Daily Log
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!
