Last week, I was really distracted planning my best friend’s bridal shower, so I never got around to blogging. Here’s a random recap of our week:
~Greek Gods in SOTW
~Notebooking Page on the major gods
~Read an Aliki book on the gods
~Read a book about Pegasus
~Did a daily lesson in math
~Spelling
~Grammar
~Swimming
~PE
~Park day
~Knitting
I think that is all.
Elliott went to storytime where they did the same stuff they did the week before, including a song about the rainbow with the colors out of order. WTF? This irks me completely. It’s not like the rainbow is in some random order – it’s scientific fact. Why bother to teach the kids the wrong order? Thank God for TMBG:
I am way, way behind. Let’s see if I can remember it all…
Together, Margie and I continued to work on spelling, grammar, history, and reading together. She also finished some reading on her own, and worked online a bit. We did one notebooking page for each Athens and Sparta.
On Wednesday, we went to the library for storytime. My big girl has outgrown it. I think I shall cry buckets. No one told me kids would GROW UP when you have babies. Anyway, she checked out mancala and made up new rules for it while Elliott listened to stories about rainy days.
At some point this week, we also baked – muffins and cookies and more muffins.
It was a big, rainy week, complete with thunderstorms and tornadoes (none in our area of San Diego, as far as I know) so lots of our usual stuff got cancelled – PE, a trip to the Escondido Children’s Museum (because I was terrified to drive that far in 80MPH winds and flooding conditions). But E’s soccer class was held just like usual.
On Friday we braved the weather (and the eucalyptus trees) to go to Camp Fire where we sang and danced to work towards our music emblem. The kids made animal puppets and sang Old MacDonald, and then we played a cooperative version of musical chairs where the kids all had to dance around and stop on pieces of colored paper – by the end they all had to share one piece. The kids were slightly disgruntled that no one got to win. So much for cooperative. Heh. I didn’t get pics because I didn’t want to deal with the weather.
Later that day we hung out at our friends’ home for “knitting group” which involved exactly zero knitting, even for me.
Sadly, this week brought the passing of the kids’ great grandmother. She will be missed.
~SOTW, Athens and Sparta – read, reviewed and worked in our World History Encyclopedia.
~Math – last review of the book. Now on a celebratory break for the remainder of this week.
~Spelling – one lesson. I swear to God it took AN HOUR AND A HALF. This is unacceptable since it’s something I HAVE to be there with her for. Between fits and dawdling she just drags it out. It makes homeschooling miserable. I don’t know what to do since the program seems to fit her brain so well. I may spend some time looking for a similar program that is less intensive and has shorter lessons.
~Grammar – continued memorization, worked more on common nouns.
Otherwise between illness (Elliott, primarily, M got hers out of the way over the weekend) and Big Huge Rain Storms, we’ve played at home all day. Mostly legos, but also games, and some time on the computer. But, yes, mostly Legos.
Margie:
~Grammar, lesson 2 – beginning memorization.
~Math
~Read a biography on MLK
~Has also been reading a fictionalized book about Coretta Scott King.
Elliott:
~Re-created the zoo, this time with a sign pointing to fish. I had assumed this would be for the dolphin, but as it turns out, it was left empty since he could not find fish for this exhibit. As they cleaned it up he announced, “See you next time at Zoo 2!”
At art today Claire had the kids do some wax relief watercolors and showed them how they could use a toothbrush to spray the paint on the paper. They also went outside and used spray bottles to paint around stencils (well, not sure if this is the name).
In the afternoon, we walked to E’s soccer class at the rec center – he was so stinkin’ happy to be back at his class – and then to the bank and farmer’s market where we indulged in kettle corn. Mmmmm.
Back at home the kids played well and watched Electric Company and Fetch.
Margie:
~Spelling – some new words today based in “old”
~Math
~MLK – Finished the activity book, watched a video.
~Played on the computer at the library
~Checked out books, asked the librarian for help, signed up for a reading program
~Read on her own, fiction (American Girl stuff) and nonfiction (reptile book we got in the dollar spot)
~Read to elliott
~Did puzzles
Elliott:
~Created a zoo which I think is completely amazing (picture below)
~Storytime @ library
~checked out 5 ABC books
~Listened to M read to him
~Did puzzles
Margie:
~Just one page pf math today since she had worked ahead a bit. Subject was weighing.
~FINALLY began our grammar book. The lesson was short, but we sort of jumped ahead by beginning to memorize the poem from the next lesson.
~She worked more in her MLK book. We tried to watch a video, but we had technical difficulties.
~We read some more together.
~PE – basketball.
Elliott:
Spelled and read and was read to and sang and played with Playmobil nearly all day and played on a borrowed Leapster at the park (which he called “Lapster”) which was probably educational somehow.
Together we all:
~Played WiiFit+
~Listened to Here Comes Science (and sang it at the tops of our lungs)
Before I go into the details, I wanted to share this little tidbit. Today at park day, E had been playing across the lawn from me – out of hearing range, but clearly within my sight. He wandered over to a group of high school kids sitting at a table and, apparently, struck up a conversation with them. I let it go for a few minutes to see what happened and then I got up to go save the kids from my son and it turns out he was serenading them with a full album performance of Here Come Science. The kids were cute as hell with him and waved at him later as he walked back past them.
Not long after that one of the dads showed up and Elliott spent about half an hour playing with him, too. The kid’s not shy at all!
So today…
Margie:
~Math – measuring by way of using a balance scale. Also addition in the form of Wii Fit Plus. Go figure.
~Spelling – “in” and “it” words
~PE – Swimming. She began learning a “pocket roll”. Also park day and WiiFit, of course.
~Social Studies – We are studying MLK this week. She read a bit about him, did some mapwork on Alabama (we talked about states vs cities, and state capitals, too).
~Science – we talked about health, dogs (she explained about certain breeds to me), listened to Here Comes Science.
~We read some together, she read on her own.
Elliott:
~Did some workbook pages.
~Read with Dad.
~Spelled some words. Including “Finish” for a race between Mickey and Minnie Megablocks.
~Listened to Here Comes Science.
~Checked off today on his calendar. We talked about days of the week.
Technically, we are supposed to be starting back to school now, but I’ve decided that, since I intend to work through the summer, I will start following a year round schedule which gives us one extra week off. I’m going to blog through this, though, because I will need to record the unschooliness that happens this week for our school records.
First a big announcement – I OFFICIALLY have two readers! ♥ My boy can read just about anything you put in front of him now. I am so proud!
Also in Elliott news, we bought him a calendar (he chose Wallace and Gromit) and we’ve begun talking about days, weeks, and all that fun stuff.
And a Margie tidbit – her friend Ashley was over here the other evening and was supposed to go home at 6pm. At 5:49, Margie told her she had 11 minutes left. I’m impressed with the quick subtraction she did in her head and more impressed by her concept of time since we have never officially covered it. Score one for unschooling. ♥
Science – my kids are BIG TIME into TMBG’s Here Comes Science right now. And in all honesty, I consider this one of their best albums – I ♥ it.
(That’s my personal favorite song on the album.)
More Science – Margie and I attempted to see the planetarium show this month, but so did everyone else on the planet. Despite the fact that we made reservations and arrived just after 6:30, by 7pm we were still in line and told that our reservations were void after 6:45. I was a teeny bit pissed as was everyone else in line. It was a mess. They comped us and we left. We did hit the telescopes afterwards, though, and got to see three views (close, closer, closest!) of Orion’s Nebula and also one of double stars – one was golden and one was bluish. I wonder what that sunrise looks like?
Math – Boom Blox is one of the new games we got for the Wii. It involves blowing up towers and requires one to figure out how to create chain reactions and make one tower fall into the next and stuff like that. It also involves engineering when you build your own towers and scenes.
PE – M began swimming on Mondays this week with a new teacher, Lisa. She also started a four week session of basketball in her PE class. (And of course all the play, park days, and etc.)
Language arts – Electric Company for grammar. Reading each day – fiction, nonfiction and poetry.
Social Studies – Margie watched some of About San Diego this week with her dad and learned some tidbits of local history. Margie has also been reading and been read to. Her newest book is No Dogs Allowed.
The Saturday night before Yule, our friends Summer and Brandon came over for our yearly butter-making party. Brandon loves our tradition so much he’s declared it isn’t Christmas until we make butter (which was awkward the year we weren’t able to get together until St. Patrick’s Day).
The kids and I spent some time preparing for Yule by, among other things, making beeswax candles. We lit them at sundown the night before and sang fire songs, listened to sun stories and then crawled into bed early in preparation for greeting the dawn the following day.
We rose on the morning of the Winter Solstice and met our friends in the early light to watch the sun rise. Except that the sun did not, technically, rise. At least not visibly – I imagine the earth didn’t stop turning, I am pretty sure I would have heard about that on the local news.
Yule night, the kids and I walked around Christmas Circle, a local street that gets decked out for the holidays.
(You might have noticed I got a star filter for the camera for Christmas.)
In holiday prep we also dipped marshmallows (mushrooms, according to Elliott) in chocolate and decorated them. Our friends gave us some gingerbread houses to decorate, but I don’t have photos of that. And I made peanut butter cups, but the kids didn’t help with that.
And then, the big night….
The kids had a lovely Christmas (which means they liked their gifts). From Santa, Margie got a lap loom, and Elliott got an RC car. And they liked the gifts given to them by the mortals in their lives as well: toys, books, clothes, chocolate, a couple of games for the Wii, among other things.
We spent the next week with dad home most of the time. We played games, deep-cleaned the kitchen, slept in late… It was beautiful. And now? Back to reality. It nearly hurts. Luckily my reality is pretty awesome.
She is seven and full of spirit. She reads voraciously, knows her math, and is in speech therapy to help her words come out clearly. We use a charter homeschooling program which provides us with many opportunities in the way of classes and supplies.
Elliott
My four-year-old had a pretty significant language delay and has been in programs since he was 18 months old to keep an eye on it. He's gaining in leaps and bounds, but we keep our eyes on him, even though he is not currently in speech. He knows all the letters and sounds and is beginning to read. He knows all his numbers up to 20 or so and all his colors and shapes - including octagon! He loves puzzles, books and his train set. They Might be Giants is his favorite band.
