Thursday, which feels like Tuesday
So it's almost the end of our school week and we've actually just begun. You have to love those holiday shortened weeks! After finishing up my copies and putting the last touch ups on today's lesson, I hopped in the shower, poured my coffee and greeted my daughter and granddaughter. I decided to let Dakota sleep until 8:45 because following yesterday's lead, it seems to go well to get him up, dressed right away, fed and started without any laying around time. This seems to just breed laziness and discontent, so we are going a different way. Yes, he still complained because he is, after all, Dakota, but by 9:10 he was doing his morning work. He complained of being cold, which is the truth today...frigid in here even with the heat kicking, so I moved him into the livingroom with a lap tray and a big blanket to do his work in there. That got him to smile! Next he looked on his schedule and decided to do his personal reading now because I hadn't made his bed yet and those warm covers in there in addition to his own little heater sure did look inviting :-). For me, that meant a quick change and snuggle with Natalie, a load of laundry switched and another one in and time to check email and Facebook and search for the alum needed for our air drying clay today.
Somehow the rest of our morning just felt disjointed to me. We read a few more chapters of The Mouse and the Motorcycle. We did more math review so that Monday we are ready to dive back into our text. We watched Wet All Over with the Magic School Bus gang about the water cycle and had lunch. But somehow, at 12:30, I felt like we had gotten little done and my check off list did not contain many checks. Whereas yesterday we got everything accomplished, I am thinking that what I had planned to do for today just might last us through today and the half day for tomorrow before swimming. I am just not feeling that surge of accomplishment that I did yesterday and I know that carries right over to Dakota, although he seems to be holding up his end of the bargain so far.
When we finally got back from lunch we did a WATER anacrostic poem and a personification story that needs some work tomorrow. Dakota is just learning to tackle a story or report that has form and isn't just how he wants to do it. Then he read Magic School Bus at the Waterworks and we did the the submarine experiment from the MSB kit where we filled the sink with water, sank a can and then using plastic tubing, blew air into the can and watched it rise. I thought it was beyond simple, but apparently if you give a boy a piece of plastic tubing and a sink of water this is all one needs for many minutes of fun and excitement!
We covered bullying again for health. I am surprised at how little Dakota knows about it, although he isn't in school so I guess he's not as exposed as other kids his age. Our neighbor, however, is a first class bully and I am hoping that Dakota realizes this more now and the www.kidshealth.org article that he listened to today not only helped him recognize what bullying is, but gave him tools to deal with it if he sees it happen to someone or else or if it happens to him.
Last today was history. We read chapter 5 in Story of the World about Sargon and how he conquered all of Mesopotamia. I discovered a new tool with this curriculum that they offer in the workbook called the Narrative. It's a simple sentence or two that summarizes the reading and then he is expected to expand on it and retell me the information from the reading. He needs some prompting, but it helps me to know that he really did hear me and understand what we just read. He then had to do the comprehension questions, test and word search and he couldn't wait to finish because I had brought out the new Just Dance 4 and the XBox and he knew he was going to get to dance for music today. Wrestling practice tonight was his PE, so a full day it really was! Tomorrow is swimming so we have to leave the house at noon. I think we will finish the SOTW chapter 5 activity making air drying clay and a Sumerian Seal and watching the third MSB water video. We have a bunch of books on hold at the library so I want to make sure I pick them up on the way home. I am looking forward to planning our Greek Mythology unit this weekend so we can get started on Monday.
Somehow the rest of our morning just felt disjointed to me. We read a few more chapters of The Mouse and the Motorcycle. We did more math review so that Monday we are ready to dive back into our text. We watched Wet All Over with the Magic School Bus gang about the water cycle and had lunch. But somehow, at 12:30, I felt like we had gotten little done and my check off list did not contain many checks. Whereas yesterday we got everything accomplished, I am thinking that what I had planned to do for today just might last us through today and the half day for tomorrow before swimming. I am just not feeling that surge of accomplishment that I did yesterday and I know that carries right over to Dakota, although he seems to be holding up his end of the bargain so far.
When we finally got back from lunch we did a WATER anacrostic poem and a personification story that needs some work tomorrow. Dakota is just learning to tackle a story or report that has form and isn't just how he wants to do it. Then he read Magic School Bus at the Waterworks and we did the the submarine experiment from the MSB kit where we filled the sink with water, sank a can and then using plastic tubing, blew air into the can and watched it rise. I thought it was beyond simple, but apparently if you give a boy a piece of plastic tubing and a sink of water this is all one needs for many minutes of fun and excitement!
We covered bullying again for health. I am surprised at how little Dakota knows about it, although he isn't in school so I guess he's not as exposed as other kids his age. Our neighbor, however, is a first class bully and I am hoping that Dakota realizes this more now and the www.kidshealth.org article that he listened to today not only helped him recognize what bullying is, but gave him tools to deal with it if he sees it happen to someone or else or if it happens to him.
Last today was history. We read chapter 5 in Story of the World about Sargon and how he conquered all of Mesopotamia. I discovered a new tool with this curriculum that they offer in the workbook called the Narrative. It's a simple sentence or two that summarizes the reading and then he is expected to expand on it and retell me the information from the reading. He needs some prompting, but it helps me to know that he really did hear me and understand what we just read. He then had to do the comprehension questions, test and word search and he couldn't wait to finish because I had brought out the new Just Dance 4 and the XBox and he knew he was going to get to dance for music today. Wrestling practice tonight was his PE, so a full day it really was! Tomorrow is swimming so we have to leave the house at noon. I think we will finish the SOTW chapter 5 activity making air drying clay and a Sumerian Seal and watching the third MSB water video. We have a bunch of books on hold at the library so I want to make sure I pick them up on the way home. I am looking forward to planning our Greek Mythology unit this weekend so we can get started on Monday.
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