97-98

Friday I read some more of Platt's Castle Diary and If You Lived in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGovern, E did math and had basketball practice. Saturday we went to the Chinese New Year Festival downtown, and E had a basketball game.

Today dawned grey and rainy and we didn't feel like school. E did her theory page for piano and some math, then we went to the IMAX and saw Blue Planet, which was pretty good and covered lots of earth science.

94-96

We took Monday off to clean house. Yes, the whole day. No, my house is not clean yet.

Tuesday: read about Chinese New Year with The Great Race by Dawn Casey and Lanterns and Firecrackers by Jonny Zucker. This site has lots of activities, crafts, and printables. Watched Life in the Middle Ages: The Serf. E did math

Wednesday: E had piano and dance lessons and did math.

Thursday: Read from Castle Diary by Richard Platt and If You Lived in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGovern, and E did math, took a spelling test, had a Spanish lesson, and went to Grandma's house for her sewing lesson.

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.

85-88

Tuesday: read A Medieval Feast by Aliki and "Beowulf" from Osborne's Favorite Medieval Tales, and a few entries in Platt's Castle Diary. Did math and Spanish.
Wednesday: E had piano and dance lessons, and did math
Thursday: E had math and spelling, and they watched A History of the Middle Ages on DVD. We read a story from Osborne's Favorite Medieval Tales ("The Island of Lost Children") and a little bit of Castle Diary by Richard Platt, as well as playing around with Knights in Armor by Sally Hewitt (for T) and learning more about forces and friction with Energy in Motion by Melissa Stewart and The Magic School Bus Plays Ball by Nancy E. Krulik. (I really don't like the TV adaptations of the MSB series as much as the original books, but you try to find an engaging book about friction for gradeschoolers!)
Friday: we attended a performance by Complexions Dance Company and E has basketball practice tonight and a game tomorrow. She is doing a math lesson and then we will watch Social Structure in the Middle Ages and probably do a Spanish lesson.

81-83

Things have been topsy turvey all week since we started housing 3 indigent relations.

Wed: E had piano, did a math and spelling lesson, and had her first dance class.

Thursday: read The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher and explored a 360 degree panorama of the Great Wall. E did math and had a sewing class.

Friday: math and park day was all we could manage today.

78

Yesterday was our last day of school for the semester. E had her piano lesson, we went to the library, and watched Pioneer Life for Children: The Pioneer Journey Westward on DVD

73

Today E had her piano lesson, then she did math. After lunch we read Big Bang! by Cinami DeCristofano, and The Magic Leaf by Winifred Morris and watched the DVD Pioneer Life for Children: Westward Expansion in the U.S. E also worked on her drawings that she's giving for Christmas 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.

59-64

Since last time I posted:

E had her final 2 art classes, and a sewing lesson, piano lesson, math and spelling. Read The Fourth Question by Rosalind C. Wang, The Empty Pot by Demi, A Time of Golden Dragons by Song Nan Zhang, Mei-Mei Loves the Morning by Margaret Holloway Tsubakiyama, A to Z China by Justine and Ron Fontes, Celebrating Birthdays in China by Cheryl L. Enderlein. We also watched the DVD "Families of China" and Disney's "Mulan" (ok, not so much Chinese as...not. E has the story of Mulan in a book and she kept saying in a wondering voice "But that's not in the book...". Hey, they enjoyed it anyway--at least she's not a "princess") On her own E has read/is reading The Mystery on the Great Wall of China by Carole Marsh and Day of the Dragon King by Mary Pope Osborne. We also finished Ellen Levine's If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon and Going West by Jean Van Leeuwen. And she and T did this online activity about electricity. I also out of curiosity had her start taking the sample test in Get Ready! For Standardized Tests, Grade 2. She's done about half the test so far and gotten all of them right except 2 questions which asked which part of the word was the suffix--we've never talked about suffixes so of course she didn't know.

56-58

Monday we had a really good day, which is a relief because it looks like the rest of the week is mostly a wash.

Monday: read You Wouldn't Want to Be an American Pioneer! by Jacqueline Morley, then did a bunch of experiments/fooling around with electrical circuits, wires, bulbs, making a nail into an electro-magnet, and so forth. Got some of the ideas from All About Electricity by Melvin Berger (note to self--a stack of nickels and pennies won't make a crude battery any more...not enough real nickel or copper in them!) and Experiment With Magnets and Electricity by Margaret Whalley. Spelling and math, then read Count Your Way Through China by Jim Haskins, The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy, The Cloudmakers by James Rumford, and The Empress and the Silkworm by Lily Toy Hong.

Tuesday my parents were taking care of my niece who had the day off from school for Veteran's Day and they absconded with E to keep her company. So I took T to see the model train exhibit at the hands-on museum and we played with a friend of his in the neighborhood.

Wednesday was piano lesson and library day, and we went to have T's "school picture" done.

Today I'm feeling under the weather, so instead of school I think we'll clean our rooms and clean house and play until it's time to go to Grandma's house for E's sewing lesson.

55

Thursday: piano lesson and sewing class (mostly interrupted for park time as it was a gorgeous day)

Friday: art class.

50-51

Yesterday E had her piano lesson, then we went to the library and then out to lunch at a new sushi bar, where the owner of the restaurant complimented her on her mad chopsticky skillz!

Today we said sayonara to Japan, reading The Samurai's Daughter by Robert D. San Souci, Little Fingerling by Monica Hughes, Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho by Dawnine Spivak, and Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain by Deborah Kogan Ray, and we looked at some great stuff our neighbor's parents brought back from Japan. Then we went to Grandma's house for E's sewing lesson.

45-47

Wednesday: Piano lesson and play dates with friends

Thursday: Grandpa showed us slides from when he was stationed near Japan in the Korean War and E had her sewing lesson with Grandma. E also did math this day.

Friday: art class and general moping about.

43

Read to T: The Apple Tree by Lynley Dodd, The Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold, and When Autumn Comes by Robert Maass. Hit Japan hard with Vicki Cobb's This Place is Crowded: Japan, A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno, The Bicycle Man by Allen Say, Momotaro the Peach Boy retold by Linda Shute, I am Shinto by Noriko S. Nomura, and In the Eyes of the Cat by Demi. E is to choose two favorite poems from this last and copy and illustrate them. We had spelling, watched a DVD: Countries Around the World: Japan, and E did math while listening to Joji Hirota's CD of Japanese Folk Songs. At lunch I cut everything up small and gave them chopsticks to eat with--E plans to use them for every meal!

41-42

Thursday we went to see the Symphony Orchestra's "Building the Orchestra" show, then E had her sewing lesson with Grandma. Today she had art class and we watched "Families of Japan".

34-36

Tuesday: In preparation for our camping trip next week, read It's a Hummingbird's Life by Irene Kelly. Then we went over some of the reasons people went West that were covered in Araminta's Paint Box, and I told them there were some people who went unwillingly, then read The Trail of Tears by Joseph Bruchac. It's a good thing for Andrew Jackson that he's already dead, or E would have his head! And former slaves went, too, for their own reasons, as we learned reading Wagon Train: A Family Goes West in 1865 by Courtni C. Wright. Spelling and math, and then I read The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson. Very rainy--we recorded 1.5" at our Weather Station.

Wednesday: Piano lesson and library.

Thursday:Read Calendar by Myra Cohn Livingston and Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington to T. Read some more of ...If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon by Ellen Levine, and Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner. Spelling, and picked out Japan on the world map. Read Jim Haskins' Count Your Way Through Japan, The Stonecutter by Gerald McDermott, and Ina R. Friedman's charming How My Parents Learned to Eat. Then they colored Japanese flags and made little paper Japanese lanterns, and we went to mom's house for E's first sewing lesson. Currently E is reading on her own The Song of the Water Boatman by Joyce Sidman.

30-32

Thursday: Read Demi's Gandhi in honor of his birthday, and started Japan with Look What Came From Japan by Miles Harvey and Japan by Karen Jacobsen (a rather disappointing entry in the usually valuable New True Book series). Spelling and math.

Friday: E had Art Class

Tomorrow I'm taking both the kids to see Rapunzel at the Children's Theatre, and in the evening E is going to see Barrage with her dad.

29

Piano lesson, dentist, library. Stopped by the Friends of the Library store and let the kids each pick out a book and then bought a wonderful 3 ft. K'Nex model of a ferris wheel (with motor) which we can play with for a while and then cannibalize to build other cool things.

24-26

My computer's been acting up.

Wednesday: piano lesson and then we went to the beach for a "not back-to-school party" with other area homeschoolers. Lots of fun!

Thursday: should have gotten more done, but I was in a very very bad mood due to the computer. Started Westward Expansion with The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness, and E did spelling and math. We also watched part of an extremely lame movie about ancient India. Very disappointing.

Friday: art class for E and tumbling for T, then in the afternoon E and I made an elaborate and yummy Indian dinner.

19-20

Wednesday: E had a really great piano lesson, then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. In the afternoon she read Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady.

Today: We've added a temperature component to the Weather Station--Alan hung a big themometer outside our office window, underneath the eaves, so it's out of direct sunlight. We are graphing the morning and mid-day temperatures with bar graphs, and we'll overlay a line graph of the day's recorded highs as reported in the paper. Read Heat Wave at Mud Flat by James Stevenson, Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, and Twister by Darleen Bailey Beard. Then after a break we read Buddha by Susan L. Roth, Samsara Dog by Helen Manos, and Foolish Rabbit's Big Mistake by Rafe Martin. E completed some worksheets about the water cycle that I got from the Discovery Education website, and had a math and spelling lesson.