18

This morning E and T were playing so nicely together, I just couldn't break them up. So they got out all their winter gear and went outside to play winter (it was about 75 degrees out there, but what the heck...). I got some cooking and laundry done, and if E didn't learn much, T did. A big sister is the best preschool teacher around, if you ask me, and he just loves to learn everything she wants to share with him.

Then finally it was time to come in and dress more appropriately to the weather, and I read some more of Platt's _Egyptian Diary_, then we put together a mummy case (I got the pattern from The Egyptians by Rachel Wright). E is going to decorate it with markers and hieroglyphic stamps (from the Ancient Egypt Treasure Chest) and then we'll "mummify" a doll I got at the dollar store and stick her in. During lunch I read the last chapter of Lacey's _What's the Difference?_ (turtles and tortoises) and a few more sections of Dewey's _Antarctic Journal_. E finally finished her math, (with help from her cuisenaire rods) and then she baked cookies, doing all the recipe reading and figuring herself.

I let T watch Peep and the Big Wide World on the computer (E watched too) Now she is downstairs hopefully finishing the Draw Write Now page from eons ago. Finishing not a big priority with this girl.

4

Another pretty good day! Narration: "The Ant and the Grasshopper"--she did great, even quoting some lines from the book! Then Geography: we read about Europe (by David Petersen). I decided based on our conversation last night, to ease back on the math work, so we did about half of what I would have done, following the lesson plans that came with the books. She was very happy and did very well. Then I read Wild and Woolly Mammoths by Aliki and If You Lived in the Days of the Wild Mammoth Hunters by Mary Elting and Franklin Folsom, interrupted by a half hour "recess" with Georgia (they showed off their cave that Daddy made this weekend). Then I read Benny's Animals and How He Put Them in Order a really excellent introduction to Animal Classification by Millicent Selsam. Tomorrow we'll play with the cards I printed out from this site, and maybe view this video--it's geared toward 5th graders but is simple enough I think she'll get some use out of it.

T was happy as long as I stopped to listen to his comments, and in between Aesop's Fables and _Europe_ I read _Treats from a Tree_ to him. Then while E was doing math, I got out the play-doh which was a big hit (I think E did her math more quickly so she could have a little break to play with it too!)

3

Today went pretty well, I thought. First she did a narration on "The Vain Jackdaw", then I read The Atlantic Ocean by Anne Ylvisaker and wrote down in her notebook what she could remember after. Then I read the first half of the Asia book again, and gave her an outline map and a list of 13 things to label on it. She did all of them and even found the Gobi Desert on her own. She also drew in and labeled the Equator. As she worked, we talked about the importance of some of them, like that the Dead Sea was the lowest point and Mt. Everest the highest and so forth. I found I did need to be there with her to make her do it--she liked looking things up on the map and globe and would have done that for hours on her own, but she didn't like labeling things. But I think it helps make stuff stick when you have to write it down. She is very concerned with spelling, even though I tell her not to sweat it. I don't know if that is self-imposed or something she picked up in kindergarten.

After that I offered her a break and she played with T for about 20 minutes, then we did the next bit in the math book. Again with trying to get out of doing the last exercise. I told her she could do it after lunch, but the longer she puts things off, the less time she has for playing.

After lunch and math, we were all getting a bit worn. It really is like pushing water uphill sometimes to make her do work. She is interested (very!) in learning about things but hates any kind of paperwork. She doesn't (usually) outright rebel, but she has definitely mastered the "slow down strike". But we forged on, this time moving on to grammar. I reread some pertinent passages from _Merry-Go-Round_ by Ruth Heller and had her write matching Proper Nouns for common nouns I gave her and vice versa. Then she listed 3 concrete nouns, and 3 abstract nouns. At first she wanted to list air as an abstract since you can't see it, but I pointed out that you can feel it in the wind. (Later this year we'll do an experiment to prove it has weight).

Then she was really running out of steam, and she was sick these past few days, so I just read to her: In My Own Backyard by Judi Kurjian, and The Ice Age by Darlene R. Stille. Then I let her hang out for an hour until it was time for dance/tumbling classes.

T was great today--I had some things Jen gave me and some play-doh ready to deploy but didn't need them--he played very nicely all by himself. Both kids really enjoyed their dance/tumbling classes today, and Weird Homeschool Mom wasn't as weird as she seemed last week. All in all a good day.

2

This morning we got off to a slow start, looking for the _Blast Off to Earth_ book which we finally found under E's coat on the loveseat. First we did a narration on "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse". Then I had E label all the oceans on her world map, then pick one ocean and one continent to study today. She picked the Arctic ocean and Asia. So I read The Arctic Ocean by Anne Ylvisaker and had her tell me what she could remember from the book while I wrote down what she said in her notebook. Then I read Asia by David Petersen and did the same. Tomorrow I plan to read the first half of the Asia book again (the second half dealt more with history and culture than I really think we need to get into at this time) and have her color in and label a blank outline map of Asia that I got here (or maybe this one here). She cut out the animals of Asia cards I printed on Tuesday, and labeled them each "Asia" on the back, then put them into a small envelope which she taped across from her list of Asia facts in the notebook. This is my plan for each of the continents, to spend two days on each. Then as we do history, we can fill in pertinent areas on our maps as we learn about say, the Nile, or the Roman Empire, or what have you.

All this time T was pestering me to read him _Treats from a Tree_, so I finally did. I was hoping he would be content to listen in while I read books to E, but apparently not. Right now he is bothering E while she tries to write in her notebook. I definitely have to come up with some better plan for dealing with him--unfortunately, most of what I can think of is stuff that requires my attention, which I am needing sometimes to give to E. Not sure how to deal with this problem.

After Geography was done, I went over her math lesson with E and assigned workbook pages, which she worked on while I hung up the laundry. T was coloring at this time which worked well.
Once again she tried to beg off of the last exercise. She seems to have a problem finishing things. Then I gave them lunch and corrected her math work while we ate (she did really well). They were still eating, so I read them some stories from the "Fairy Tales and Fables" volume of the Junior Classics Library. I did this on the spur of the moment, and while I think the reading is a good idea, I need to pick out the stories beforehand, as some of them are a bit, well, hairy...

When she was done with lunch, we went over her missed math problems and she corrected them. Then I read Merry-Go-Round by Ruth Heller which is all about nouns, and had her list in her notebook 5 nouns that are persons, 5 nouns that are places, and 5 nouns that are things. Tomorrow we will cover Proper nouns and compound nouns, and then I think that's enough nouns for now.

First Day

Okay, here goes. Today was the first day of school. After meeting the "weird homeschool mom" yesterday and with the surprise ant invasion this morning, I was seriously thinking "what the hell am I doing?! I don't want to do this!" but a little thought reminded me that there's really no going back at this point, after shelling out bucks for the cover school and the books and materials, not to mention that she's already missed more than a week of "real school". And I promised her last night that we would start today.

Of course it turns out that what she was most excited about was pretending to be cavemen. And so I had to gently prick that bubble with the fact that Daddy hasn't built the "cave" yet, and anyway it's TOO DAMN HOT to go outside and pretend it's the ice age. Hopefully in a couple of weeks things will cool down a bit, and maybe he can build it this weekend. Meantime, we can start reading about it and I promised we would in the next couple of days. But I wanted to do some geography first.

So here's what we did: I started off reading her the fable of the Lion and the Mouse, and had her narrate it back to me. (I explained narration first, so she'd know to pay attention) She did pretty okay, getting all the major plot points, though none of the nuances, and no moral. Not bad for a first try though. I think we'll do fables for at least the rest of this week and maybe next, then move up to a bit longer, maybe a few paragraphs of a book we're reading, or a short story. We'll see how she does.

Then we read Blast Off to Earth! by Loreen Leedy, (before I started, she asked nervously "Do I have to narrate this too?") and I got out the blank outline world map that Alan printed up for us and had her label the continents. She asked me where was Asia, and I had her look it up in the book. On her own, she got down the continents books and looked at the covers to see how to spell them correctly. We had a mini discussion about map distortion. (very mini). She was amazed by how big Asia is. I plan to have her pick a continent to study tomorrow. I printed up the "animals of various continents" pages I got here and I was going to cut them out and label them but then I thought she would familiarize herself with them if she cut them out and labeled them herself, so I stuck them in the folder to use later. It also occurred to me that nowish would be a good time to get out the animal cards I've been saving for so long. I might wait until she's had the habitats class at the zoo, and after I've introduced classification. I guess I better do that this semester, which means I'd better do it right away, since I'm doing earth/space science with the greeks and romans. Hmm. Maybe the radish seed experiment should wait till spring.

Then I was going to have her do math, but she was coughing and so I called the doctor's office. They were able to fit us in right away, so we took the math books with us. Of course in the lobby they had a movie on, "Happy Feet" which was predictably awful (why are the short penguins latino? They must be South American penguins, I guess...) but it did lead into a little discussion of predators (specifically the nasty demonic sea lion) and how they're really not demonic or vicious or full of malice, but just animals trying to survive like everyone else. We did the math pages in the examination room, which was the best use of that huge waste of time that I've come across yet. We did two lessons because they were so easy. She balked at her last page of workbook, more out of boredom, I think, but I insisted and it took her about 5 seconds to do it. I think she'll be more into it when it gets a little harder later on. Maybe I could have gotten 2A for her, but I didn't want her to miss out on the introduction to multiplication that's in 1B. So we'll just speed through until we get to something more challenging.

I don't feel like we got a full day's work done by any means, though I'm sure I could write it up to sound like we're geniuses, especially if I padded out those "mini-discussions". But I wasn't really planning to start until after Labor Day anyway, so I guess it's ok to start slowly and build our way up. But we do have a lot to cover this year, so I hope we can work out a good sort of rhythm soon. Also today she was very cooperative, but I fear what will happen when it gets a little old and she starts seriously balking.

Oh, I meant to mention what I did with Tuck. He sat and listened to the fable and the geography book, then while Emma did her labeling, I told him to get a puzzle. He brought his alphabet puzzle so I talked to him about A, B, C, and D, going over the sounds of B and D in particular, (since we had two Dogs and a Boy in the room at the time). Then I was going to help him do the puzzle while E did her math, but we ended up at the doctor's instead.