The Connemara pony is the kids' research subject for their horseback riding class this week; as usual, one kid will research the pony, the other kid will research the pony's geography of origin, and they'll perform a Youtube search for interesting videos of the Connemara to see it in action. The kids also need to choose a song for their drill team performance--the current favorite is an instrumental version of "The House of the Rising Sun." I suggested a song from My Little Pony but was shouted down; apparently that would be "embarrassing." At what age do children develop an appreciation of camp, I wonder?
Tired of waiting for our local university's children's language class to sort out its funding, I'm starting the kids on Song School Spanish
this week. The vocabulary in this volume is roughly equivalent to the vocabulary in the Latin volume
Although I hate to book more than one extracurricular per day, we've got both our weekly volunteer gig and the kids' aerial silks class today. And although it would conflict with Syd's ballet class and so she can't do it, Will says that she wants to perform in her aerial silks program's winter recital, which would mean two-hour rehearsals on most Saturdays until late December. I'm not eager to take it on, but there's no other reason not to, and I'm loathe to discourage Will, who works so hard at aerial silks and yet struggles with confidence, from goal-setting and performing.TUESDAY: I'm excited to watch this prehistoric flower documentary
with the kids, and although I'm not sure that I'll have completed their display materials by tomorrow, the kids can still get started on prepping and labeling their fossils.The kids blew through their last Junior Ranger badges, loved them, and I think got a lot out of them. I'm eager to see what they choose next.
Will has Robotics Workshop (she's becoming a LEGO Mindstorms
expert!), and Syd has a playdate during that time. She and her little friend both like cooking, exploring our woods with walkie-talkies in hand, and pretending to be animals on obstacle courses--they get along great! I consider playdates as a "subject" because they're something organized into our day, and take away from the kids' free time, so I need to make sure that I've accounted for them, lest I book the day too full. And for Syd, unlike Will, they're absolutely crucial, so I've also got to make sure that I've got at least one one-on-one playdate scheduled for her each week.WEDNESDAY: A true Free Day, for me, means zero scheduled activities OR an all-day outing, but the kids really, really, really want to take this Minecraft workshop at the library, so we will.
THURSDAY: First Language Lessons
is a bore, but it's an easy lesson to delegate to Matt. After this week, though, we may need to take a break and just practice sentence diagramming; the book is so formulaic that I think the kids may be simply memorizing the book's formula, not necessarily the diagramming method.I loathe carving Jack-o-lanterns, for some reason, but at least the kids are old enough now that I can pretty much just hand them the supplies and leave them to it.
I've got to prepare the dyes for this play silks project, but I'm interested in seeing if the kids really can "paint" play silks using the dyes without incurring a ridiculous amount of bleed. The date of the discovery of silk (2696 BCE) is the memory work for this lesson.
FRIDAY: I'll be going over this problem and this problem with the kids, to prepare them for the AMC 8 next month.
We've been studying spelling during the daily memory work, so I plan to have the kids take their spelling test before they write their sentences. Will they scream less about fewer sentences? We'll see!
I wanted to start the Flowers badge this week, because my first Girl Scout Co-op meeting about it is next week, but Will is really into her Digital Photographer badge right now, so she'll likely want to continue working on that. Syd has a few more activities to finish up for her Dancer badge.
We're going to see La Boheme this weekend, and I had hoped to have a more expansive unit of study on it for the kids, but unfortunately, there's really not much out there geared to studying opera at the elementary level, and I didn't feel like creating my own materials this time. Instead, we'll simply read this summary of La Boheme, listen to the music, and get excited for the show!
The kids have their first ice skating class of the season on this day. Will adores ice skating so much that I often feel sad for her that we don't have an all-seasons ice skating rink, but I admit that it does feel good in the spring when we can drop it from our schedule!
SATURDAY/SUNDAY: This weekend is going to be insane. Just... insane. Saturday morning brings ballet class, which I also have to attend, since it's Parent Observation Day. After that, we'll zip home and get a bunch of party food started in the crock pots that I'm borrowing, but a few hours later Matt's got to take Syd back for Nutcracker rehearsal--my little snow angel is going to be performing in our local university's production of The Nutcracker! I'll stay home from that, at least, to continue party prep, because later that afternoon, we're throwing a housewarming party!
At least some of us will likely need to sleep in on Sunday, so the plan is to go out to brunch and then go to the opera. And then Matt and the kids are going to have to do all the party clean-up, because I'm clearly going to have to lock myself in my room and bust out all my weekend's work.
And after this, I only have one more week before my babies leave me for a week with their grandparents in California!
All the way in California!!! I'm freaking out about Emma spending a few weeks in Iowa and that's like a long days drive.
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the one-on-one playdate thing. Emma gets to see her best friend every Thursday at co-op, but she still really needs a day during the week were they can just play on their own. She's getting confident enough that we could probably start going to the homeschool park days, but I have a feeling those are going to start getting few and far between with the weather changing.
We haven't even gotten through the first half of FLL and I am already tempted to drop it. We also have Writing With Ease that I think we might use instead starting next week.
We are doing mostly geography through the homeschool co-op that we do, but they just move through it so fast that I feel like we are really missing out. I'm thinking of making myself nuts and trying out that flag project you have. I can really see Emma enjoying it a lot.
Oh, we just picked up a repositional, dry erase, adhesive world map thinger at Staples yesterday for $5 bucks that I am pretty excited to get on the wall. I think it's around 3'X 2'.
For today, I am off to try my hand at furniture building. I am making a new table for the kitchen so that we can continue to use our current kitchen table as the craft/school table. Wish me luck!
The grandparents wanted the kids in Cali with them for something like 10 days, but I talked them down to 6. I just couldn't handle being away from them any longer. I've decided to make the time count, though--LOTS of special stuff with Matt, and LOTS of work. The more etsy shop orders and blog posts that I get written while the kids are gone, the more time I'll be able to spend with them when they're back.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see your new table!
When we lived in IA, Emma would spend a few days with Gramma, but then she was only three hours away. And yes, I did go pick her up once in the middle of the night because she was a wreck and just needed to be home. Then again, she was like 4 years old or something.
ReplyDeleteJared and I tend to watch a lot of t.v. and play a lot of video games when Emma is not home. We are pretty exciting like that :0)
I decided to start with a smaller project today and have Emma help me out. She actually ended up making most of the project on her own. It was so awesome I blogged about it already.
http://mamaisemmasmama.blogspot.com/2014/10/learning-life-skills.html
After I get the yard cleaned up at the old place tomorrow, I WILL be making that table. I hope.
Oh, and could you e-mail me your new address? I'd like to get Emma back into the letter writing. Thanks!