I was in a meeting with a senior manager and my group from work. Since our group provides a service to the rest of the company, his goal is that we are "So good that we're boring." I've thought about that statement the rest of the day. For services, you usually only think about them when they don't work as expected or when there is a catastrophe.
When something doesn't work, it isn't boring because you are struggling with it. When you are learning to do something, you notice it because it is harder at first than it will be later on. When you lack confidence in something, you notice it, and it isn't boring. What happens in a home school when everything is going well?
Often, the teacher starts to get bored. We get used to struggling with things. Then when things start working well, we start to worry. We look for things to change. We wonder if we are doing enough. That schedule and set of lesson plans and stack of material that we worked so hard to get "right" now seem wrong just because it is working so well that it has become boring.
What you see pictured here is a real look at my school table. I didn't clean it up for the picture. The little one is still in her pj's, and the middle one is supposed to be writing her spelling word (yeah word) in the sand. Doesn't writing spelling words in sand sound like a nice, multi-sensory activity? It does. Now quit laughing. My hubby even laughed - he asked who on earth suggested giving sand to kids? It was of course the end of school. It wasn't the planned end of school, but I couldn't get anyone's attention back after somebody found a tiny seashell in the sand left over from last time we used it for a craft. So I just gave in, brought out my box of ocean-themed stuff and poured myself a cup of coffee. A long, hot shower helped too. The girls had fun then we cleaned up. Most of the sand really stayed on the plates - I was surprised.
We started last week in MEP math at lesson 84, this week we finished lesson 99. I am still loving it. We had a minor victory Wednesday when CC had to figure out what number times 3 plus 18 equals 75. Once she got the answer she was a little disappointed because it was "just like easy math but with bigger numbers." She was very proud of her work this week.
She started her new art class. Its another pottery class - she loves pottery and is waiting to be old enough to use the wheels. She also took a field trip to a local pioneer center. Her favorite parts were scrubbing clothes on a washboard, drawing water from the well, making corn bread, and panning for gold. She loves history that she can see and touch.
All that and we took Monday off because we needed a day off, went to the park on Tuesday after we finished our work, found two tiny, baby bunnies in our back yard, spent over an hour at the library reading the first chapters of books looking for a good mystery for CC, had a great day on Wednesday at the park with our friends, and colored eggs today.
LB is starting to get very independent. At the library this week, while I was looking for books for CC, she was supposed to be looking at books or playing in the children's area. I turned to check on her and she was gone. I looked behind me and there she was walking back from the water fountain with a big smile. She had been thirsty and gone for a drink. "Mommy, this is a small library and I walked right by you to get the water. I know the way there and I could see you, but thanks for looking for me." Why did my 4 year-old give me such a good defense of her water fountain trip? Maybe, she is bigger than I thought she was, and the reason I leave her in the children's area while I look in the bigger kids area has a lot to do with the size and layout of the library. She's my little devious child. She had anticipated my objections and had an answer for them.
After a blizzard and several days of blowing snow and cold, the sun came back so our short morning walk ended up at the park with an added nature walk. I love our parks and trails.
CC took the first step of the placement tests for Spelling Power today. She enjoyed the process.
She has been wanting to become a better a speller, and I have been struggling to accommodate that since she is a great speller and still very young. She scored a 25 on her placement test, which puts her current spelling level around grade 5.5. It also explains why I've been having trouble finding challenging material for her at a second or third grade level. Hopefully, This will be the spelling program for us.
Today she also happily worked through two lessons of MEP math. I still love this stuff. Now she's watching the funny part of Home Alone and eating a late lunch before we go out to run errands. I think we've all gotten a little out of shape this winter - a simple two hour romp in the woods and half mile run to and from the park shouldn't wear out such young kids. :) I love spring time and fresh air and exercise and sunshine and sunshine and fresh air.
I have two full-time jobs. I work full-time on the weekends and homeschool and mother during the week.
My students:
LB is 4 and was born to be the youngest child.
CC is in Second Grade and is constantly challenging my ideas of schooling and parenting.
BB is a homeschool graduate this year and has grown up too fast for me to comprehend. He is attending college in Tokyo.
HH works very hard during the week and has to be a single Dad while I work on the weekends.
Just A Thought..
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While looking for something for my kitchen wall I found this...
While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all ab...
Juxtapositions
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*Who Am I*
June 18, 2009 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire ...
FIRST GIVEAWAY - EVER!!! SpellQuizzer license
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I was contacted to review this product ~SpellQuizzer~ and they have also
offered a license to giveaway to a very lucky lurker!
SO COME ON OUT!!!
We have ...
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-19
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Still sitting at kitchen table, trying to finish manuscript. German shepherd
still sleeping, border collie in fight to death with pine cone. #
Will…finish…...
A put up or shut up moment
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Strawberry picking is on and I have no time for anything bloggy. Raspberries coming up soon. Why do we have a U-Pick when one of us works a LOT off farm, and...
Another Road Trip Update
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My kingdom for a laptop!!! Ok, maybe a trade... anyone want to trade an
Urban Kid for a laptop?
No, actually, it's been a good trip. Here are the Cliff Not...
School
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School (Sky) Today my teacher's wearing an 80's dress, To remind all of us she used to be an actress. I'm surrounded by kids saying: "You're lower than us!" ...
Purging..
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I've been on facebook and it's sucking up my life, which is why I haven't
been on here more. So much to update on. I will be posting picture of
Skimbleshan...
