Day 70

Today we woke up to snow! So the kids went out to play in it and the day took a different shape.

Clare and Sean and Kieron started playing with Legos. This was so unusual that I just had to go with it. Clare ended up making a whole stop action film with her camera and the Legos. I think the film is based on the Magnificent Seven.

The younger three kids came in and out of the house, sledding and so on.

Sean did his Greek and Vocabulary. I had him do Math which turned out to be really difficult -- subtracting simultaneous equations. When I tried to help him I ran into problems too, for some reason.

Kevin spent the morning working on his model train -- it's his pattern to have seasons of hours and hours of work (when he's finalling a product; he is a computer game designer and a couple of months ago he was working basically 70 hours a week) and then some times during the beginning of a new product when he seems not to be working much at all directly on the game.

He's watching a video about model train building, too.

We can't go to our normal Stations and homeschool meeting, because of the snow and our car isn't winter-ready yet. If I get the motivation I may do some baking this afternoon because it warms up the kitchen (which is next to the garage and usually kind of cold and draughty in the winter) and makes the house feel even cozier. We have the fire blazing and I sat in front of it with the laptop and wrote out plans and other things.

A little later I am going to have Kieron do a bit of math (I am going to try previewing a chapter and its objectives ahead of time, since the Ignatian manual says that previews help build understanding). Also I will ask him about his recent reading, and show him the Jesse Tree ornaments, which I laminated and backed, and perhaps have him look through some of the craft books for ideas of what to do.

Kieron made waffles today, and I read to Paddy.

ETA: The younger four played outside in the snow for a loooong time. Clare finished her stop-action Lego movie and we saw the premiere and trailer ;-). I did the chapter preview for math with Kieron (he LOVED the idea of doing a summary ahead of time) and then he did some oral division problems (his fluency has improved). Then I had him do some curves and diagonal lines on paper, and we also looked at the Jesse tree symbols and we both tried to figure out what they stood for (then he went to consult the MacCaughrean book and told me what he found)

Brendan helped me fix a shelf today and is keeping the hearth stocked with logs.