Tuesday, October 30, 2007

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!!

Friday, October 26, 2007

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.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Recap for Wednesday and Today

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

Monday, October 22, 2007

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.