91-93

Wednesday: piano, math, dance
Thursday: we went to Atlanta to see an exhibit of China's terracotta warriors at the High Museum--very cool. Also went to Zoo Atlanta.
Friday: some grammar pages and a math lesson, plenty of playing outside in beautiful weather, and a trip to the library.

7

Read some more of the Bergers' Where Did the Butterfly Get Its Name? and started weather with Weather Words and What They Mean by Gail Gibbons. Then Patricia Ryon Quiri's The Supreme Court. E had spelling and did a grammar page, and after lunch we went to the science center, where they have a new shark hatchery. They have backlit the egg sacs so you can see the embryos swimming around inside.
They also had a new tank full of jellyfish and a docent was there who let the kids touch a live starfish, spiny urchin, and sea snail.

5-6

Yesterday we read The Butterfly Alphabet Book by Brian Cassie (excellent), Isabel's House of Butterflies by Tony Johnston, and I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe. We started learning about the branches of the US Government by reading Congress by Patricia Ryon Quiri. E had a spelling lesson and we measured our caterpillars and added to the growth graph. Then we watched "The Birth of the Constitution" on the DVD This is America, Charlie Brown, and on their own the kids chose to watch the segments on the Wright Bros and the Space Station. Then we went to the library.

Today we read some of Where Did the Butterfly Get Its Name? by Melvin and Gilda Berger, and The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci. Also The Presidency by Patricia Ryon Quiri. E had her spelling lesson, and when we came upstairs, one of the caterpillars was pupating! So we watched that for a while. After lunch I'm going to have E do some grammar pages while I work with T and then maybe we'll play a game of Fast Track.

The kids have been looking through Egg: A Photographic Story of Hatching by Robert Burton on their own.

4

Read From Egg to Butterfly by Shannon Zemlicka, Gotta Go! Gotta Go! by Sam Swope, and The Bill of Rights by Warren Colman. I also gave E Shh! We're Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz to read on her own. E had a spelling lesson and did several grammar worksheets, and we made a bar graph to keep track of the stupendous growth of our caterpillars (which arrived Friday). I am using some activities and worksheets out of The Life Cycle of Butterflies Teacher's Guide from the Smithsonian Institution's National Science Resources Center (got it for 25 cents at the library book sale-yay!) Maybe we'll play some more Fast Track to freshen up E's addition facts this afternoon.

2-3

So much for keeping up! oh well. Yesterday we continued learning about life cycles and butterflies with From Tadpole to Frog by Wendy Pfeffer, The Caterpillar and the Polliwog by Jack Kent, and Are You a Butterfly? by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries. I read Latitude and Longitude by Rebecca Aberg and we looked up some locations on E's world map. We went downstairs to start her new spelling program, AVKO Sequential Spelling, and while we were at the blackboard I wrote up a chart comparing the life cycles of birds, frogs and butterflies, with input from her. She got so excited about this that she had to come up to the blackboard and draw her own life cycle circles. She did a few grammar pages, and T did more preschool stuff.

Today we read Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson, the really cute Farfallina and Marcel by Holly Keller, and Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert. Then we started learning about the Constitution with A More Perfect Union by Betsy and Giulio Maestro and We the People by Peter Spier. More spelling and grammar (she loves spelling but hates grammar--I may try to find a different grammar book). More preschool for T, I think I'll only mention what he does if it's something out of the ordinary.

92

Hoo boy! Nobody (me included) wanted to do school today. Cloudy days are not a homeschooler's friend. But we did it anyway, after I explained to E that school is mandatory after age 7 and so if she didn't want to do school with me I would have to take her to enroll in the public school ("See you at 3, dear!") She didn't like that idea much. So I read If You Lived With the Sioux Indians by Ann McGovern, and The Story of Jumping Mouse by John Steptoe. We learned about tercets in A Kick in the Head by Paul B. Janeczko, and I made a handwriting worksheet out of the tercet he used:

Kitchen crickets make a din,
sending taunts to chilly kin,
"You're outside, but we got in."

Joan Bransfield Graham

E didn't know the meanings of din, taunts, and kin, so we looked them up and she wrote them on the back of the worksheet. She also asked why "You're" had an "e" at the end, so we had an impromptu discussion about the difference between your and you're. Then she did math.

85

Today has been one of those days. The kids haven't been exactly uncooperative, but they haven't been enthusiastic, either. Going from activity to activity has seemed like pushing water uphill. But we got a lot accomplished anyway. I guess there's only so much you can expect on a gloomy winter day.

We finished the Hopi Pueblo Village model, and glued some cornmeal all around it on the base to look like desert sand. Since it's Ben Franklin's birthday, we read Aliki's The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin, and Bryna Stevens' Ben Franklin's Glass Armonica. Then we watched a video of William Zeitler playing "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the Nutcracker on an armonica (which it was originally written for) and a short little History Channel bit about the armonica. They also tooled around on a virtual armonica, and we got out the wine glasses and played around with different levels of water to get different pitches and so forth. This really entranced E for a long time, but T didn't like having to keep his fingers wet, so he went back to the virtual version. E did her math, and everyone watched Peep, and then after lunch we explored more homonyms in Allan Fowler's 1-One-Won! and did some reading and experiments with Salvatore Tocci's Experiments With Air. Finally, E copied out her poem, and I made her a Hopi dress (following the very simple directions in More Than Mocassins by Laurie Carlson--only I used some fabric ("Too itchy!"--it figures!) I had instead of a towel.) Oh, and we made pine cone bird feeders and watched birds for a bit. I really don't know how we managed to do so much--some days it works. Today didn't feel like a day that was working, but I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

84

This morning E had her piano lesson, and we ran errands. She read One Whole Doughnut, One Doughnut Hole by Valjean McLenighan to T. I read Bonnie Shemie's Houses of Adobe, and we started putting together Dover's Easy to Make Pueblo Village.

82

Mondays are always kind of tough because we have Dance and Tumbling class in the afternoon, so I can't plan on having any time for experiments or fun projects. But we read If You Lived With the Hopi by Anne Kamma, and a Hopi legend, "Coyote Helps Decorate the Night" in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy L. Cohn. And I read Zoom Away! by Tim Wynne-Jones for T. E is finishing her grammar workbook today. If we have time and energy this afternoon after class, we'll play Fast Track for math.

77-78

Yesterday T had a really bad crick or something in his neck, so we didn't go to dance or tumbling and we took it really easy (in fact he and I spent most of the afternoon napping--woe is me). I finished reading Owl At Home by Arnold Lobel, and introduced the concept of atoms with Robert E. Wells' excellent What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? Then we read Who Were the First North Americans? by Philippa Wingate and Struan Reid, and E did her math. She spent the rest of the day reading (mostly ahead in the Native Americans books: Me: "You know we are going to be reading them all over again in school so T can learn about it" Her: "I don't mind" oh well--I did put them out where she could get to them...)

Today we started with the Cherokee Indians: ...If You Lived With the Cherokee by Peter and Connie Roop, and we read The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story by Joseph Bruchac. Then we talked about synonyms and antonyms, and looked at two books about opposites: Nina Crews' A High, Low, Near, Far, Loud, Quiet Story and Tana Hoban's Exactly the Opposite, which I loved because it is wordless, so you have to come up with your own antonyms, and sometimes more than one set will work. I had her list synonyms and antonyms for 5 words I wrote in her notebook, and then we read about Mercury by Larry Dane Brimner. After lunch she answered questions about Mercury in her notebook, while I started making a game called Fast Track which I found in Peggy Kaye's Games for Math. E of course was VERY interested in what I was doing as I took care to do it on the same table she was working on, using colorful index cards and colored pencils and pens for the game board. She finished her Mercury questions as quickly as she could so she could help with the game board and then we all played the game. The game is a brilliant, sneaky way to use flash cards for addition and subtraction facts without being boring drill. You advance around the board by completing the math sentence on the card, ie. a card with 2+4=? would let you advance 6 spaces. She had to answer T's cards as well, which was a bonus. They both enjoyed it and we played till we'd all won several times. Tomorrow we will play again with a slightly more difficult set of cards. I need to think if I can come up with a game to practice her note flash cards for piano...

68

Read a little more from Galen by Marissa Moss, then Neptune by Larry Dane Brimner and Judy Hawes' What I Like About Toads. Then I read Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans, and gave them the starter rock collection I got from rocksandminerals.com. They have a set of rocks, minerals and fossils that goes with activities in the book How the Earth Works by Michelle O'Brien Palmer. We labeled the rocks and minerals and I let them play with them and the info cards (from the O'Brien Palmer book) till lunchtime. After lunch, E did her math and several grammar pages, and then we went to Dance and Tumbling classes.

64

Sore throat today, but we soldier on. Armed with aspirin and oj, I read Uranus by Larry Dane Brimner, then Earthquakes by Franklyn M. Branley. We played with a model seismograph from our Nature Lab kit, and E did math and T watched Peep. Now E is completing some workbook pages on punctuation and then we'll go to Dance and Tumbling classes.

54

We all woke up tired today, so it's only been a so-so day. To start out I read "Why the Sea is Salt" from Lang's Blue Fairy Book, then How to Be a Roman Soldier by Fiona Macdonald, and Many Luscious Lollipops by Ruth Heller. I had E do several adjective worksheets I found through this links page on the Our Homeschooling Expedition blog, and she seems to finally be getting it, sort of. There's nothing like elementary grammar to make you realize just how weird and complicated the English language is. I mean, is "that" an adjective? It is when you say "Look at that dog." But what if you say "I told him that he needs to put a jacket on."? Really I never thought about how tricky adjectives can be. Good thing we're not doing adverbs till next year, although they keep coming up (if she's labeling some words in a sentence, she wants to know what they all are) so I may be eating those words before long. Instead of doing math in her workbook, I had her do some Roman math, using the "Shopping and Spending" activity page here. And she answered several questions about Venus in her notebook, though I had mercy on the poor flagging girl halfway through and told her to go outside and play with her brother. She can finish the questions tomorrow. And of course we all watched Peep--our favorite show!

47

A short day today--we're busy getting ready for the party! E narrated "The Great Bull of Crete" in Heather Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children, and I read the rest of Odysseus' adventures from that book. Then we read about Perseus and Medusa and Andromeda and the rest in D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. E did 3 more pages of grammar, and I showed her some neat pictures of Saturn and Titan from the Cassini mission. Then we cleaned house and put together costumes! Oh, and of course, we watched Peep.

46

E did a lot of reading on her own today--a couple of chapter books, Volcanoes by Franklyn M. Branley, and Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki. I read One Grain of Rice by Demi, and then she narrated another Heraclean task, the Stymphalian Birds, from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children. From the same book, we read some more of Odysseus' adventures: Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Helios' cattle, and Calypso. (Incidentally, one of our pumpkins this year is a Cyclops--E's choice) In the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, we read about Europa and Cadmus, & Tantalus and Pelops. Then I read Saturn by Larry Dane Brimner, which she chose because "It's the prettiest planet". She did 4 pages in her grammar book, and 1 1/2 lessons in her math, then on her own she went ahead and did the review! T played with the animal tangrams, and watched Peep, although for once he didn't want to watch it more than three times. The part where Chirp is encased in dry mud scared him, even when he knew what was going to happen next. They had Dance and Tumbling today too, and I started cleaning house for the Halloween party (I got my room dusted--at this rate, we'd better have the party after New Years)

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.

41

Narration today was another one of Heracles' tasks, the 9-headed Hydra, from Amery's Greek Myths for Young Children. Then, as the end of our Greek unit beckons in a couple of weeks, I read ahead in that book, the stories of Echo and Narcissus, and Daedalus and Icarus. Then from the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, we read about Dionysus, and the Fates, and again the story of Prometheus and Epimetheus and Pandora, and then the myth about Deucalion and the flood, which I was unfamiliar with. Very interesting, all these cultures thereabouts have legends of a great flood--it must have been a doozy, indeed. And finally we read about Aeolus and the four winds. Then I read You Wouldn't Want to Be a Greek Athlete! by Michael Ford, and we had recess, math, two grammar pages (verbs) and Peep. Then E went down to start a new Draw Write Now and after lunch we read Mars by Larry Dane Brimner, and E made two little moons with labels to put on our solar system wall. Then we went to their Dance/Tumbling classes.

38

We don't usually end up doing much "school" on Wednesdays, because after piano in the morning, we usually go to the library, and then it's the afternoon and somehow my "teaching brain" doesn't work too well in the afternoon. But today we came straight home after piano, because mom and dad are taking E to her habitat class at the zoo so I can get my hair cut, and I needed to get everything together for them. So we did a narration on the birth of Heracles up to his being told to go be a slave to Eurystheus, from Amery's _Greek Myths for Young Children_, then I read from the D'Aulaires' _Book of Greek Myths_, about Artemis and Actaeon, and Orion. I read To Root, to Toot, to Parachute: What is a Verb? by Brian P. Cleary, and had E do 4 pages on verbs in her grammar workbook, while T watched Peep. Now we have had lunch and are relaxing until Grandma and Grandpa come, and E will go to her Habitats class at the zoo.

34

Today I just did NOT want to do school. But yesterday was pretty much a wash, so I had to. I couldn't do many things I had wanted to because I hadn't done any prep work last night (teach me to be lazy) so today was mostly just me reading and some worksheet stuff. Narration today was "Pandora's Box" from Heather Amery's _Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children_ and then we read a few chapters from the D'Aulaires' Greek Myths book. Then I read Sightseers Ancient Greece by Julie Ferris. There are some intelligent quiz questions at the end and E did pretty well, only missing a few. She did her math review and watched Peep with T. After she corrected the problems she missed, I read Too Many Kangaroo Things to Do! a MathStart book by Stuart J. Murphy, and two books about nouns by Brian P. Cleary: A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What is a Noun? and A Lime, a Mime, a Pool of Slime: More About Nouns and then she did the last page of her noun worksheets. I read The Reasons for Seasons by Gail Gibbons and now E is working on a Draw Write Now page.

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.