8 am
- I woke up and did my morning chores. It’s Monday so I do some extra picking up and putting away after the weekend (Sunday is a day of NO housework and it doesn’t take long to trash the place).
9 am
- I worked on some high school plans for Clare who is a junior.
- While I was on there I quickly checked a few blogs but managed to get off quickly (I’ve written about my internet resolutions on my other blog).
- Everyone was doing their weekly housekeeping jobs since it’s a Monday.
- Since it is SEAN’S BIRTHDAY, he gets a holiday.
10 am
I worked on some more visual schedules.
- My Daily Routine in Pictures.
- Aidan and Paddy’s Bedtime Routine (the morning routine will be very similar; these are to cut up and laminate to put them on boards with velcro)
- Icons for Subjects (this one has blanks beside each picture so I can jot down various notes for what I want to do or we are doing for various subject areas)
Also:
- I tidied up the master bedroom
- Kieron did Quia Math and Latin, and for history and religion he looked at Veritas Press cards — I can’t find a direct link to them right now but here is a website that talks about them. We discussed them a bit, particularly the one where “Rome Conquers Egypt”
11 am
- The kids start their “free day”.
- Clare working and listening to Irish freedom songs by the Clancy Brothers.
- I worked on reading with Aidan. This was his idea since he found 100 Easy Lessons and wanted to work on it. It moved into sort of a Charlotte Mason type reading lesson. I put words on cards and asked him “which is….”, following the Montessori three-period lesson type format. Once he got the hang of it, he enjoyed it, but is guessing a bit too much; I am thinking he is not really getting the hang of the reading thing. However, it was fun and we worked for about 20 minutes.
- Then I went on a hunt for resources in my curriculum boxes, and found a few:
- Greenleaf Old Testament Guide (which was what I was looking for)
- History of the Sword, a Dover coloring book
- Favorite Poems for Children, a Dover coloring book, which might be useful for Aidan
- Usborne Time Traveller activity book.
noon
- Lunch
- I weighed and measured everyone I could find who would cooperate. Found the two teen boys have gained some weight — very good since they are almost 6 feet tall and were weighing in the 100-teens — they needed the weight. Maybe those protein shakes every day have helped?
- I took a bath then Aidan had one.
1 pm
- I straightened my curriculum closet and got rid of and reorganized some things. Monday is my day to ease gradually back into the week’s routine and get things set up for the rest of the week.
- We went to the library and to the market to buy a few things for Sean’s birthday.
2 pm
- I made fries for Sean
- A bit more organizing.
- Clare and the boys were watching Yankee Doodle Dandy. Sean and Kieron went off with Kevin to walk to the Post Office, about a 2 mile walk. Kieron didn’t really want to go, but Kevin thinks his pre-teen plumpness is getting a bit too much and he could use a bit more exercise. So they were gone for about an hour.
- Clare and Brendan and I had a conversation about politics, mostly stem cell research funding issues since Michael J Fox was the narrator of the YDD documentary piece.
3 pm
- When they got back from the post office, Sean and Aidan and Kevin went out to play catch.
- Then they resumed Yankee Doodle Dandy.
- I said a Chaplet and tried to take a little nap, but didn’t get very far. I read a couple of stories to Paddy and we played for a little while.
4 pm
- I made a cake for Sean’s celebration.
- Aidan kept asking me to come outside and finally Kevin went out to check on him and found him chipping away at the ice on our driveway with the shovel. He’d actually made some progress and was very proud. “Take a picture!” Kevin brought out the maul he uses to split logs and helped Aidan smash up some of the ice, but it was really too cold to be worth doing, so we encouraged Aidan to come in and help with the cake.
- I sat by the fire for a few minutes while Clare listened to Les Miserables in the kitchen. We talked a little bit comparing and contrasting the different versions we’ve heard.
6 pm
- Dinner — tacos, Sean’s favorite.
- I went to wrap Sean’s presents!
7pm
- Aidan was in the bath; he’d run one for himself. I worked a little on planning homeschool things for Sean. (who has now finished reading Between the Forest and the Hills; I don’t think he liked it quite as much as the other two he read last week)
- After Aidan got out we had our little birthday celebration.
8 pm
- Listened to Toy Caldwell and Janis Joplin with Kevin on You Tube while the kids played; Sean was letting Aidan and Paddy play with the remote control trucks his Grandma gave him for his birthday. Wow, Toy Caldwell is a great guitar player. Funny how it is mostly only Kevin and sometimes me who listens to rock n roll in this family; the kids seem to prefer things ranging from Gregorian Chant through Mozart up to about Frank Sinatra and the Clancy Brothers and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and hardly anyone past that.
- Started getting the little ones reading for bed, read to Paddy for a long time from a Richard Scarry omnibus book, then said the Rosary and Catena Legionis.
- The older kids are watching Phantom Menace. Lots of screen time today, even more than usual with “free day”, but also, there were various other things in between.
