The Rhythm of Our Days

Friday they went to a live performance of Sleeping Beauty at the OakRidge Children’s Playhouse. We also had lunch with friends and then got ice cream from Vladick at The Ice Cream Lab.

We got a light dusting of snow last night that remained this morning. It wasn’t much but it was “just enough” to lure the kids outside, after plates of warm buttermilk waffles, heavily padded with snow gear.

Firstborn: read This Country of Ours, about John Tyler taking over after Harrison’s short term. Rewrote a list of the presidents so far that we’ve gone over.

We used a neat resource Smallworld posted about for Grammar. Will be using this one and others like it often I think! We read a lesson on OWL (Perdue) on articles and he did an exercise on choosing “a” or “an”, he got half of them right. Next we did a Daily Grammar lesson on verbs. Easy stuff that is good review.

Our Island Story was about King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.

He finished Crispin this weekend (2nd book in a month and yes, that’s a record for books of this length!) and today wrote a short book report/narration on it.

Crispin, Cross of Lead, by Avi:

“This book was about a boy trying to gain freedom. My favorite thing was when Crispin rescues Bear. Something dangerous was rescuing Bear. At the end of this book Crispin is given his freedom. I like this book because of it’s danger, it’s excitement, and it’s wonder.”

Well, I’d like to know more myself but it sounds like he got the succint gist!

For geography we read about 3 other projection models and went over the countries of the world again. He read a story about a Mother Partridge in Wild Animals I Have Known and did a watercolor of a partridge.

He began Treasure Island and is also reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Treasure Island he is reading aloud to me.

We started a “Key to” on fractions, doing about 8 pages. He wrapped up with Lesson 12 in his latin book.

Sunshine: did lesson 13 in ETC 6. Almost done with that book! Worked on cursive letter “l” and various words using it.

She read the poem, “There Were Two Ghostesses”, copied it and did a picture narration.

She has zero interest right now in the history readings I was doing with her so I’m skipping them. Today we began Paddle-to-the-Sea. We read chapter one and she colored a map of the Canadian border/Great Lakes area.

We also are stopping The Princess Academy. It’s too hard to go at any decent speed. Switching instead to something else, yet to be decided.

W: free agent today unfortunately. This was definitely a day when there wasn’t enough of me to go around for much individual time.

RK: the coordinator came today to start the process for his speech and development evaluations. So nice that for this and the actual testing they come to the house! She felt sure he’ll qualify based on delay in the event that there is no MDown’s diagnosis, which would mean an automatic qualifying.

That’s the end of school though; a dinner guest is coming tonight with Dad so the rest of the afternoon will go to prep for that.

Yesterday we visited and went to church. The kids had tutoring with a new emphasis on math per my request.
Today started with retribution. The kids are getting into nightly games of hide and seek and flashlight tag and I guess last night W kept turning on the light during “hide and seek in the dark”, which frustrated Firstborn and Sunshine. So while he was sleeping they covered his face in red ink hearts.

Some people would find a prank like that funny. W would not. So the first order of the day was sentences:

“I will never do anything to disrespectful to someone’s face. And if something isn’t funny to everyone, it’s not funny.”

Onward.

Firstborn: wrote the above 15 times. We read about Harrison’s short presidency in This Country of Ours and the arrival of Arthur in Our Island Story. The artist we covered was Jan Vermeer. We looked at several of his paintings and talked about elements in them all; also read a short bio. Firstborn then painted a watercolor that was supposed to incorporate elements Vermeer used. The end result was “not so much” but I did like his use of perspective.

bad blur on photo is due to sticky stuff on the lens.

He worked on another Singapore placement test and I think we determined which level I need to get for him. Maybe. He’s not testing well. He understands concepts but not terms well and so he struggles to understand what the test is asking. Once explained, he often can solve the problem correctly. And we really need to get into fractions more.

A chapter in Crispin.

Sunshine: read a chapter in the Magic Treehouse book she’s been working on. A long hour was spent on a painful math placement test. Yikes. I know exactly how she feels and I’m without ideas on how to best help her.
W: read a chapter of The Boxcar Children with him.
RK: watercolored and made hand prints with Sunshine. We read several books this morning and after a recommendation on the Trisomy 21 board where I’ve been doing a little reading about how to help with speech delays, I ordered a DVD of Signing Time. I think all of the kids are going to find it interesting and hopefully it will help with the frustrations he has over not being able to communicate well. I’ve tried a few books on signing and we’ve had very limited success with them.

“Strewing” is something I’m stepping up a notch too. My very favorite items for strewing are Painless Learning Placemats. We have them on the table where we eat breakfast and do school and the kids love them. I’m glad there is such a large variety of them; I ordered a few more of them today and they still have some we can go onto next. They are good for rotating as well.

Yesterday I got National Geographic flashcards on state trivia, presidents, and spanish vocabulary. Every few days we’ll rotate them in a bowl I set in the middle of the table, letting them free-grab and explore as they want to. They usually do it the most when they are bored or when they notice something new is in there.

Firstborn: got started early, on his own, hoping it would lead to earlier game time. No Go ;-). But he selected his poem and did the first round of copy work. He has some bad habits with not capitalizing or spelling copy work correctly, and he botched th of the poem, so he redid it. “You Must n’t Swim” by Rudyard Kipling. We finished up the history reading on Martin Van Buren and went over the proper spelling (copy work again) of the first 8 presidents. We are slaughtering our rooster tonight so much onine time was spent looking at technique descriptions and pictures; it will be our first time to kill and clean a chicken. Tonight it’s this instead of Latin!
In Our Island Story, it was a fairy tale about the creation of Stonehenge that was commonly believed history for years. From there we watched a history.com video on Stonehenge and read some other articles about it; ultimately not finding the kind of documentary I wanted. While we were at history.com though, we watched an excerpt from MLK Jr’s. “I Have a Dream” speech.

And, because he thinks I’m making grammar rules up, I found the rule for capitalization that states, “Capitalize the first words and all important words in a title” and “let” him copy that four times. Little smarty pants some time I tell ya!

For Geography we continued in Goode’s Atlas, learning about Projectiong, covering Mercator, Conic, and Lambert Equal Area projection maps. Vocabulary terms that resulted were: latitude, longitude, parallel, and cylinder. He looked them up and copied their definitions. Then we went over the countries of the world, looking at continent maps.

He also began a placement test for Singapore math and played Multiflyer. We read another chapter in Wild Animals I Have Known, about Raggylug the Cottontail bunny, and about the evergreen trees in the swamp the rabbit lives in. Firstborn went and gathered pine branches, looked them up in the field guides and then did a watercolor of them in his nature journal. He read a chapter from Crispin.

Sunshine: watched the last tape of Pride and Prejudice so she could see Darcy’s proposal again. She did a chapter of Explode the Code. We read some of the Princess Academy and she worked on words, “solid, cheeriness, squeaky, barrel, supplies, and argued.”

W: All three kids watched six short videos on National Geographic on Octopus. I started W on Ambleside year 1 and read a myth about Neptune and the sea. His poem was Holding Hands by Lenore M. Link; he practiced writing the word “elephant” and drew a picture narration. He went over the consonant sounds and two-letter blends for review and we moved onto more site word practice.

They all had tutoring this afternoon.
RK: Sunshine colored with him during the morning hours and W played blocks with him. I read to him; he loves books with trains and chickens so we did those over a few times.

Thursday. Needing a hard house work day, I let them settle with movies this morning while I got started on a deep clean in their room. Firstborn though, used to the “computer after school” privilege, thought I meant to do school today and went and did it himself! Jaw droppin’ I tell ya.

He: read both history lessons, did a half hour of Multiflyer, selected a new Rudyard Kipling poem and copied it beautifully.

They all watched a documentary on Henry Ford. Firstborn read a chapter of Crispin; Sunshine read two chapters in the Magic Tree House book she’s on, and W went through site word flash cards.

After RK went down for a nap, we did a plaster/paint craft.

Halfway through, RK was up and ready to “help”.

Accidental versus Learning on Purpose (or something like that) at The Lilting House.

Ammendment to Monday: Firstborn also did Latin.

Tuesday we went visiting, to church, and the kids all had tutoring.

Today is Wednesday. Firstborn: History was President Andrew Jackson and “nullification”. Looked the word up in the dictionary afterward. Our Island Story was more on Rowena and Vortigern. Read about two Russian icons, Gabriel the Archangel and the Virgin from the Annunciation. Also read about St. Andrew, his cross, and his story. Read “The Anvil” by Rudyard Kipling and copied the first stansa. Need to work more on captalization, punctuation, and format in copy work. Worked Absurd Math games, finished Henry Huggins and wrote a book report.

Sunshine: did a chapter of Explode the Code, “oo” and “ea” words like “stooping” and “sweater”. Practiced cursive words. Painted animals.

Crying Cat:

W: painted animals. Practiced handwriting.

RK: sprinkled cinnamon around the kitchen. Played tractors. Found sticky maple syrup quite delightful. Learned to say, “cup”.

Firstborn: history was reading about Andrew Jackson and his use of “the Spoil System”. He typed his narration into photo paint and made some neat color details that I didn’t know he could do. Seems like “messy Washington” may have gotten a real good start in Old Hickory….From there we read Our Island story about how the Saxons came to be in Britain. Picture narration of that. New story for science: Wild Animals I Have Known, this first story about a cottontail bunny. From there looked Cottontail Rabbits up online, did a watercolor of one and listed it’s growth limitations and eating habits. Spent an hour working on Absurd Math games. For Geography we read the chapter on Map scale (alternating paragraphs),comparing different kinds of scale, and going over the countries of the world. He’s wrapping up the day with a chapter of Henry Huggins and more math games. Probably Rune Scape after that.
Sunshine: cursive practice. History was about Edward, who came after his father Henry VIII. She wasn’t as interested as this moved more into the religious strains of the time and less into so many marriages and beheadings! She did a picture narration of the Reformation Oak and not surprisingly, showed the hangings that occurred from it’s branches. She kind of missed the point I think…….

She did a chapter of Explode the Code, “ea” words. We finished chapter One of The Princess Academy and she got excited realizing that the plot was thickening! Her list of words to work on include: coarse, ignorant, pronounced, guessed, and delicate.  We reviewed the continents, oceans, and countries of the world. She worked on several multiplication pages for math after just about busting out in tears when I told her I hadn’t planned on math today. She wants to work on Money Math online later.

W: reading a chapter of The Boxcar Children and going over some handwriting. He’s watercolored and spent hours splashing in puddles today.

RK: sigh. We need a lock for the laundry room door now, as he has learned to scale Mt. Laundry to reach the medications. He scented the kitchen with red wine vinegar when another someone left it out and the top loose. I’ll pretend I made pickles….He had fun watercoloring today.

Yesterday we were out visiting. The snow had all melted while were away so I was glad we lived in the “now” during the morning hours and they got lots of time to play in it while it was here. By afternoon they were cozy with movies while I tucked in bed and waited for my migraine to pass.

Today it was back to the routine. And not so smoothly….we are getting things done but it can be VERY hard to get four little people to cooperate. I’ve been trying to work with two while a third plays with R.K….he pretty much has to be occupied constructively at all times or there is serious mischief. Today it was butter streaked across the couch. They don’t always want to help with him, nor do they want “baby relief” just so they can get to the hard work of learning.

Firstborn: Today is the feast of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Frustratingly, there is little biographical information online about him and even less that is written so as to be read by children. Story is most important here, not a litany of dates and places. We looked up Cappadocia on the map, which is modern day Turkey, and pulled the best from 3 sites that I could gather. From there we moved onward to his history, which was the story of St. Alban, the first martyr in Britain. We read his story from Our Island Story (which is strongly protestant, with some sentences here and there that almost sound manipulatingly so considering the reformation had not even happened yet and was only in it’s beginning stages with Luther). We looked up the cathedral built where the martyrdom took place and Firstborn was especially interested in their bells. This Country of Ours focused on President Monroe, the Missouri Compromise, and The Monroe Doctrine. He did a picture narration of St. Alban and a written narration for the others, which later he rewrote with the spelling/grammar corrections in place. Continuing on with the poetry of Rudyard Kipling, today we read “Mandalay”, looked some stuff up online for photos of the area in Burma, and he did a picture narration of the poem. We wrapped up with a chapter of Henry Huggins.

Sunshine: was part of the St. Gregory of Nyssa stuff. Her chapter of Our Island story (why are they not in the same place?!) covered Henry VIII and his 6 wives. Her picture narration is rather cute I think….

She did a chapter of Explode the Code 6 and learned “t’s” in cursive. We read more in The Princess Academy and did a list of vocabulary words. (mutton, untangled, acknowledged, prettiest, anxious, and urgency). Copy work was the poem “Trees” by Sarah Coleridge and she did a picture narration of that as well. She spent the afternoon coloring a poster, working on her horse paint-by-number, and spending some time outside in the sun.

W: oh, you stinker! Many, many meltdowns today. He spent much of the morning playing with RK or trying to get out of playing with RK! They did everything from blocks to trains to tents and back again. His poem was “The Cat of Cats” by William Brighty Rands but when I tried to get him to a picture narration, he just broke out in frustrated screams and sobs. It’s hard for him to reduce anything to a one-picture idea. So after a Lunch Break I read it to him again and this time I did the drawing at his direction. And then he colored it in. Progress a little I think anyway. We practiced his phonics words and he wrote a bunch of them out. Math was counting by 10’s and some Singpore Math problems dividing groups of tens and ones. In between phonics and math, he tried to hide in the cabinet….

RK: playing with blocks, tents, trains, smearing butter, climbing on the counter, sneaking outside, and watching Thomas the Train wore the smucker out. Nap time was bliss!

Firstborn: started geography with him today with Goode’s Atlas. Pulled several vocabulary terms from the text in the beginning of the book; got him talking about cartography. Read about Druids in Britain and the war between America and Britain at the Canadian border in history. Spent time looking up vocab terms. Played several math games on line and also more RuneScape. A chapter in Henry Huggins. He goes back to tutoring this afternoon.

Sunshine: Read more from The Princess Academy, she and I alternating paragraphs. Pulled spelling words from the reading. Practiced those three times. Worked on her cursive; she is struggling with going backwards. Learning cursive has been good for both she and Firstborn with their letter reversals but they both at first try to do the same thing with cursive letters until the links force their hand to go the other way. She spent a long time with an online game that gives the amount of money paid, the cost of the item, has the child figure the change due, and then the make up of coinage to reach the amount. She also worked with subtraction and borrowing with this. She also has tutoring this afternoon.

W: read 3 letter words, played blocks with RK, played in the ditch outside, and has tutoring today. He’s been begging to do some written work so I’ll sit down with him for awhile after dinner while Dad works with Firstborn on his Latin.

RK: got into the cinnamon again today…..seems nervous about my attempts to wean him and he’s not at all in favor of the idea.  Will walk with him in the glorious sunshine while the kids are at tutoring, so thankful for the resplendent day and God’s good mercies upon us!

What a pleasant day this has been! All the hard work I had to do on other tasks this week really tapered off, I was able to get up early, start the day well, and peacefully go through the morning, spending a good amount of time with each child. Love it when that happens!

Firstborn: Can I say how much we are loving Ambelside??? And today we found Mater Amabilis, from a link on the Lilting House, and so there’s more Charlotte Mason goodies to explore. Firstborn is really enjoying This Country of Ours, and Our Island Story and it reminded me that I need to buy the 4th CD book of The Story of the World for him pronto. He loves to listen to those as he goes to bed and he knows a ton of history as a result. We are focusing more on “read and narrate” and it’s working well for him to do a chapter, narrate, then go do something else, like rollerblade, then come back to another chapter. On the Living Math site we found some games from the BBC that he spent a good hour with, tiding us over until we get the rest of the math curriculum. I read him Rudyard Kipling’s biography and we read one poem, Gunga Din, and he did some copy work from that. He loves all the Kipling stories he’s been introduced to and he likes poetry so this was a fun task! We also looked at a few sites and videos on Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, referenced in his history reading. He’s recently discovered the online game, Rune Scape and has been playing that quite a bit after school time.

Sunshine: started her on Ambleside year 3 today. Her narration of the history reading: “someone died, someone became king, they fought with France, and someone died.” Yeah, history isn’t really her thing! We are reading her christmas book, The Princess Academy, she and I alternating paragraphs. She had a nice list of vocabulary words from the first chapter, “anxious, anticipation, stomach, hearth, bleating, etc.” It’s nice to see her comprehend what she reads better too. A vast improvement from just a day ago when I was stumped at how to get her off Dr. Suess! She’s done a bit with playdough and her brother, did a lesson in ETC, some cursive practice, and later will have some math.

W: He’s the big news today!!! He can READ!!!! I call “reading” the ability to look at a three letter word and not painfully sound out each syllable. He can look at the word and quickly say it and is ready now for some site word practice and more advanced blends. He is the first of our children to get to this step at this age too; our first two were a bit “late” to read. He is so excited!!! We started The Boxcar Children today and he wanted me to read 5 chapters…very rapt attention for one who struggles to sit still, even when I read to him. He played some BBC math games as well and later today I want to sit and do some map work with him.

RK: Having a slower day so far! He loves, loves, loves to be read to and he got a new book in the mail today: Mrs. Wishy Washy. It also has a cow, pig, and duck in it which made it a “keeper” in his eyes! If it stops raining I may get him out to splash in some puddles.

Tonight we attend the Vigil of the Theophany. A new service for us and one we are happily anticipating.