I am way behind on my notes on this blog, probably because I have actually been posting on my other one!

We are having an exam week of sorts, so I will post more about that soon.....

Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 29,30)

Monday:
We started the day off with a read again....

ALL:-Gospel of Mark
-finished the Aeniad
-practiced the Bath Song (our Tolkien poem)
-chores

Ar-Math
-writing: quidditch commentary
-Read: The Life of the Spider by Fabre, drew picture (yikes!... the spider, not the picture))
Oliver Twist- 2chpts.
lots of other stuff I'm sure....


Hannah-Math (hard stuff- Test 16)
-writing: quidditch commentary (very creative)
-Read: HP and Bible

Caleb- played dutch blitz with him and all kids (he needed a boost)
-read in his Magic Treehouse book
-had a little phonics lesson
-Math-U-See (almost ready for Delta)

Aaron- I Spy on the Computer
-phonics and some letters with me

Played outside lots in the afternoon, talking to Papa who was working. At night Hannah and I are still wolfing down the fifth HP together (and snuggling up with tea) and Matt is reading the 1st with the two younger boys. The younger boys and I enjoyed the St. Francis book as well as the awesome book called the Treasure.

Tuesday
Started off this day with no chores and a good Latin lesson instead!

(Caleb practiced violin before breakfast.)

Ar-new Henle lesson (went great) and made new vocab. cards
-Sequential Spelling
-Read: Bible
Rule For A New Brother
Oliver Twist
Book about Shackleton
(Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry at nighttime)
-Math (boy he is getting this great!!)
-writing: copywork from LOTR
-lots of pennywhistle

Hannah-new Henle lesson and new vocab. cards
-Sequential Spelling
-lots of piano
-writing: a bunch more of her commentary
-Read: HP, In God's Garden (7 pages...this is lots)

Caleb- Math (next page), also reviewed subtraction
-Sequential Spelling (he asked)\
-played with Aaron while I taught the kids Latin and spelling (great!)
-violin before breakfast
-read a Jataka tale online
-italics (2 lines)

Aaron- an informal reading lesson, and he also wrote out a bunch of letters, also counted to 100 (was very nice)

All: Memory verse and Bible
Read Aloud at lunch- The Door in the Wall
Tea Time- we all read a poem we picked (and I read Aaron's). This was amazing! and it
worked so well to do it later in the afternoon after lots of free time.

Nice Day. Slow start, but such is the course when we are all up late!!

Tuesday to Friday

Let's see...
Tuesday:
All- Math
-Bible (section from the Gospel of Mark)
-the Aenied
-Looking at a new Winslow Homer painting
-instruments practiced

Ariel and Hannah -dictation from Beren and Luthien

Caleb- copywork from HP

Then we went to chess club

Wednesday:
Began the day with reading aloud, slipping from Breakie to the couch....
(This worked well again- we so love this time of our day, and the change from this to something active like chores and then math is a good mix up of types of energy and mindwork)

All: Gospel of Mark
The Minotaur-the first half
Child's History of the World- Ceaser
Recited our Poem- The Bath Song by JRR Tolkien
Read two picture books from Chiina- The Firebird (by Demi) and another one

Chores for all

All: Math
Instruments

Ariel: -read lots of his Gregor novels (3 of them today)
The Life of a Spider by Fabre (orally narrated it to this arachnaphobic mom, and then we looked up the dens of Wolf Spiders after this.... by this point I was downright creeped out and called it a day!)
- did a worksheet of grammar
-wrote a poem of the story of Bruce and the Spider

Hannah:- read In God's Garden and The Order of the Phoenix
-did a good amount of LOTR copywork
-practiced piano
-did grammar worksheet

Caleb :-read the story of Icarus and Daedelus from a Book of Virtues
-did copywork from HP

Hannah had ballet this night. She is doing so well and really progressing.

Thursday:
Table to couch again for stories....
All: -Gospel of Mark at table
-Read the rest of the Minotaur
-Read 2 great picture books (The Treasure and another one??)- Aaron loved this
-read A Midsummer Night's dream (the rest of scene one- mostly to Ar and H)
-finished our Magic or Muggle potion (we are pretty magical here!)

Chores (let the kids fold while I read)

Ar: -Math (percents- he is really getting this!!!!)
-grammar recap with mom and worksheet and latin drill
-lots of copywork to finish Beren and Luthien (and a few changes on his poem)
-Read 2 chapters of Oliver Twist (and THE REST of the Gregor books (all 4)

H:-Math (circumference and area of a circle -HARD stuff!0
-grammar recap with mom and worksheet and latin drill
-copywork from LOTR
-read Order of the Phoenix (I am just so glad she is reading-I am not pushing which books too much. She is to read 4-6 pages twice a week of her Saints book)

C: he was snuffly and tired looking (he is so cute!) So we played Sequence, and he did a few math questions (borrowing and perimeter and thousands place, phew!!)

Aaron has been drawing like mad all week. His people now have ears and often the right number of fingers and toes, as well as noses! He is definitely missing Caleb, as Caleb is now doing table work and playing with Hannah more.

Hannah went with her dad to work at the community house and they did some traditional native beadwork on looms. Hannah LOVED it and has been busily beading ever since.

Friday:
All:Friday room cleaning chore (then I did a major decluttering attack of our closet and most rooms)

Ar and H:Math for both

Caleb: read his Magic Treehouse book

Aaron read Go Dogs, Go to me and then I went and had a long shower at this point, made some snacks and got out the stuff for our Friday craft. We did beautiful watercolors, I am so happy with them.

All: The Aeniad (second to last chapter)

Friday's are working well in a great rhythm. . We start the day with room cleaning each Friday. Then the older two are still doing math, but Caleb has a free day. After this we do something different. The last few weeks we have done craft projects from the Usborne book, Hannah picked them out. I am loving this, working in this creative and special moment into our weeks.

Other ideas for Fridays...
-geography day
-science day (or on Thursdays)

Notes:
-have tea time with heaps of poetry books on Tues. or Wed. afternoon next week
-look for some books for a science focus possibly
-for Ar: next week or two he will do Shackleton
week after (or 2) will do Mao (read and write papers on both these books)
continue with Oliver Twist and Life of a Spider
-make up a map match up for countries of N and S. America
-Make time for Aaron's letter learning and create some cards etc.
-I am excited about the list of Writing projects. I think this will be a great visual for me. I might make it a separate document if I get a chance.

Recap for Wednesday and Today

Wonderful day so far... will post soon. Off to play Sequence with my sniffly Caleb.

Writing Idea

Writing a script for the announcer at a Quidditch match ie. Luna or Lee style!

Ariel jumped at this one!

Monday October 22, 2007

It seems like I should put the year at the top... it has been so long since I have added anything here. I think I have been (blush) looking at a few too many other blogs lately, and consequently falling into a definite lack of focus. I am going to try to focus on recording some notes here regularly again so I can see which way we are going, and also to have something to look over when February hits!

Today was a great day. It was clear and not rainy, which has been a change this week. We had breakfast, quite late as we are all in the sort of winter sleep in mentality already, and then drifted onto the couch to continue reading Theseus and the Minotaur from Tanglewood Tales. (Aaron had brought out the book and asked me to read it). We had read a Bible story already at the table. We were so cozy on the couch, and Caleb was happy, so I continued after that to read out of Child's History of the World about Ceaser. That went well, and we prayed the Lord's Prayer together.

At this point we all seemed to jump up and be ready for some chores, and some of us (me included) to get dressed.

From there we headed into math.
Hannah- test 15
Ariel- test 11
(aaargh... that means they both have a new lesson the same day- I try to avoid this!)
Caleb- subtraction facts and borrowing. Got it like a flash! (I am creating my own Math-U-See pages with the help of my old Foundations TM as he was using his sister and brother's old workbook and it ended a few lessons earlier than I needed before I could transfer him into Gamma... )

Ariel and Hannah each practiced their instruments (none for Caleb as his lesson is today and it would tire his tiny little arms out too much!)

We were having a friend over for lunch for his birthday so at this point I slipped out to grab a few things and started to cook like mad. Hannah iced the cake and very artistically set the table. Ariel played with Aaron, and Caleb had a time and a half trying to get his card just right! (There are just too many ways to say 'er' in english... as in Berthday, burthday.....)

After lunch we all cleaned up and headed out to a nearby park for a walk. We flew kites (sort of), threw the disc around lots, the little boys played at the park a bunch, and Hannah drew a great tree. The rest of us didn't get to our nature journals, but hey, it was a great day out.

When we got home I made Aaron some hot lemon and honey as he has a head cold, and decided we would do dictation. We generally don't do things after an outing, but it worked really well. I zipped through a section of Beren and Luthien with both Ar and Hannah, and Caleb did some copywork from HP.

After this it was onto designing my post for hosting the apple fair, dinner, violin for Caleb, and a great night of reading.

Did we do everything? No. Should we have? No, I honestly can't say I am very sold on the idea it all has to be done each day. Maybe that is why I waver so. It all looks good on other blogs etc. but today sure was beautiful here.
Note to self: enjoy the process of your own family rhythms and joys, see what works there. We have many years together, so see the steps, and live fully!

Thoughts: We are going to go through with the Henle slowly. When we get to a grammar concept (like tomorrow and transitive verbs) that is 'foreign' we will stop and figure it out with the grammar resources on hand (Learning Grammar through Writing, Harvey's, and worksheets from Easy Grammar). While taking the grammar break we can do flashcards and chanting as Hannah loves this (and make more cards for vocab. down the road as she loves this even more!)

The HP unit with Hannah still is full swing in her books. I thought we had fizzled out (after only a few days, not unit study type I am), but she is determined. She is doing beautiful calligraphy in both her Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology books, researching for both of these, and even wrote out the lab for Potions. She LOVES the creative flair, and because this is her passion it is working great (vs. when I have a great idea about drawing something which often goes flat)

Do another craft this week out of the book that we did the turtles out of (great craft two weeks ago... watercolor painting, which is right up my alley).

Get some good nonfiction books for Caleb to read too!

Think of a science focus as I see the kids would enjoy this right now.

Tuesday (so far)

Had a great morning...kids up by 8, had pancakes, got ready and each did a chore (Ar did upstairs toilet and sink, Hannah hung a load after her Math, and Caleb folded (Aaron brushed his teeth!)

All:
-had a great time of Bible reading and discussion at the table with Papa (last night had a great
read also with Papa- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (everyone loves it))
-read Young Fu to the older kids while youngers made forts
-had a nice tea time with fresh homemade cinnamon buns and chai. We read St. Francis and the
Wolf
-poured over the plans at Theresa's for a Harry Potter unit (we are not unit study folks per se,
but this looks like it could be alot of fun!)

Ariel
-Math- started a Math Journal and did some review of fractions (this went well, and he seemed
relieved to have helpful info in a usable format)
-Dictation: Lament for Boromir (went very well)
-Latin: recitation and vocab. review
-off to read Beric the Briton and Bible now

Hannah
-Math- next page in Zeta
-Copywork: Beren and Luthien
-Latin: recitation and vocab. review
-read lots of HP 3 in bed

Caleb
-Math: next page in MUS 1
-Copywork: The Crocodile (Lewis Carrol)
-Reading: Viking Tales (in a minute!)

Aaron
-lots of KNEX again

Still haven't read much to Caleb. I seem to get to the older kids read alouds, history etc but he isn't as interested as of late. Maybe I will start reading him the 50 Famous Stories again, on his own with Aaron. Today the littles went and played while Ar, H, and I read and that worked great. Caleb did Math this morning after much play, played alot again, then did his copywork while I was getting our tea/lunch together.

I think this HP unit will be great. We aren't really unit people, we make connections in readings etc. but it flows more naturally. I am going to give it a go, and I think it will give us some good enjoyment together. After that I am sure I will be ready to go back to our regular groove.

Note: Since we are on the last page of our Latin, maybe we will just have recitation a couple times a week, math each day, and then the HP unit. Kids can read and practice instruments in afternoons or after dinner.

Another Note to self: Kids need to practice instruments!! (Lessons are too much $$ to be wasted!)

Meals:
-B: pancakes
-L: tea time of homemade cinnamin buns (made bread too today) and chai
-D: chicken soup and homemade bread ( maybe rice pudding to round it off)

Monday...

Did I say 'grace' at the end of my last post? Yes, forgot that quite a few times (sob). I was quite graceful for the morning chores and getting ready, which I will pat myself on the back for. But in the whole excitement (mine) of having more of a plan around time (reads: will get kids to do lessons between 9-11 or so and then break for our reading and prayers) I sort of lost focus of what it is all about!! Sort of needed to be reminded about this again.

Ariel
-read a wee bit of Beric the Briton (Henty)
-Next page in Zeta (Math)
-Rosetta Stone Welsh
-some Latin
-short music practice

Hannah
-read lots of HP in bed
-next page in Zeta
-Latin- 2 exercises
-wrote more of a written narration on the Marauder's map (did not like mom to come and correct spelling)

Caleb
-next page in MUS (seem to like this better than Singapore, and so do I- probably because it is
time 3 for me through the same book and it just makes sense!)
-1 page cursive italics
-I read him the Intro. to Viking Tales
-Read 1 chpt. Viking Tales
-some neat coloring on an illuminated 'M' (gift for me!!)

Aaron
-we sat and read the Bob books together
-he kept himself pretty busy with Knex

All together
-We read the Bible at breakie, than at our break we prayed, read about the Romans from the Synge book (2chpts), read some poetry (talked about geography), and than at lunch we looked at Leaping Trout , our new picture study. (Also listened to a bit of Vivaldi during chores)

Meals
B-Cream of wheat and toast
L-sandwhiches (pb/cheese)
D-leftovers (dal, basmati rice, ceaser salad)

In the afternoon I dropped H and Ar off at their friends and Aaron and Caleb and I went for rootbeers and played at the park! Now it is dinner than violin, then home again , home again jiggetty jig!! (We usually aren't out of the house this much, but it was so beautiful today and thankfully there were leftovers!)

Some New Books

I picked up my order today of a few new books- thanks to our great friends for the gift certificate!

Viking Tales- for Caleb
In God's Garden- for Hannah
Beric the Briton- for Ariel

I also picked up The Story of Mankind from the library for Ar to read when he finishes the Story of Rome.

I had meant to do some planning and some long range goals, but am sacking it tonight in favor of the third HP book and a cup of tea. However, I think this week we will have a spelling focus on Monday, dictation on Tues and Thurs and a written piece on our new painting one day for writing.

Also, I am going to order MCP 6 for Ar. I think it will be a good review and a much needed change for him.

I have the BOB books out and Aaron is loving them... will spend some good one on one with him this week.

Also, must sign off- I let the kids know I am going to wake them up around 7:45 or 8 tomorrow- so we can get moving a little better in the morning and have a nice slower afternoon! Grace is definitely needed- for me that is! Must remember that speed in the morning routine is not as important as love and grace!!

September... the first couple weeks

Back in the swing of things with Math, Latin (sort of ) and writing.
Ariel has been finishing off the Story of Rome, and I have begun reading stories about the Romans from the World History books (Book 1 by Synge) at the Baldwin Project.
Hannah is still devouring Harry Potter book 3 and has put together a beautiful quilt and is quilting it.
Caleb is really enjoying the Singapore 1b and Ariel and I have had two quiet (read no raised voice by mom) math sessions (a small miracle on my part).

Aaron is learning more letters and beginning the Bob books - he also counted to 70 today (I told him I would be that long before we could play baseball together. That kid loves to hit balls!).

I will record more soon with lists etc and goals. I am off to bed- need sleep !!

Tuesday July 17, 2007

Well, summer is here in full swing... we are looking to a good long visit with the grandparents and old friends in a few days. As far as the formal things go, the lessons etc. we have mostly laid them aside. A few times in the past couple weeks I have required a few math problems for Ar, as he learned a new concept right before we sort of dropped math off! I think this will be helpful this year, much more retention when we move into a more high tide time for math. We also did Latin on Monday- have I said how much we enjoy Latin. I don't know what it is... maybe we are just nerdy! We reviewed all of our paradigms (grammar etc) and reviewed much of the vocabulary- had fun too!!

Yesterday Matt signed the kids up for a reading program- usually I think these are silly. However, it is $1 (to be used in the bookstore) for every hour they read. Now, Ariel reads about 2-3 hours a day usually, but the other two readers don't often pick up a book (until I 'suggest' it) to read these summer days. But this $$$ for books has inspired them- Ariel is up to 8 hours in the last 24 hours (yes, he did sleep), and Hannah and Caleb are both past and hour!!

Overall we are just enjoying this time.

Thursday and Friday

Lets see..
Thursday we had a nice lazy start but I got everyone into gear and back into chores.
Ariel- practiced his pennywhistle
-did Math
Hannah-practiced piano
-read and did phonics
-did math
Caleb-Decided to sit down today and ask this guy to do some things
-read a book to himself
-wrote out a line of copywork
-did all his addition facts out loud jumping
Aaron-we had a nice time reading together

We had a good read aloud at lunch: started reading Lancelot and Elaine from a book of Tennyson that I picked up at a yard sale. We also read the Aeniad.
Then we picked up some new wool for Hannah at our fave. store (she is going to make a full sized intricate poncho!), picked up a friend to visit for the day, came home, I made dinner for a new mom and we went swimming and to frisbee and soccer (phew that was a mouthful!!). Busy day for us folks, but lots of fun!!
Dinner: beef curry and lemon loaf with basmati

Friday..
Nice slow start (late night last night).
Hannah read her Bible and Caleb read to me. Ariel started a new blog.
I weeded the garden a bunch, and the kids did a Mad Lib and had fun with the 20Q game.
Seemed to be in a better groove today. Summer has definitely clicked in and I think my every year 'curve' (Mom is grumpy at first as all kids are sometimes grumpy with less sleep and more wide open time with less routine) is over and our routine is falling in. I still think we will do a bit of math etc. until we have family coming in 9 days.

Read from Lancelot and Elaine and the Phantom Tollbooth at lunch.

Wish I had charged the batteries in my camera... Hannah and Caleb were snuggled on the couch reading together- it's moments like these that make my heart melt (especially after a few days of lots of sibling bickering!)

Thursday June 18, 2007

Today...well??? One of those days. Should have known, who likes waking kids up to be at a 9am dental appointment, especially the one having the appointment who went to bed late and has had a slew of birthday party sleepovers?

With the downs there were also ups (which is one of the unsung joys of staying home with your children- yes there are ups and downs, but there is lots of time to work through the downs and enjoy the ups!!)

Dd and Ds12 both did math and Latin
Dd read some of her Tales of Ireland, practiced some piano, listened to Peter Pan and beaded
Ds12 read a bunch of The Story of Rome by Mary Mac Gregor, practiced the pennywhistle, and probably read a volume of something!
Frodo and Bilbo played lego, played lego, played magnetics, played lego and Frodo started knitting squares for an afghan (that kid loves to knit!!)
I read a wee bit of the Aeniad out loud during lunch between knitpicks
NOTE: put on the rainsuits and go outside tomorrow!

Dinner: (late again...sigh)
-homemade samosas, dal, rice, raita and leftover carrot cake
(lunch was homemade mac and cheese....very late)

The What of this Blog!!

What we have been up to, what's going on now, and what are we looking forward to?? That will be the gist of this blog- lists of books on the go, a look at the day to day, and menus etc. Not that I think academics are the main thing, or even close to it, but this gives me a little bit of a journal thing. Bare bones as far as style goes, but a helpful platform for me for the nitty gritty!!