Day 19

The routine didn't go quite as usual today. This seems to happen just about 2 or 3 weeks into a term, and I am trying to plan for it and have some different activities ready so that we don't get that "horse in a mill" feeling.

I gave Kieron some more of the Eyewitness books to choose from and he wanted to read them all, so he started with Amazing Poisonous Animals, which again inspired quite a lot of factoid-sharing. He also asked me, "When are you going to assign the second Once Upon a Time Saints?" so of course, I didn't object to him starting it now.

He did the continent labeling, and we worked on addition for a few minutes -- he is rusty and needs some review, so we will progress through that slowly. We worked on Latin but I don't think he got to Greek or anything else. Still, it seemed like an active learning day.

Sean did Greek and Vocabulary, the continent IDing, and started reading an Earth Science text. Since he may go to school next year, I want him to learn a few text-type study skills and so we will do about half the book, skipping the more speculative stuff about paleontology and how to help our ecology. The rest of his science will be MODG's Natural History.

(By the way, I have enrolled him with Kolbe Academy so he will have a more official-looking transcript next year -- just to streamline things a bit if it's necessary. Kolbe lets you design your own program if you want, so it's pretty compatible with how we do things).

I did some phonics with Aidan and Paddy from 100EZ lessons and Little Angel Readers. My plan for today was to bring out the watercolors for them, and I did it! hooray! (this homeschooling mom would rather spend an hour tutoring algebra than collect and supervise an artistic event for preschoolers --sigh). They had so much fun, and for once I didn't get a headache. They drew letters on their pages and had fun mixing colors.

I was also making a cake and so Aidan, as is his habit nowadays, wanted me to mix up a flour and water dough so he could "make a cake" too.

Note: (the Waldorf articles Elizabeth linked to here were really interesting -- still thinking about immersion as opposed to scattering all over the curriculum, which frustrated me a bit last year with a more pure Charlotte Mason style. When I have more time -- read, when Aidan is not trying to turn off my monitor -- I want to Google "Main Lesson Book" for Images -- and maybe "Waldorf Good Books" because one of the articles called them this).

Then we went to the beach. We are celebrating Talk Like a Pirate Day ( a day late because Sean had to go to the doctor yesterday) and so Clare wanted to take some photos of all the pirates in the house. Fortunately no one else was at the beach, or they would have wondered, I'm sure. The cake is for Pirates Day -- Clare frosted it and put a skull and crossbones in M&Ms on it. I am sure she will be uploading pics on her blog soon and so I'll provide a link later).

I put some pictures here.

The weather was great for a nature visit to the beach -- Aidan was distraught at first because he didn't understand why we can't swim when it's 55 degrees and almost raining. But there are rocks to clamber over and they ended up having a lot of fun.

Sean's initial rehab involves stretching many times a day and he has been reluctant -- still feeling lots of pain. But the muscle tear is healed, thank God. He was demonstrating a hamstring pull with a rubber band ;-).

Kieron andPaddy are playing a Dragon and Bionicle game, and Aidan has learned to use his little scooter (bilateral motor skills!) and keeps coming up to me saying, "HII!!! I really missed you while I was in Alaska!!"