72

Today we started out with Dear Rebecca, Winter is Here by Jean Craighead George, Why Do Bears Sleep All Winter? by Mary Engler, and Old Bear by Kevin Henkes. Then I read a page or two of Beijing: Through Time by Richard Platt (almost everything he writes is terrific), and then Bronco Charlie and the Pony Express by Marlene Targ Brill and Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr. After a nice recess outside (gorgeous day this morning) T and I did the letter "M" and E had a spelling lesson. After lunch we read Cells and Tissues by Leslie Jean LeMaster and The Quest to Digest by Mary K. Corcoran. Then E did her math lesson and now she's finishing some ornaments she's giving as gifts.

68-70

School keeps getting interrupted this time of year, with all the holiday stuff going on. This week we managed to go to a piano lesson, do some math and spelling, attend the service of Lessons and Carols at the cathedral downtown, and E had her first basketball practice of the season. We also read Cells Are Us by Dr. Fran Balkwill, Kites by Demi, and Ma Jiang and the Orange Ants by Barbara Ann Porte. E and T both worked on ornaments to give for Christmas presents.

103

Teacher is sick today! E had her piano lesson, we made cookies for tomorrow and she and T made valentines. Other than that they ran wild while Mommy tried to ignore them from bed.

81

Well, today I decided to bail on my friend Jennifer, who wanted us to go with them to Park Day. But, we got a lot done, so it was good. E read Blizzard! The 1888 Whiteout by Jacqueline A. Ball, I read Terrible Storm by Carol Otis Hurst, and T wanted me to read Kevin Henke's Sheila Rae the Brave and Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Then we read the Cherokee legend "Grandmother Spider Steals the Sun" in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy L. Cohn, and Mounds of Earth and Shell from Bonnie Shemie's Native Dwellings series. We made "birch" baskets (out of paper), a craft I found in Laurie Carlson's More Than Mocassins. Then E did her math. After some Peep, and some lunch, we got back to work with What is the World Made Of? All About Solids, Liquids and Gases by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, and we did a demonstration from 365 Simple Science Experiments by E. Richard Churchill et al, which used a box and some marbles to show how molecules move in solids, liquids and gases. We went to the library and got some books, and E made a birthday card for her basketball coach. Tonight she has basketball practice.

79

Today E had her piano lesson in the morning, then we went to the art museum to visit a neat hands-on exhibit which recreates a town of the Creek nation circa 1790. E and T made a clay pot, listened in on a council session, listened to music and shook rattles, worked with beads and designed a clan symbol for our family. On the way back from the bathroom, she got sucked into the new acquisitions room. There are still gouges on the floor from my having to drag her out to go home--I think I'll start a "Things to do when it's gloomy" list and put "visit the art museum" at the top!

67

This has been a terrible week for getting anything done. Oh well, bound to happen. Yesterday was a wash--the only thing we got done was making E's ornaments to give everyone. Today I read from Galen by Marissa Moss, and then Hannibal and His 37 Elephants by Marilyn Hirsh, which I would not recommend (it's really twee and light on the history) but it was all I could find on Hannibal at the library for this age group. I can recommend the next book I read: The Pebble in My Pocket: A History of Our Earth by Meredith Hooper and Chris Coady. Then in preparation for Daddy's little cotton unit tomorrow, I read Cotton by Chris Oxlade. We checked out some animations of different kinds of tectonic faults, and got some info on Uranus' moons. Then E made little drawings of the 5 biggest ones to add to our solar system wall, and I printed out a list of all of the known ones to post beneath. E did her math, made some felt bracelets from a kit as presents for her friends and cousin, and is working on a Draw Write Now page. And of course they both watched Peep.

65

Today E had a review in math; she did very well. She also answered questions about Uranus that I wrote in her notebook. Mom and Dad came over to watch the kids while I went to the dentist; Dad read Australia by David Petersen and numerous other books, and Mom and E made red and green paper chains to count down to Christmas. Now E is off with her friend G and her dad to play soccer for a few hours.

63

Today we got a late start, but once we got going we did ok. I read The Best Book of Ancient Rome by Deborah Murrell, and then we went online to this site about Pompeii and Vesuvius. We also checked out Nova's site about the Roman baths at Caracalla, and then we visited this supercool virtual volcano. It has lots of info about the different types of volcano, and a neat thing that lets you design your own volcano and watch it erupt. We did that for a while and then we went outside and erupted our own baking soda/vinegar volcano (several times). Then E did her math, T watched Peep, and I fixed lunch. After lunch E answered several questions about Jupiter in her notebook, and we watched some videos of the Great Red Spot and Jupiter's atmosphere. Then she took notes on the sizes of the four Galilean moons at this site, and made little moons for our solar system wall. We printed out a list of all the known moons (a ton) and taped that below for reference. Now E and T are downstairs at the art table playing with some modeling clay she got for her birthday.

I should add that something really cool happened yesterday. Ever since the middle of her kindergarten year (at public school), she has hated writing. I mean, really hated it. I don't know why or what happened in school to make her feel like this. Very concerned about spelling and just freaked about having to make up anything to say. So I've been taking it really easy with the writing, having her practice handwriting with the Draw Write Now books (which give her easy text to copy) and write short answers to questions in her notebook, but not much else. Last night, all on her own, she decided to start a diary! I was so delighted, I nearly fell over myself in my haste to find her a blank notebook to keep it in. (Actually, I played it cool, not to scare her off) It's only been one entry so far, of course, but she seems intent on keeping up with it and I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

58

I had every intention of doing at least 2 days of school last week, but E had her birthday on Monday and felt sick on Tuesday, and that plus general laziness meant we didn't do much but play. We did a few things here and there though, so I'm going to list them and call them about one day's worth of school. E and T had dance and tumbling class Monday. I read Geysers by Larry Dane Brimner, and we went online to watch a video of Old Faithful erupting and an animation of how geysers work and looked at some cool infrared photos of Yellowstone. On her own, E read Danger--Icebergs! by Roma Gans, Get Ready For Robots by Patricia Lauber, Amazing Grace: The Story of the Hymn, by Linda Granfield, and countless chapter books (why the Cul-de-Sac kids are so cool, I'll never know). We watched Peep several times. We gathered a basketful of leaves and made a wreath for our door, writing something we are thankful for on each leaf. E did a GeeArt lesson. We also made paper turkeys out of a footprint and several handprints and gave them to Grandma and Grandpa. E and T worked on the ornaments they're making to give as Christmas presents. E's are like this, only she's making them out of colored paper decorated with glitter glue. T's are made from small rectangles of craft foam to which he added sticky craft foam cut-outs. Alarmingly, they show a very nice grasp of composition. E did a copper embossing project from Klutz's Book of Artrageous Projects that she got for her birthday, and she wrote and illustrated a thank you note to her godmother.

55,56

Yesterday E had a great piano lesson, and then we went to the library for about an hour--they were having storytime and we all checked out books. E wanted the librarian to request a book for her, but the librarian ended up trying to show her how to do it herself on the computer. Not sure how much of it stuck. Then E did a Draw Write Now page and after lunch she had her Habitats class at the zoo.
Today we went first thing to the orthodontist, so I wasn't sure how much school we'd get done, but we actually got back about the time we usually start school. I had E "narrate" from the story she'd been reading in the car, about Jason and the Argonauts from Collier's The Junior Classics Book 3, Myths and Legends. Then I read Gravity is a Mystery and The Beginning of the Earth, both by Franklyn M. Branley. We looked at some cool graphics of the breakup of Pangaea in National Geographic's pop up/moveable book The Earth Pack, and also a cool animation of the same. Then we did an activity called Egg Tectonics, using the shell of a hard-boiled egg to demonstrate the movement of the tectonic plates, and then we cut up the egg to show how it resembles the earth's crust, mantle and core. We also looked at a moveable of how the Himalayas were formed by tectonic action in Rocks & Minerals by Dougal Dixon. All this takes almost longer to type than it actually took to do.
I read a bit of Galen: My Life in Imperial Rome by Marissa Moss, and also the beginning of Spend the Day in Ancient Rome by Linda Honan, and we broke for lunch and Peep. Then E did her math lesson and helped me finish building a paper model of the earth, with a cutaway to show the core (T has already managed to dent it, much to everyone's dismay). Now she is finishing her questions about Venus, and then we're either going to stop or make bullas, a project in the Honan book. So, a pretty full day after all!

51

Today E narrated the capture of the Golden Fleece from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children, and we read the rest of the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I also read the story of The Brave 300 from Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories Retold and Alexander the Great by Andrew Langley. E did her math and now she's painting her Greek vase that she made the other day. She's almost finished with her weaving, and tonight when I'm in a better mood (hopefully) I'll make him a simple chiton and her a peplos out of some old sheets, based on instructions in Linda Honan's Spend the Day in Ancient Greece. And then we'll be all set for our Olympic Games tomorrow! Oh, except for the water clock--I guess we'd better make that after E's done with the vase, so we can use it in one of the competitions.

48,49

Yesterday after her piano lesson, E went to her zoo class. Then we had a great Halloween party! Today we saw Peter and the Wolf at the Children's Theatre--it was a charming production and T was very scared by the wolf and very proud for Peter. E narrated "The Man-Eating Horses" labor of Heracles from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children, then I read "The Amazon Queen's Belt" and "The Cattle of Geryon". We also read about Theseus and the Minotaur, Pygmalion and Galatea, and Eros and Psyche. Then in the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths I read about King Midas, Sisyphus, and Bellerophon. E did her math, and worked on her mat. We tried making a Greek pot, from Laurie Carlson's Classical Kids, but somehow it kept collapsing, so Alan said he'd give it a go with her tonight. And she asked me to read Aristotle and Scientific Thought by Steve Parker.

43

I didn't expect to have much to report today. We began with E's piano lesson--she played very well and her teacher gave her some challenging sheet music to start learning--which as I told her is a real compliment from a teacher, when they want to challenge you, it means they think you're good enough to need a challenge. Then, as promised last week, we went to the McWane Science Center for a few hours. I tend to think of the place as more fun than science, but I'm sure they do pick up some bits of education here and there, and who said fun was bad anyway? They do have some good resources for later when we are studying magnetism and electricity, and I plan on attending their volcano show next month when we're doing Rome (and Pompeii). So we got home around 1:30, tired and a little cranky (or maybe that was just me) and I told them we didn't have to do any more school today and sat down to read the paper. A few minutes go by, and lo and behold, they come and actually ask to do school! Well, that made me very happy! So E narrated another Heraclean task: "The Huge Wild Boar" from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children. Frankly, I had thought these tasks would have more magic to them, but they seem mostly to be about strength, and to a lesser extent, some craftiness. Anyway, then I read the story of Helios and Phaethon from the Amery book (we read it in the D'Aulaires' book yesterday) and we found out that when the chariot went too high, it scarred the heavens and made the Milky Way, and when it went too low is how deserts were created. Which is why I love reading the same stories in both books--each book has something to offer that the other one doesn't have. Then we read about Pan and the nymphs and river gods, Echo and Narcissus, and Syrinx and the first panpipes, and Daphne and Apollo from the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I read What the Moon is Like by Franklyn M. Branley, and E did her math while T watched Peep. Then E did two pages of the grammar workbook, and I gave her a choice: free time, work on weaving her mat (started yesterday) or a GeeArt lesson. I really expected her to choose GeeArt, or, if she was tired, free time, but to my surprise she chose to weave. Kids always find ways to confound our expectations.

42

Began today reading Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, then E narrated another of Heracles' tasks, the Golden-Antlered stag, and we read more from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children, Bellerophon and Pegasus, King Midas, and the adventures of Perseus (which was cool because she was just asking about Medusa yesterday). Then in the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, we read about Eos and Tithonus, who got eternal life without eternal youth and turned into a grasshopper, Helios and Phaethon, Selene and sleeping Endymion. She wrote in her notebook, answering 9 questions I posed about Mars, and did her math and watched Peep with T. She also started weaving a round mat, an activity from Laurie Carlson's Classical Kids, and we got in the mail a Magnetic Mosaics kit, so she and T played with that as well. T is getting great at puzzles, even jigsaws, and he also played with Play Doh and the Lego Simple Machines set. E also finished her Draw Write Now page. And tonight Alan finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Ulysses by Vivian Webb and Heather Amery to her.

33

Piano first thing today, then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to make costumes for the dollhouse dolls. They are very scary! E followed our route on the map as we went there. That's really all we accomplished though.

28

Today was so much better than yesterday! E really has had a good attitude since our little talk yesterday. Once or twice I've actually seen her visibly restrain herself from a sigh or "Awww!" when I ask her to do something. What a great kid! We started out with a narration of "The Sword of Damocles" from James Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories Retold (available free online) then I read Gail Gibbons' Stargazers to kick off astronomy. E did several pages on nouns from a grammar book Jennifer got me at a yard sale for 50 cents (and about an hour of erasing!) The book is pretty much your typical worksheet crap, but I wanted to make sure she has a solid understanding of nouns, verbs and adjectives, and she speeds right through the pages (and gets to practice her handwriting). We sat down on the couch again and did the first few lessons from Map Adventures, a free Teachers' Packet about using maps from the US Geological Survey. Then I read Me On the Map by Joan Sweeney and had E draw a map of her room like the girl in the book. After recess (Yes! We got all that done before recess!) we had lunch and then E did her math while T watched Peep (he is seriously addicted, but it is a really great show). Then since Sunday is Grandma's birthday, I gave E a choice between two craft kits I got at the thrift store for 99 cents each and she chose to make some foam flowers.

25

We started out with Hatshepsut, His Majesty, Herself by Catherine M. Andronik, which was disappointingly longwinded. Then we built (finally!) the model shaduf from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors by Marian Broida, did a few activities from the Ancient Egypt Treasure Chest and then after recess and lunch, E did her math. Now she's stringing her painted "faience" beads into a necklace. T did his too, and I was very impressed with his stringing ability for a 3 yr old. After the necklace is done, E will letter some cards to place at the various "exhibits" tomorrow and then if she wants to, she can finish her Draw Write Now that she started yesterday.

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.

14

Well, a better day today! This morning we started right after breakfast with a little fun compass activity I got here. I made up a "treasure" in a shoe box with some toys, stickers, and chocolate coins, and hid it under the rose bush. Alan drew a skull on a big rock in our back yard to make "Skull Rock" and I typed up the directions with some free pirate fonts I downloaded here. Then I printed them out onto some parchment-like paper, and Alan burned around the edges to make it look like a real treasure map. This morning when I came in with the paper, I dropped the document on the table, saying, "Look what I found in the yard!" They had fun using the compass and finding the treasure, though I think E is just barely not too old for this, so I'm glad we did it now.

Then after we were all ready for the day, we still had about a half hour before her piano lesson, so E sewed on her toy dinosaur project and I read a chapter from _What's the Difference?_ by Lacey about the difference between hares and rabbits, and the book The Indian Ocean by Ylvisaker. Then when we got back from piano, I read "The Boy at the Dike" in the Hirsch book, and E narrated. Then You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pyramid Builder! by Jacqueline Morley, which covered again the stuff we saw in the movie yesterday, and we took a little online tour inside Khufu's pyramid, provided by NOVA. I had E start working on her math, but she didn't get far and she and T were hungry so we broke for lunch. I told Jen she could send G over after lunch while she runs some errands, so instead of going back to math, I just read The Magic Schoolbus Inside the Human Body and Your Insides both by Joanna Cole. _Your Insides_ has some neat transparency pages at the end to show the different systems. After G goes home I'll have E finish her math, then maybe we'll build the paper model of Khufu's pyramid that I got at the Canon website, or maybe I'll send her out to play with Hayden and Dawson, as this may be their last day here.

Yesterday I read Green Eggs and Ham to T at his request. Later in the day, he asked me to read it again. I got as far as the first "I do not like green eggs and ham" when he interrupted and said "But Mommy, he tried them already and liked them!"

13

Ugh! Another weird day! This morning E was SO into her sewing project, (making a stuffed dino for T) that she begged to be allowed to continue to work on it. I said ok, but we would have to do school in the afternoon. Guess what. That doesn't work. She and I are too tired and wigged by afternoon. so I don't think we'll do that again. Anyway, she did do some math, and we watched BBC's Building the Great Pyramid video, which was excellent. Then we went to the library, where she checked out 2 Magic Treehouse books, a Boxcar Children, 2 Cam Jansons, 2 Goosebumps (which I am hope hope hoping she will not like), and 1 of some other reader series I've never heard of. She's reading now--we'll see how long they last. T checked out some books too, including some Bob books, which he picked out by himself. Let's see, what else. T played with the Lego set all morning, and is playing with the Play Doh now, and I read Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller to him as he was asking about eggs this morning.