What we are using

12 March 2010

Week 24 - The Grand Adventure


Remember - Life isn't confusing. It is a Grand Adventure.
Yes. That is corn growing in out of the trap in my nice, clean sink.
It has been a long week. Wait. No. It was a grand adventure.


On Monday, I had the brilliant idea to use fraction circles to help explain common denominators, again. Of course if you give my kids scissors, markers and circles, you will get paper pizzas not math. I did know enough to do this after doing Saxon. I retreated to the shower after the pizza defeat. We made it through our read aloud, writing and French before the phone rang. While I was on the phone, they made address labels and labeled the backyard then delivered their pizzas. There was only a little sleet and then some graupel - no reason to stay indoors. We finished the day with warm, homemade vanilla milk and The Royal Diaries on video.

Tuesday for fractions, we did a sample mini lesson from Plato then CC played a fraction game. She tried really hard to get all of the answers wrong in the game which she thought was hilarious. After that, she did the Impossible Fraction lesson from Fred and had no trouble adding mixed fractions. Somethings just need a little time and extra practice. She had learned fractions with the idea of parts of circles and had to switch to a more abstract way of thinking about them in order to do actual math with mixed fractions.

I won't trudge through the details of the whole week, but here are a few standout details. I tried to teach CC to multiply two digits by one digit, but she taught me to multiply two digits in my head instead. One morning we woke to sunshine and warmth with looming snow clouds so I rushed the girls to dress, and we enjoyed our breakfast outside daydreaming of summer gardens and a new tree house before the north wind forced us back inside to our normal day. Don't read Shakespearean tragedies to five year old girls. LB cried inconsolably when Juliet died.

CC wrote two letters this week which LB had to be a part of so she dictated a letter to GMa to me and then copied it with no backwards or upside-down letters. The girls were making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies when I left for work. LB called to tell me they were good, and CC asked how to empty the dust pan.

After CC cried for Laurie's broken heart when Jo rejected his proposal, she has decided that the last few chapters of Little Women need to wait until she is older so she has switched to Eight Cousins and wants to read "all of those classic orphan stories." Anybody know and classic orphan stories? The only ones I know are by Dickens, and she isn't ready for those.


9 comments:

Daisy said...

My daughter is reading Eight Cousins right now also! LOL.

Corn growing, pizzas, fractions, tragedies, and Little Jo. Wow, that is some week. ;-)

Robin Johnson said...

What a busy week! Full of fun and emotional literature. Keep up the great work.

WildIris said...

Is that really corn? What's up with that? I though I had it bad now that I am back to heating water on the stove for hot water, but corn in the sink--Yikes!

Karen said...

Ouch - heating the water on the stove - been there. The girls were playing settler or something and had bags of beans, rice and corn to plant in their new homestead a couple of weeks ago. They had camped out in the bathroom and eventually cleaned up their mess. The corn must have been a stray. Hubby rescued it, and we are going to plant it outside if spring ever gets here. One day the sink was fine, the next there was a giant thing growing from it.

cyn said...

What a great week! We have had sink issues- first a broken water filter, and now a broken hot water service to the kitchen...so we are heating water in the kettle to fill the sink.*sigh*

Tina said...

Great photos...and I do see some trinity in you :)

katherine said...

Here are some orphan book ideas:
*The Secret Garden (and some other books by Frances Hodgson Burnett)
*Anne of Green Gables (and some other L.M. Montgomery books; I happen to love Emily of New Moon)
*Pollyanna

Anonymous said...

A few more orphan book ideas:

The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Ballet Shoes by Noel Stretford
The Lemony Snicket Series
The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
Danny by Roald Dahl
Jayne Eyre by Bronte

and... while Sara Crewes wa not really an orphan in A Little Princess, readers are lead to believe she is for the majority of the book, does it count?

Anonymous said...

Oh... a few more...

The Wizard of Oz
Heidi
Chronicles of Narnia
Pollyanna
James and the Giant Peach
Count Karlstein by Phillip Pullman
The Pirate's Son by G. McCaughrean
Orphan Train Series by JL Nixon
Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Selznick
The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry
Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Bud, Not Buddy
Maniac McGee
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
The Boxcar Children series
The Book Thief by Zuzak
Mandy by Julie Andrews
Hattie Big Sky
Crispin:The Cross of Lead
Emily of New Moon
Listening for Lions
The Fairy Tale Detectives
Behind the Attic Wall
Peter Pan
Peter and the Starcatchers
Dave at Night
Madeline
Meet the Austin
Gathering Blue
Understood Betsy
Silas Marner
Kim
The Story of Holly and Ivy
The White Giraffe
Curtain Up
Samantha- American Girl Series
Calico Bush
Thunder from the Sea
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Pippi Longstocking
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Beet Queen