8 Grammar Extension Activities for Late Elementary and Middle School Kids

What a fun title, right?

Except that grammar IS fun, or at least there are plenty of games and activities that can make it fun.

The point of adding grammar extension activities even to a packaged grammar curriculum is that it's unfortunately easy for a kid to master the format of the way that grammar exercises are presented in their curriculum, but not be able to translate that to "real" sentences in the real world. That's why I dropped First Language Lessons--the kids could easily complete the exercises in the books, but couldn't diagram the simplest sentence that I wrote for them if it didn't follow the formulaic pattern that it always did in the book. Analytical Grammar is working MUCH better, fortunately!

These grammar extension activities, then, are (mostly) fun, but most importantly, they get a kid to think about grammar in different contexts, with different types of sentences in different situations, than they tend to see while doing their regular grammar work. The kids like it because they get to do something different, and it generally brings some other skills and activities, like creative writing or problem solving, into the mix.

I don't have as many of these activities as I do, say, for math enrichment, because I tend to offer these grammar extension activities more like monthly rather than weekly, but most of these have more playability, too, so we can do them over and over rather than finding something different every single time, like I also do with math. But here are some of the kids' favorites:

Compound Sentences Against Humanity

I made my own Cards Against Humanity-type game by writing a series of independent clause cards and coordinating conjunction cards. To play, as a group we draw one independent clause card and one coordinating conjunction card, and then we each complete the sentence with our own made-up independent clause.

It practices the grammar of compound sentences, as well as handwriting and creative writing, and it's the most fun of all of our grammar extension activities!

Grammar Board Games

This particular board game, Grammar Scramble, is out of print, but there are actually a ton of grammar board games around that you can try out.

 Grammar Scramble works well because it provides some scaffolding to build basic sentences, but you can also extend them in a ton of ways to earn yourself more points, so there's built-in incentive to unlock the patterns of grammar.

Daily Twitter Grammar Exercises

These Daily Grammar Workouts on Twitter are fun because the results are compiled via poll, so you can participate or just check back later to see if you agree with the winning answer. The topics vary, too, so you might find a review of something previously learned, or something all-new to discuss.

Grammar Quidditch

Homeschooling doesn't mean that you can't play group games! If you're part of a co-op or just know some other kids who are at the same grammar level as your kids, you can get them together and play this fun grammar-themed version of Quidditch!

Popsicle Stick Parts of Speech

I really like the idea of these popsicle sticks, because they're manipulatives that you could use for several years over several levels. Kids could self-generate words for the sticks, or write their current spelling words. You could label them, or build sentences. There are so many ways to use a controlld vocabulary!

Mad Libs

Oh, my gosh, there are so many Mad Libs books and games, and the best part is that kids choose these themselves, as leisure time activities, because they're fun! We did Mad Libs both to and from Dayton, Ohio, last month, as Syd's choice of activity, and the only quibble that I had with it is that every time Syd would say "word ending in -ing," I would correct her with "gerund. It's a gerund. Why can't they just say 'gerund?'"

Word Dominoes

The basic set-up is very simple, but the beauty of these dominoes is that you can add parts of speech and word examples to extend the game. 

Linking Verb Chain

I don't normally think that you need to memorize all the words of a certain part of speech, but if a kid is feeling really not confident about a particular part of speech, it can help! Here's an example of memorizing linking verbs, and in our homeschool, I had the kids memorize prepositions a few years ago. They've lost it now, but at the time it was valuable for them to have all the examples memorized when they were having trouble using logic to identify prepositions. Now they can identify prepositions using contextual clues, so don't need to have them memorized.

Most grammar activities are basic and geared for the very young learner, so I'm always on the lookout for activities like these, that explore more advanced concepts and are fun for older kids. If you know of anymore great ones, pretty please let me know!

P.S. Want a ton more homeschooling resources and ideas? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Compound Sentences against Humanity

After over a year and a half of constant complaining about it, I finally dropped First Language Lessons. It wasn't working for us, and by that I do not mean that it wasn't fun, because I don't personally feel that every school subject has to be the educational equivalent of a trip to the water park. No, I could handle First Language Lessons being dry and tedious.

What I couldn't handle was the eventual, slow realization that my kids weren't learning anything from it. That question and answer, rote-style, fill in the sentence diagram just wasn't getting anything into their brains. The kids weren't really able to identify or construct anything outside of FLL's scaffolding. They couldn't diagram a simple sentence of my own creation. They could barely tell the subject from the predicate! We dumped it, therefore, and I'm back to winging my own grammar curriculum. My goals are to teach grammar concepts as they come up, to continue to emphasize memorization (which FLL *was* great for, but the kids just didn't understand what they were memorizing), and to focus on identification and construction.

I want the kids to be able to identify all grammar concepts, of course, but that will eventually become pedantic. The true purpose of grammar education is gaining the ability to USE these grammar concepts, so that's what our goal should be, no matter where we are in the process.

Currently, I'm teaching compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences, beginning, of course, with compound sentences. You can learn this concept as soon as you've learned nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and the definition of a complete sentence, and it's actually a great place to go next, because you'll get a lot of practice in identifying and creating complete sentences, and you'll learn your conjunctions.

There's a good definition of the compound sentence here, and you'll also want to have the kids memorize the short list of coordinating conjunctions. The main point to make, however (and this is an important one, because it's both crucial to differentiating a compound sentence from a complex sentence, AND almost every other elementary resource that you'll find does not teach the correct way to identify a complex sentence, so you'll be relying on this difference when you teach it yourself the correct way), is that the two independent clauses do not rely on each other. They both have equal weight, equal importance in the sentence.

The kids won't understand that when you say it. They'll need examples--LOTS of examples. That's when you play Compound Sentences against Humanity!

Cards against Humanity is similar to Apples to Apples, but more user-generated, MUCH more irreverent, and much, MUCH more fun! I'm working on a Junior version, myself, but Cards against Humanity is otherwise very much for adults.

Compound Sentences against Humanity, however, is for everyone! This game is completely user-generated, since we're making it up, so you can include independent clauses about family members and inside jokes. Try to make all the independent clauses irreverent, as well, because that's way more fun for the kids than sentences that read, "The children pet the cat," etc. Blech!

To play this game, you'll make a set of independent clause cards and a set of coordinating conjunction cards. Make them using the Cards against Humanity template here. I did not include any "nor" cards, because the independent clause structure would have to be altered, and I also took out the "for" cards after the first game, because it was too hard for the kids to correctly structure an independent clause using it. They still memorized those coordinating conjunctions, but we'll deal with their structure another time.

Here are some of my independent clauses:

• Barack Obama is my favorite superhero.
• The Boy Scouts ate at Five Guys. (This is an inside family joke, stemming from an imaginary Boy Scout/Girl Scout rivalry that we pretend exists whenever we see Boy Scouts in uniform.)
• The Nazis invaded Poland.
• Do not swallow that magnet.
• The tiny horse loved baby carrots.
• Snakes do not fly.
• I caught fire.
• Silence is my favorite music.
• Daddy only eats "real" food. (Another inside joke, originating from the hot dog incident in Chicago)

I had some longer independent clauses that I removed after the first game, since the game requires copying them down onto your dry erase board, and it was taking forever.

This game works best with three or more players, because you'll go around the circle and have one player act as judge each time. Everyone else is a player, and everyone should have their own dry erase board and dry erase marker, with a cloth nearby to erase the boards between rounds.

The judge draws one independent clause card and one coordinating conjunction card (I marked the back of the coordinating conjunction cards with a C. Later, when we add subordinating conjunction cards, I'll mark those with an S):

Ignore the fraction on the back of that card; I'm reusing old cardstock.

 

The players will then copy that independent clause onto their dry erase board, add the comma and coordinating conjunction that are required to make a compound sentence, and then create their own independent clause to follow:

When the players are all finished, they turn their boards around and take turns reading their compound sentence:

All sentences will be admired, and the judge will award a unique prize to each sentence--Most Improbable Act to Occur Underwater, for example, or Stuffed Dinosaur the Size of Your Bedroom, etc. All prizes are, of course, imaginary. Rotate to a new judge, and play begins again:

This clause was too long, so I've since removed it from the game.

You really only need to play this game long enough for everyone to have a turn to be the judge. You don't want the kids to get tired of copying and writing, and even in three rounds, that's still two unique examples that they've created and four unique examples that they've read. But you'll want to play it again often, until you can see that it's a total no-brainer for the kids to correctly construct their compound sentences.

As extra practice, you can also have the kids work independently to write compound sentences using these cards, and then to mark nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and conjunctions on their sentences. They can copy just the independent clause cards and mark nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subjects, and predicates. They can diagram just the independent clause cards. They can be in charge of creating a new set of independent clause cards.

Once that's a no-brainer, AND they've memorized a textbook definition of the compound sentence AND the short list of coordinating conjunctions, you can move on to complex sentences or to diagramming compound sentences.
 

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, encounters with Chainsaw Helicopters, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Work Plans for the Week of March 9, 2015: Science and Superheros

Our curriculum is especially science-heavy this week, with Science Fair prep and Science Club and zoology, but that's what the kids are into right now. History and Literature and Art and Civics will all still be waiting when the Science Fair is over and the zoology curriculum has been completed and Science Club is adjourned for the semester.

The kids' dailies this week consist of Chinese language practice (mostly using videos from Learn Chinese with Emma), keyboard practice (based on their Hoffman Academy lessons), typing practice (still using Dance Mat Typing, although I think the children have maxed out that program and need me to find them a new one), cursive practice (I've got them copying stanzas from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," in preparation for a cute project that I have in mind), and the book of the day, which this week includes Chinese vocab and mythology, a Mongolian short story, horse books, and some grammar--basically whatever I've got on the library shelf for them but don't have any other immediate plans for.

MONDAY: We have big plans for Pi Day! Most of our plans for March 14 involve making lots of pie for an evening Feast of Pi(e), but I've got some enrichment activities planned to prepare for the big day. Later today, the kids are going to get out the tape measures and rulers and many circular things, and I'm going to see if they can discover the principle of pi on their own.

We've got our regular volunteer gig at the food pantry today, and the kids have another Hoffman Academy lesson, with its accompanying worksheets. Chinese class will be on hiatus for the next two weeks so that the children's instructors can go on Spring Break, but the children do have homework, so the first of my promised enrichment lessons for Chinese will be spent completing that.

Last week, I had the kids prepare these Girl Scout badge checklists, and I encouraged them to look through each checklist, note activities that they've completed this school year, and write them down. I think this will make it easier for the kids to see when they've already completed two or three out of the five activities for a particular badge, and therefore encourage them to complete the remaining activities to finish it up. They'll be using their checklists to figure out what Girl Scout badge they'd like to work on this week.

TUESDAY: In Math Mammoth this week, Syd is studying division, and Will is finishing up decimals before starting a long computation review next week. I've also got them, just for fun, watching the BrainPop movie on pi and reviewing a song they memorized last year--it's the first 25 digits of pi!

In Mandarin class, the children have been learning vocabulary for family members, which is kind of complicated in Mandarin, as paternal and maternal grandparents have different names, as do older and younger siblings, etc. I discovered, during this, that the kids can't automatically recall who is a maternal and who is a paternal relative, so I'm going to start them on a family tree project. I plan to have them use photos of family members, calling or writing for a photo when necessary, and I'll ask them to lay them out in family tree format, and then label them in the languages that we've studied recently, so Latin, Spanish, Mandarin, and, of course, English. For projects like these, I tend to let them work together on one (it makes the whole project seem less important and useful if you know you're making duplicates, don't you think?), but that one project must end up looking pretty darn nice.

The kids are really excited about Science Club on this night--they'll be doing the ubiquitous Egg Drop Experiment!

WEDNESDAY: We've got First Language Lessons on this day, but I actually have some functional grammar that I want to teach--paragraphs, the capitalization of "I", the fact that you don't capitalize the word that comes after a comma--so I'll probably be ditching or supplementing FLL beginning next week.

Speaking of paragraphs... Syd dictated the longest book report in the world to me a few weeks ago (seriously, I was nodding off at the keyboard while typing!), and there was not a single paragraph break in that whole damn report. Believe you me, she'll be putting in some paragraph breaks on this day! Will has horseback riding class on this afternoon, with the resultant homework to complete beforehand.

I love that most of the activities in Zoology for Kids can be completed independently by the children, AND the book is written directly to them, too, so I'm happily able to simply hand it off and let them get on with it. I've flipped through it, however, and have notes on what activities I want to require them to do; they've always chosen to complete additional activities just for fun, which is the sign of a great textbook, if you ask me.

Watching a video of the Sleeping Beauty ballet fell utterly flat last week--both children nodded off, and napped comfortably curled up together on the couch for the duration of the program. I think now that my plans to take them to a production of the actual ballet this month are off. Nevertheless, we'll have a lovely time listening to the music of the ballet, simply because I'll bring out the coloring books!

THURSDAY: This will be an easy ending to our school week, as we've got Gym Day, a talk about our community center's history as a segregated school, and Syd has gymnastics. I'm hoping that we'll have time, nevertheless, to try pysanky, as I've been looking forward to it, and yet have had to continually put it off for a couple of weeks now. If not then, then perhaps during the weekend.

Syd completed the City of Rocks Junior Ranger badge book a while ago, but it got lost in my paperwork--oops! I discovered it this weekend, and figured that if I was going to send in one badge book, I might as well send in two, so Will can complete hers on this day while Syd is at gymnastics.

FRIDAY: Free Day!!! We'll be going on an all-day field trip on this day to the Indianapolis Comic Con; I'll have my face painted to look like my favorite superhero, Krrish, and I'm not ashamed to tell you that I am PAYING the children--five bucks and one Snickers bar each--to wear their Awesomes costumes. There are some panels that I want to attend that may seem a little dry to the children (how many lectures on gender in comic books/superhero films/manga can two kids sit through?), but we'll compromise with plenty of time in the board game room, kids' craft room, exhibition hall, and movie rooms.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Thanks to our local university's Spring Break, we surprisingly have NOTHING scheduled this weekend! Also, the weather should be gorgeous. Hiking, perhaps, then. Pysanky eggs. Yardwork.

And, on Saturday, pi(e) for dinner!

Work Plans for the Week of March 2, 2015: Ice Skating and Ballet

Much of last week was actually spent finishing the kids' superhero costumes, and much of this week will be spent shuttling Will back and forth to rehearsals for the Spring Ice Show (Momma Moment of Brag: Will was promoted yet another level in ice skating this session! Next session, which alas won't be until the fall, she will be in Level 6, the second highest level in the program, and can also choose to join the figure skating club. It's a Big Deal), so we didn't finish all of last Friday's schoolwork, and I'm frankly not sure if we'll do all our work every day this week, especially since I didn't carve out a space in the lesson plans for those Ice Show rehearsals. No pressure.

To help the kids keep track independently, I've added their daily practice work to the work plans, so that they can see what they need and check it off without having to ask what's left. Since I've begun asking them to do this, I've deleted our ten minutes of daily memory work in the car; you can't do cursive or keyboard OR typing in the car, and their Chinese practice mostly involves relevant videos from the Learn Chinese with Emma channel on YouTube. We really like to listen to audiobooks in the car, anyway, so this gives us more time for that.

This week's assigned books include more Chinese vocabulary study (board books are GREAT for this, by the way), Chinese mythology, fiction involving the Lippizaner, for Syd, and Degas, for Will, and some a picture book about the ballet--although Syd at least knows the names of the various ballet terms when spoken, neither of them are familiar with them in print.

MONDAY: We've got our volunteer gig at our local food pantry as usual, today, and Will has Ice Show rehearsal. At home, Syd is starting a unit on measurements in Math Mammoth, while Will, still in decimals, is getting some extra practice converting between decimals and fractions today before she continues in her Math Mammoth unit.

Both kids will take a Hoffman Academy lesson, which they can do independently, and they can choose a Girl Scout badge to work on, also independently. Sometimes I add extra work and reading to the badge requirement to turn it into a unit study, but since both kids are bridging into a new level this summer, right now I'm pretty much just letting them get on with earning whatever badges they'd like to earn before they bridge.

We're still studying Sleeping Beauty, in preparation for Syd's spring ballet recital on that theme. We watched the Disney version a couple of weeks ago; this week focuses on the ballet version, and then we'll read the fairy tale version, and then I'll ask them to analyze and compare all the versions.

TUESDAY: Free day! Robotics Club and Ice Show rehearsal are at the same time on this night, so I'm going to have to ask Will to choose. I wonder what she'll pick?

WEDNESDAY: We've got First Language Lessons, but I am officially on the lookout for a grammar study with shorter lessons that Syd can do daily, as First Language Lessons is no longer really working as something that the kids use together. Syd needs more reinforcement/practice, whereas Will just needs to learn labels for this stuff and then move on. So, if you've got any ideas, pass them to me!

Thank-you emails didn't get done last week, so hopefully they'll get done on this day. Zoology for Kids DID get done last week, and it was a huge hit, so now the kids are tackling the next chapter.
Both kids now like to attend Magic Tree House Club on separate computers, rather than both huddling around one as they used to. This means that I sacrifice my laptop to one kid on Magic Tree House Club days, and THIS means that I actually cook dinner on Wednesdays! It's pretty amazing what I can do to get out of it on all the other days of the week.

THURSDAY: Syd has more thank-you notes that didn't get done last week, this time for Trashion/Refashion Show clothing donations. And even though the Science Fair isn't until April this year, I like the kids to get started on it early, because sometimes Science Fair projects take a lot of time to complete. Will thinks that she wants to make a maze for Hexbug Nano robots, and explain how they work--I'd like her to do some simple hacks on them, as well, but we'll see. Syd thinks that she might want to do something with plants, or something with chickens. I'm debating between letting her scroll through my science pinboards for inspiration, or making her use her own brain to come up with something that might be much more or much less creative and interesting.

Our homeschool group is meeting up for ice skating instead of gym time on this day, so I don't know--Will might not be enthusiastic about yet more skating by then, especially as she'll have to be back on the ice four hours later. We might just have a little more unplanned free time instead!

Meanwhile, Will is VERY upset about some recent choices that the newspaper made regarding their Sunday comics. She'll be explaining them in a letter to the editor.

FRIDAY: A couple of these assignments are hold-overs from last Friday, when I didn't even attempt school, instead just focusing on finishing the kids' superhero costumes and leaving them to themselves for the day. Syd is still having a lot of fun writing and illustration short stories, however, so I've got that as an assignment for her to encourage her to do another one, and, for my own personal pleasure, I've been interested in getting the kids into fan culture, which is a big academic interest and hobby of mine. Fan culture can be a really accessible entry into all kinds of creative fields, so I'm going to see how the kids might like reviewing some of the Minecraft videos that they watch and creating a podcast on the topic.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Ice Show rehearsal, Ice Show performance, ballet, Chinese--kind of a busy weekend, but all the kids' weekend extracurriculars will be on break for the next two weekends due to the university's spring break, so it's okay to have a busy send-off.

For me, I'll be relishing this week as a chance to get back to business as usual after a February that consisted entirely of Girl Scout cookies and Trashion/Refashion Show designs--I've got blog posts to write, etsy orders to create, some unit studies to research, some books to review, and a couple of field trips to plan. I do like to keep myself busy!

Work Plans for the Week of February 16, 2015: Mongolia and Hoosier Heroines

Half an hour into our Monday, and the schedule's already blown, thanks to a combination of snow (yay!) and car trouble (boo!). We'll actually be having a little staycation here at home today and Tuesday, and I'll just wait and see if I fill up those out-of-the-house spots with schoolwork here, or simply let them be. After all, one must have ample time for snowmen and sledding, mustn't one?

In addition to the written schedule, each day the children also have independent practice in typing, piano keyboard, and Chinese, and they each have a book assignment, ranging from Mongolian folk tales to picture books of Chinese characters to a bizarre 1950s-era children's how-to manual, which actually explains, step by step and remarkably clearly, how to do things like clean the house and write a thank-you letter and make a grilled cheese sandwich, etc. I usually just have the children talk to me about the book that they've read, but this week I'll also be asking them to write Chinese characters and make me a grilled cheese sandwich.

MONDAY: No Hub, no Girl Scout meeting. However... snow! In math, I'll be demonstrating to both children the Girl Scout cookie booth essential skill of counting back change. Next year, I'll be demonstrating this skill to all my Girl Scouts BEFORE our cookie booths! Our troop's two oldest girls (both named Willow, incidentally--it was wonderful, at our last cookie booth, to call out "Willow!" and have TWO big helpful girls at my disposal!), can handle money and make change with an adult standing at her elbow to supervise, but they both simply subtract--fine for the easy math of multiples of four, but one day out in the world the math won't be so simple.

This week's horse breed is the Abaco Barb. I'm really pleased with the infographics that the children have been producing for their horse research; I feel like this is a useful skill well learned!

Syd is starting a block of short story writing; I'd like her to produce a few written and illustrated picture books this spring. Will is engaged this week in another odd little essay prompt for a local contest--she's really improving in her ability to write to a prompt, and after this season of essay contests is over, I look forward to asking her to choose her own subjects for essays, as well.

TUESDAY: No Robotics Club. However... snow!

WEDNESDAY: YES horseback riding! You'll notice that aerial silks hasn't been on my list of weekly classes for a few weeks. At a recent Family Meeting we discussed extracurriculars; although I'm willing to enroll the children in whatever they're interested in and want to work at, I've noticed that the children lose their appreciation for these opportunities when they're signed up for more than one a day, and so I asked them to make some choices, assuring them that they could revisit these choices at the end of every session. Both children chose to drop aerial silks classes for the time being (they still spend ages of time on our at-home rig each day, and I might explore Youtube to see if there are any demonstrations or tutorials that might appeal to them), and Syd also chose to drop horseback riding. Instead, she'll be taking gymnastics on Thursdays. I found these choices so interesting because, of course, both children could have continued in horseback riding, and both children could have taken gymnastics, and in previous weeks I think they'd both have been eager to. I think they took our discussions of their schedules and their commitments to them that we'd been having in preparation for our Family Meeting to heart, however, and I could see them really thoughtfully choosing only what they really wanted to do.

For whatever reason (probably because I kept scheduling it for Fridays, which is the least productive time to put the "serious" schoolwork), we keep not listening to the Story of the World chapters on Mongolia and working on the comprehension questions. We MUST do it this week, however, as World Thinking Day is on Sunday, and my Girl Scout troop, thankfully led in this by another mom, is presenting on Mongolia. The mom has done an incredible job teaching the children about Mongolia and organizing their displays and presentation. My two need to create displays on Mongolia's map and flag this week, and I can't pass up the opportunity presented by this unit to cover those Story of the World chapters. After all, who doesn't like learning about Genghis Khan?!?

Syd's Minecraft Homeschool session is over, so while Will is working on her essay, I'm filling in Syd's extra schoolwork slot with activities that I know that she'll especially like--playing a game with me, and doing a craft project. I'll also need her help with her Trashion/Refashion garment off and on this week, so easy, fun little "assignments" like those won't interfere with any work that I need her to do on that.

THURSDAY: After the madness of the past few weeks, I'm relieved that this looks to be our only hectic day this week. Gym Day will likely include some extra World Thinking Day rehearsal, and the start of gymnastics class overlapping with a Girl Scout cookie booth will definitely require some juggling. Math Mammoth (decimals and geometry), a keyboard lesson with Hoffman Academy, and, for Will, the writing of a rough draft are the only added things to this day.

FRIDAY: I was pleased that the children rated math class as one of the extracurriculars that simply couldn't be dropped (ice skating is still also on Fridays, but only until the end of this session. Our rink is only seasonal, sigh); they love their teacher, and many of their closest friends also take the class, which devotes a full hour to board games at the end--how could that NOT be a hit?

We're still using First Language Lessons for grammar. In addition, these Word Ladders are a fun way for a kid to practice a little logical deduction and stretch her spelling skills while her sister is on the ice.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The children love their Saturday tradition of Sydney's ballet class, something "fun" with their father (last week it was Wonderlab, and the week before I believe that it may have been a buffet restaurant), and then Chinese class. Our local indie theater is showing all the Oscar-nominated short films as a film festival this weekend, so we'll likely be attending that, and then Sunday is World Thinking Day!

And hopefully by Sunday, I'll also have this Trashion/Refashion show garment in hand...

Work Plans for the Week of February 2, 2015: It's Girl Scout Cookie Time!!!

Who wants Girl Scout cookies?!?

We had a great homeschool week last week, with the kids getting all their schoolwork done, and leaving plenty of time for us to watch Indian superhero films, eat ice cream for dinner, go hiking, and play, play, play!

This week is all about the Girl Scouts, especially those cookies, 32 cases of which Will is currently dividing up in the family room. The kids have orders to deliver, money to manage, and a huge cookie booth at Wal-mart this weekend to prepare for and then run. Non-cookie work gets fitted in wherever it may.

Other academic work will consist of an assigned book for each kid each day (it's usually just something that I think will interest them, and they only have to read it and then talk about it with me), and daily practice of typing and piano.

MONDAY: We started this morning with a Girl Scout field trip to a local business. My friends Scott and Abby started their small natural baby store 8 years ago with just the two of them, and today it's a successful business with a storefront right on the square downtown, a warehouse for online orders, and a staff of part-time employees. They gave the kids a tour of both their spaces, discussed the benefits and challenges of managing your own business, walked the kids through their work flow, and answered all their nosy questions (yes, Will totally asked them how much money they make every month):

My two have already been thinking about how to apply their advice to their own cookie selling.

We went straight from the tour to our volunteer gig, where the kids worked hard and helped for two hours (with one small break for Saltines and peanut butter, and an Otter Pop at the end), and then we went straight to the big Girl Scout cookie delivery on the other side of town, to pick up our troop's initial order. It may surprise you to learn that I don't actually tend to run errands during our "school day," just because that's not how I want to spend our school time, but Girl Scout cookies are the exception, of COURSE. And now Will is in the other room with our troop's master order list, dividing the cases up by kid and filling out receipts to be signed by moms.

Other tasks to be completed today are research to make an infographic on Przewalski’s horse, math (Syd has Math Mammoth, and Will has a worksheet on equivalent fractions, to be used with fraction manipulatives), and the beginning of Syd's week in her Minecraft Homeschool class.

TUESDAY: Free day!!! Our day has already run so long that I'm actually going to encourage the children to leave today's math and science until this day. Other than that, we'll stay home and play until Will's evening Robotics Club.

WEDNESDAY: LEGO Club, horseback riding class, and Magic Tree House Club take up almost this entire day. On top of that, I'll only be asking the children to complete another lesson in Math Mammoth, and Will can continue to work on another essay contest.

THURSDAY: Again, we'll spend much of this day out and about. Will has a writing class that will take up much of the morning, and we'll go from there to our homeschool group's Gym Day at a local community center. The children will have their Hoffman Academy keyboard lesson, and can begin to work on the cookie booth that they'll be running this weekend.

FRIDAY: The children will have a grammar lesson using First Language Lessons, and they'll spend most of the morning at math class. Our Girl Scout troop will be presenting Mongolia for the Girl Scout World Thinking Day celebration later this month, so we'll be listening to the Mongolia chapters in The Story of the World on this day, and answering the comprehension questions. Will has ice skating class, and Syd should finish up her week's assignments in Minecraft Homeschool.

And there will be more cookie booth plans to plan!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: On Saturday, Syd has ballet, then both children will do something special with Matt, and then they have Chinese. On Sunday, they'll be running a Girl Scout cookie booth at our town's Wal-mart, and Will also has chess club.

It's a busy week, I know! There's a lot of out and about in this week, which I get tired of, but the kids never do. It always amazes me that what I might see as scut work (selling cookies?!?) might be a major source of joy in their lives, and my attitude must therefore be adjusted accordingly. So out and about we will go, stand in the cold and sell cookies we will, and at the end of each day, well, kids who've been out and about all day need to go to bed early and get their rest...

...and their mommas need to watch TV and eat Girl Scout cookies!

Work Plans for the Week of January 26, 2015: Essays and Indianapolis

Last week was a very successful school week. The kids worked with minimal fuss, enjoyed playdates with friends, and then on Friday, we skipped school altogether after math class, and instead went hiking and spelunking with some buddies.

See? Spelunking!

A creek runs through the cave, and although everyone wore galoshes, children's galoshes still aren't that tall, you know? My friend and I decided that we'll return to this cave in the summer, wearing Keens, and perhaps we won't leave again until fall.

And hiking:

This week, we've got that make-up day, more essays to work on, a couple of new classes to begin, and a field trip to Indianapolis.

The kids' daily book assignments (one each daily, in addition to the hours of pleasure reading that they do independently) include picture books on the theme of diversity, a history of the Pearl Harbor attack, folk tales, and more picture books about Georgia O'Keeffe.

MONDAY: We're back at our regular volunteer gig today, after skipping last week so that the kids could do a different service project with the Girl Scouts. The kids also skipped their Hoffman Academy keyboard lesson, since that was the day we went spelunking with friends instead; the lessons are short enough, however, that I'm considering having the kids complete two lessons today. It's not really necessary to do that, since I never worry that they're "behind" in anything, but still... it's worth asking them about to see what they think.

Will needs more hands-on experience with fractions, so I've invented a game for the kids to play with me today that involves fraction circle manipulatives and fraction dice. It should cover adding mixed fractions and both like and unlike fractions, so I think that it will help Will a lot. Syd will play, too, of course--one of the reasons why Syd is generally so quick at her math is this leg-up that she's always getting by sharing Will's hands-on enrichment.

Syd also has her Minecraft Homeschool class to work on this week, so that's sort of an invisible lesson slot in her work plans. It works out well, though, because Will has a biography of Anthony "Kapel" Van Jones to write this week, and it will give me time to focus one-on-one with her.

Finally, the children's horseback riding instructor is retiring from her post this week, so she deserves two lovely cards with lovely notes inside from two grateful little girls.

TUESDAY: The kids have their first meeting of a science club at our local community college on this evening. Will attends a robotics club there on alternate Tuesdays, where she is apparently a star programmer of LEGO Mindstorms, so I expect that this program will be equally excellent.

In Math Mammoth this week Will returns to fractions, and Syd reviews rounding and estimating. It should be an easy enough week for both.

The children's horse breed homework this week is the Lipizzaner. They've done this one before, but their new horseback riding instructor loved the infographic that they presented to her last week so much that she's requested that they begin to collect them into a binder, so some review is expected.

Syd knows exactly what she wants her Trashion/Refashion Show entry to look like, but she still needs to draw it for me in full-color detail. I'm afraid that I'm going to end up sewing it again this year, but I've suggested that she add capes to the costumes that she's designing, and if she likes that plan, she should be able to do much of that sewing herself.

Although the kids are working hard on their Girl Scout cookie selling (want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?), Will is intent on earning all the Junior badges before she bridges to Cadette, and so really needs to work on this every week.

WEDNESDAY: Verbs are our focus in First Language Lessons, currently. The kids are bored by the scripted lessons (as am I!) but love the diagramming, so we keep trucking through. Both horseback riding class and aerial silks class take up most of the rest of our school time on Wednesdays.

THURSDAY: Free day! We'll actually be spending the day in Indianapolis on this day, volunteering at the fossil prep lab at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and then either staying there to play for the rest of the day or going over to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to see their exhibit on Georgia O'Keeffe.

FRIDAY: Math class and Will's ice skating class also take up much of the school time on this day, but there are a few things that we'll also try to fit in. I have an idea for a physics experiment that I think the kids will enjoy--making zip lines for toys--and we still haven't gotten around to checking out typing programs! Something always seems to come up, and it's an easy lesson to put off if we're crunched for time.

The children should both be finishing up final drafts of essays on this day, as well. Perhaps we'll have a little family party that evening to celebrate!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Saturday brings ballet class for Syd and Chinese language class for both kids, with space in between for them to do something special with Matt (and for me to get a bunch of work done, hopefully, allowing me to have more family time later!). Sunday is totally open, and we'll either spend it playing at home or, if the kids and I didn't go on Thursday, at the art museum with Georgia O'Keeffe.

Work Plans for the Week of January 19, 2015: Essays of Unusual Size

Will was NOT thrilled to write her essay last week, and she will be equally not thrilled to find yet another essay for this week. Write it she shall, however, and I shall attempt to regird my patience for the inevitable upcoming struggles.

Writing, or the battle about writing, took up much of last week, and, as I'd suspected I would, I did need to delete a couple of the smaller, unimportant lessons from our plans--experimenting with watercolors can happen anytime, and Syd, at least, will be pleased to be asked to get messy dyeing Great Northern beans with me during her leisure hours.

This week's plans, however, are all important and unskippable, although I did cull them down as much as possible. I include the children's extracurriculars into their plans, but I don't include the daily book assignment, keyboard practice, memory work, and the chore chart--that's all on top of school, but the reading they'd do for pleasure, regardless, the keyboard practice takes only minutes (although they often remain at the keyboard for much longer--yay!), the memory work takes place in the car, and chores are chores; everyone in the world has to do their chores!

TUESDAY: Yesterday was our free day! Matt was off work, so he took the burden of shlepping the kids around while I slogged through my work at home; the kids skipped our weekly volunteer gig to go to a special volunteer opportunity with the Girl Scouts, and they took their weekly aerial silks lesson, happily freeing up a little more Wednesday for us.

Today, then, as I write Will sits next to me and reads her book assignment, a biography of Charles Darwin (she has just informed me that we MUST go visit the Galapagos Islands one day, although sadly we are no longer permitted to ride the tortoises, and did I know that "galapagos" is the Spanish word for tortoise?), and Syd eats breakfast and reads in the other room. Their math this week is all review drills from our Kumon workbooks--more subtraction with borrowing across zeroes for Syd, and calculating volume and area for Will. I expect that after this extra practice, we'll move back into Math Mammoth next week.

The commencement of horseback riding lessons is also the commencement of the horse breed research that their instructor always gives them for homework. I believe that my emphasis, this session, will be on efficient, effective, and informative displays of their research, so that the children become easily able to reproduce infographics and posters, as the case requires.

Will has by this moment found and looked over the essay requirement for this year's Black History Month essay contest, and already pouted about it. It's another biography from a dedicated pool of names, with some first-person analysis, as well. She's going to loathe it.

She will like better our plans for a swimming date with some friends at the gym this afternoon, and like best of all the first session of this semester's Robotics Club tonight. While she's there, Syd will be able to have some quiet time to work on her design for this year's Trashion/Refashion Show. I REALLY hope that she creates a design that she's able to sew by herself this year!

WEDNESDAY: Song School Spanish is a painless lesson to get through each week, especially as much of the work for it takes place as our daily ten-minute memory work in the car every day. I also enjoy having someone else in charge of horseback riding lessons and Magic Tree House Club (the kids were meant to attend their club meeting earlier this month, but were so busy playing that they didn't want to settle down for it; this is the last meeting for this month, so they'll definitely need to attend this one); I can get some writing done during the former, and have time to cook something a little more involved than frozen pizza or stir-fry during the latter.

THURSDAY: First Language Lessons is scripted, so sometimes I'll save that to hand off to Matt in the evenings. I won't be surprised if I need to on this day, because both kids will need my assistance as they complete pre-writing activities for upcoming essays. We have ice skating plans with children from our homeschooling group, however, so hopefully that will keep them in a good enough mood to stave off the most excessive of the fits.

FRIDAY: I usually try to keep the kids' keyboard lesson early in the week, so that they can use the rest of the week to practice, but it just wouldn't fit into the schedule any earlier than today. Fridays tend to be busy, though, with both math class and Will's ice skating class getting us up and out of the house, so this quick, independent lesson will be a helpful breather for me.

I generally let the kids cook independently these days, but since these cookies are for other people, I'll probably need to be on hand to supervise. I need to remember to set aside time earlier in the week to have the kids choose a recipe so that we can shop for ingredients, unless you think that I can convince them to find a recipe that allows me to use up the random bits of candied cherries and chopped pecans that I have in the pantry?

All this essay writing--or rather, essay dictating, to me--has made it very clear to me that it's high time for the kids to learn keyboarding. I've got several software programs checked out of the public library, so ideally the kids will like one of these well enough to at least learn the functional basics.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The kids don't have any responsibilities on Saturday, but I'm having friends over that night, so I suppose that I should do some cleaning and cooking. On Sunday, Will has Chess Club, and the cookies need to be delivered to our town's homeless shelter. I imagine there will also be Girl Scout Cookie selling. Perhaps Trashion/Refashion Show material shopping. Minecraft playing. Chicken spoiling.

You know, typical weekend stuff.

Work Plans for the Week of January 5, 2015: Back to Work!

I'm actually hesitant about writing this full schedule of work plans for this week--the kids have spent our entire holiday break doing a half-schedule of schoolwork (Math Mammoth, First Language Lessons, a reading assignment, and a hands-on project four days a week), and then spending the rest of each entire day playing contentedly with each other. They cooperate on video games, they build Kapla block structures and Hot Wheels tracks and LEGO machines, they draw and paint and chase each other outside in the freezing weather, they spin elaborate tales and act them out with their toy animals, they play board games together and Sydney only occasionally throws a fit over the outcome... it's been a great source of joy to me, watching them this active and engaged and content with each other. I don't want to disrupt it.

All that to say that yes, I have a full schedule of work plans for the children, but no, I'm not going to shove them away from their play to complete them. I suspect that with Matt out of the house again (he was able to take the week between Christmas and New Year's off just to be with us, and it was our happiest week of the year, barring digging for dinosaurs), the kids will transition back to our regular schedule fairly readily, but as it's currently almost 9:30 am, they've haven't yet appeared from their bedroom, I promised them a half-hour of LEGO Marvel before they had to start school, AND we've got our volunteer gig to get ready for at 11-ish... we'll see.

MONDAY: I liked the system of handing the children a book to read each day (Syd's a picture book or leveled chapter book, Will's a longer non-fiction book) so well that I plan to continue it this week. The rough theme behind the reading assignments will be "diversity," to help them prep for brainstorming for an essay on that topic on Friday.

Will is in the middle of geometry in her Math Mammoth this week, with an emphasis on circles, so we'll be revisiting the mandala drawing that Syd and I did together early last month, based on a class taught by Julie Gibbons. Not only was it fun and creative, but it was great practice for using a compass and mastering radial symmetry.

The children barely got a start on their Hoffman Academy lessons before our break, so they'll be reviewing the old ones and then completing a new one, as well as doing the written work associated with it. I expect them to practice keyboard in their own time throughout the rest of the week, although I've made it my goal this semester to be more present for this.

Will's goal is to earn ALL of the Junior Girl Scout badges before she bridges to Cadette in the fall, and to that end, her short-term goal is to complete a Girl Scout badge every week. Today, I'll be asking each child to choose a badge and to plan out how they might complete it this week--I'll look over their plans and assist as necessary, whether it be taking them to buy supplies or planning an impromptu field trip or setting up something that might need to be done after this week. I only halfway expect that they'll do this badge work in their own time throughout the rest of the week; I'm prepared to shift or delete other school tasks, if necessary, to accommodate their work, because as I've mentioned MANY times before, I'm sure, I find that these Girl Scout badges are really valuable as a source of cross-curricular study and an encouragement to the kids to stretch themselves academically.

Everyone loves our weekly volunteer gig! There are a number of jobs there that the kids can take responsibility for, although sometimes they choose to read or play or taste the entire time, and that's okay, too, although I don't mark those hours on their log sheets (they're both working toward the President's Volunteer Service Award). I've been researching a couple of additional regular volunteer activities that are quite academic, as well--I'd like us to make a monthly commitment to the Paleo Prep Lab at the Children's Museum, which is excellent science enrichment, of course, and I'm in the process of signing the kids up to be pen pals with a couple of local senior citizens, for additional handwriting and composition practice.

TUESDAY: Since most of the children's extra-curricular activities haven't started, yet, this day works out to be our Free Day this week, AND the forecast calls for snow! Our Girl Scout Co-op will likely come over to play on this day--well, the kids will play, and the moms will discuss Very Important Cookie Business with me, The Cookie Manager. Girl Scout Cookie Season starts on Saturday!

WEDNESDAY: Syd's Math Mammoth this week is a review of place value in the thousands; geometry is up next for her. Will in the middle of geometry now in her Math Mammoth, with fractions up next. Both of their current units are pretty easy for them, but I expect that we'll be doing a lot of hands-on fraction activities in the near future.

Again, we didn't get much out of Song School Spanish before the break, although the kids have kept their vocabulary, and the Latin equivalents, in their heads thanks to my militant ten-minute memory work drill time during our first car ride of each day. Even counting one day every week when we simply don't drive anywhere, that's a good hour of nothing but memory work every single week. It makes a HUGE difference in easing their learning, I think.

Night of the New Magicians is the subject of this month's Magic Tree House Club. It's been our tradition, ever since Syd was so small, to listen to the audiobook of the current book on the day of the meeting. During the meeting, Ms. Roni leads the kids on a cross-curricular study of the book, and then sets up little activities and craft projects that the kids can do in their own time afterwards. My two absolutely LOVE it.

THURSDAY: We blew through a ton of First Language Lessons during our winter holiday, and that was a good thing, because the daily practice with it gave me the time that I needed to work out modifications that I could make to make the curriculum better for us--I added some depth to the poetry memorization, and figured out ways to cut out most of the silly scripted dialogue. Thank goodness!

I had considered wrapping up our endangered animals study, but in the car ride home from Indianapolis last night (we saw Marvel Universe Live, and it was freaking AWESOME!!!), Will randomly started going on and on about Hector's dolphin, one of the animals that she studied during this unit, and I realized that I can't delete a subject that gives her so much pleasure. Since Will needs more practice with visual arts, however, and Syd, who's much cooler on the subject of endangered animals, loves the visual arts, I'll be experimenting with emphasizing that manner of expression in this study. We'll see how it goes.

FRIDAY: You might notice that I'm constantly engaging the kids in whatever academic or arts competitions come along; I think they're great practice in working to a prompt, something that us free-range homeschoolers don't get an excess of, and in encouraging the study of something totally new and totally unchosen by the kid, something that us self-directed homeschoolers also don't get an excess of, and, as Will can attest with her FIFTY-DOLLAR prize from last year's essay contest, AND her FIFTY-DOLLAR gift certificate from a volunteering contest a couple of years ago, they can result in tangible rewards for the kids, which us non-grading, non-sticker-and-pencil-and-extra-recess-and-lunch-with-the-principal homeschoolers also don't get an excess of. There are actually a few contests that the kids are working on right now--an endangered species art contest, a Black History Month essay contest, and this one on human rights and diversity.

Finally, we'll be beginning on Friday a study on Georgia O'Keeffe, inspired by a temporary exhibit that we're going to see at the Indianapolis Museum of Art before the museum begins to charge admission in a few months and our visits to it become highly curtailed--BOO!!! I'd like to combine biography with hands-on art in this study, which means that I need to make a mental note to intersperse some Draw Write Now and other Drawing With Children-style practice into our days starting next week.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY:  The kids have a program on Japan on Sunday, and we'll be taking down our Christmas decorations and hopefully doing some projects with our tree before throwing it out in the yard and letting it dry out so we can burn it this summer, but the big news is that Saturday is the start of Girl Scout cookie sales! It's the kids' first year selling, AND I somehow ended up being the Cookie Manager for our little band of Juliettes, so you can understand why this is big news for us.

Also, want to buy some Girl Scout cookies? Starting on Saturday, I'll know a couple of little kids who can help you out with that...

Work Plans for the Week of November 24, 2014: Visual Organizers and Thanksgiving

We're all excited about the short week ahead of us, and I'm using that enthusiasm as my wedge to pack in a good bit of productive work before our break.

MONDAY: We've got Math Mammoth today (Will's last week of long division; Syd's second-to-last week, I think, in telling time), our usual volunteer gig, and First Language Lessons, but we had to return Song School Spanish to the public library, so we'll have a couple of weeks of hiatus from Spanish before we can get the book back and return to our lessons there.

Will begins another week of Minecraft Homeschool today; her class is six weeks long, and Syd has already informed me that she'd like to take the class when it resumes in January. We only have one Minecraft log-in, so taking turns at the class seems fair.

Our endangered animal study is still going REALLY well! I'm happy to continue it for as long as the children remain interested, because they're doing some great researching and reporting. I've become quite enthusiastic about visual organizers--posters, infographics, timelines, etc.--lately, since they still involve the same research and reference skills, but the kids are happier to produce them.

TUESDAY: The kids are still enjoying their Hoffman Academy keyboard lessons, and I'm still enjoying their independence in completing them. I know that for an instrument to be successful, I really need to get involved, but... baby steps. I'm already handling about all I can handle right this second.

Next week the kids have a brunch with our Girl Scout Co-op, in which they're going to receive the badges they've earned this semester, so I need to sit down soon and look at what they've done, and encourage them to finish up the last bits on their own, but for now we'll continue the First Aid badge work that I'm guiding them through. Mind you, this biography and report on Florence Nightingale is a requirement that I've added to the official badge work, but my additions are designed to turn each badge into more of a unit study, and I think that it gives the activities, overall, more of an impact.

Will has a Robotics Workshop on this night, so she'll be having fun programming LEGO Mindstorms, and Syd has a playdate that overlaps the workshop, so she'll be having fun, too!

WEDNESDAY: Syd pitched a giant fit during last week's spelling test, so I don't think that Matt was even able to establish then which words she knew and which she didn't know, sigh. Perhaps he'll have better luck this week...

We're going to complete a quick Nutcracker unit study this winter, just to help the children put Syd's peformance in it into context. The revised Hoffman book is our current bedtime read-aloud, and this activity, in which we'll watch George Balanchine's version of the ballet and then the kids will create a timeline with that, a coloring book that we own, and a short performance summary as their references, will nail down their understanding of the ballet's events and its "plot."

The kids are still working very hard at aerial silks. Matt and I are working hard behind the scenes to figure out an at-home rig that we can all play on--any advice is welcome!

THURSDAY/FRIDAY/SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Hello, long weekend! We're not traveling for Thanksgiving this year, because next week is just going to be incredibly busy and stressful. Instead, we're going to focus on relaxing our hearts out this long holiday weekend. On Thanksgiving, each person is going to prepare two favorite dishes for our feast--almost all sweets so far, but oh, well. Life is tough. On Friday, I imagine that we will do some shopping, because there are things that we need and if Black Friday can bring them to us at a discount, then so be it. Friday night is a huge celebration downtown. Saturday is aerial silks rehearsal. Sunday is a children's show at the public library.

And then Monday through Sunday is hours and hours and hours of Nutcracker. Performance hair. Tech week. Dress rehearsals. And five shows in four days. But we're not going to think about that on this long holiday weekend, are we?

Work Plans for the Week of November 17, 2014: Minecraft, Math, and SNOW!!!

MONDAY: We woke up to SNOW this morning! It should stick around through Tuesday, so there's plenty of time to explore all the good sledding spots, and play in the snowy woods, and build a family of snowmen. Fortunately, the roads are all clear, so we'll have no problem making our volunteer gig later today--I'm holding off on deciding on aerial silks for today, though; Will said she wanted the extra classes this week after struggling during her Saturday rehearsal (so much to learn!), but when it comes down to it, the kids might rather fly on the sled than the silks this afternoon. We'll see...

Math is also extra exciting this week, because the AMC 8 math exam is tomorrow! My expectations for Syd are that she'll be able to answer the first couple of questions, and then should spend her time working on strategies for the other problems, but after all the review that Will and I have done, I wouldn't be surprised if Will was able to solve several problems correctly. Either way, the children are sitting the exam primarily for the practice at sitting exams--it's the first formal exam for both--so the results are less important than the experience of working hard, remaining focused, and conforming to proper test-taking behavior.

The children have a more sophisticated research problem with the Appaloosa today, as their riding instructors would like them to be able to differentiate the Appaloosa from other, similar horses. Piktochart is working well for creating infographics, and I expect that's what they'll use to display the results of their research.

We were so busy with extracurriculars last week that we neglected both Spanish and music; hopefully, I won't have to do that again, because otherwise, they're progressing well.

Will has settled into her Minecraft Homeschool class, and Syd has already asked if SHE can take the class next session!

TUESDAY: Dialing 911 and providing relevant, accurate information are skills for the Brownie First Aid badge, but the kids are mainly studying emergency and medical personnel as our focus for this and the Junior First Aid badge, so they'll be reading a couple of books about EMTs and paramedics, as well, to make their memory work relevant. There are a couple of tricky parts of the memory work, though--you should try to give the operator the number of the phone from which you're calling, even if it's not your own phone, and you should try to give the operator your exact location, even if you don't know the street address. It's a good thing that everyone in our town mostly uses landmarks for navigation, anyway!

Hoffman Academy is still going well, as well. I like that these lessons are mainly self-directed--I need to make sure that the kids are practicing, of course, but it's Mr. Hoffman who's teaching them, not me!

I suspect that the kids' horseback riding lesson will be cancelled on this day due to cold weather. Maybe this is the day for the extra aerial silks class, if Monday is too busy with snowmen and sledding.

WEDNESDAY: Aerial silks and play. Lots of play.

THURSDAY: It's kind of crazy that this is our only Math Mammoth day this week, but it's a busy week for math enrichment. More time telling, more long division.

We're not doing a formal "Thanksgiving" this year (I think we may have a Feast of Pie and Much Lounging, instead), but nevertheless, this is the month for Thanksgiving crafts! The kids are going to read an online article about what the first Thanksgiving feast may have looked like, then they're going to cook--each of them, I think--a corn pudding to have with our dinner.

Will LOVED this endangered animals project last week! She researched the Hispaniolan Solenidon, spent hours raving about how cute it is and its venomous teeth and those awful feral dogs, and then we all watched some Youtube videos of it waddling around looking adorable. I can't wait to see what animals the kids choose this week!

This might be the better day for our extra aerial silks class. Gym Day with our homeschool group, library for a couple of hours, then aerial silks class? Negotiating extracurriculars is so tiresome, sigh.

FRIDAY: The kids love their weekly math class, and I love the time that I spend working in the library while they're there.

Spelling has been going quite well since I've moved its practice to our daily memory work time in the car. This day is to test what words we can remove from regular study, and to give the kids some extra handwriting practice.

We're not doing well with First Language Lessons, frankly. I am so bad about making an excuse for why we can't get to it during our busy day, and all our days are busy, so there's always an excuse. I want the kids to know the content, however, so I keep trying to tell myself that if I just muscle through it, one day it will be done.

The kids ran out of enthusiasm halfway during their ice skating classes last week. I'm curious to stay observant and see if they were just having an off day (we fought colds ALL last week) or if they're reached skill levels where they're simply happy to be where they are. We do a lot of extracurriculars, I know, but I'm very firm about the kids only doing an extracurricular as long as they're committed to working hard at it. Ice skating classes will only happen as long as the kids really want to improve their skating. If they're no longer interested in improving, well, that's what the public skating hours are for.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Hallelujah for the start of Thanksgiving break! Our local university has a week-long break, which means TWO WEEKENDS with no ballet for Syd--she needs this breather, poor kid. I had to remind her yesterday that all these rehearsals are just for a short time, just through performance weekend. She's still really excited about performing, of course, but she's definitely feeling the pressure--costume fittings, regular classes, long rehearsals, and practicing on her own every day. She's very aware of her responsibility, and being a perfectionist the way that she is, it's stressing her out. It's good for her, though, and helping her build a great work ethic.

Without ballet, then, our only weekend activities are Will's--aerial silks rehearsal on Saturday,and chess club on Sunday. And then a short week. And then a long weekend!