Day 104

Kieron

• Bible & Creed Creed in Slow Motion, started chapter 11
• Poetry: Tennyson
• Math chapter 15.1 – negative numbers
• Language Arts Latin p 58
• Artist study wanderer above the mists
• History: This Country of Ours chapter 54 – war in Canada -- narrated and discussed
  
• Exercise or play with guys
• Johny Tremain -- didn't do that because I had phone calls to make, he read GWW and narrated instead
• 2-15 min clean
• Literature: Robinson Crusoe chapter 5 -- narrated
• outdoors went out for a few minutes with siblings

Didn't get to:

• Science: Lab or Research
• recorder

(the day was already feeling a bit packed -- and he did science stuff earlier in the week when he did some magnet projects Brendan decluttered from his closet).

He did quite well on the narrations today and seems to accept the value... so far... I have been having him compare his retention of the readings he DOES narrate, compared with the ones he doesn't.

The first Art Study went well -- I like this artist's mountain pictures, they remind me of Albert Bierstadt's. We looked at it for a bit and he commented spontaneously. He seems to have the kind of mind that does well "dwelling" on something. A more contemplative mindset? I have been trying to narrate after readings myself and I have trouble, so I understand why he finds it difficult.

Paddy

• We are reading Lightfoot the Deer now, having finished Jimmy Skunk.
• I had him draw BIG S's tracing over mine, on construction paper with markers -- this he did much better.

Aidan

• typed and printed out some numbers
• worked on word cards a bit.
• He's going to a PT/OT eval later today.

Day 103

Kieron

• Bible & Creed --remainder of chapter 10 -- discussed
• Poetry: Tennyson --
• Math --Chapter 14.4
• Language Arts --Latin -- adjectives
• Science:The Boy Scientist --did lab instead – magnets
• Ways of the Wood Folk---Merganser Duck -- narrated a portion
• George Washington's World -- Phillis Wheatley, and George and Mary Washington
• Exercised while listening to Johny Tremain
• 2-15 min clean
• Literature: Robinson Crusoe -- chapter 4 -- narrated a portion
• In addition, we read chapter 53 of This Country of Ours, on Bunker Hill, and discussed and narrated.

What we didn't get to (I'm going to start mentioning that because it seems to help me think):

• Outdoors -- didn't get outside -- icy and miserable out there. Maybe I should have us just go out for 10 minutes -- start small just to breathe the air and get a feeling for the weather? (but that will mean I can't be a wimp!)
  
• piano -- didn't get to that

He narrated George Washington's World but not very well. On the other hand his narration of Bunker Hill was pretty good. Obviously we're still adjusting. We talked a bit about retention strategies, like making a visual image in the mind, and also reflecting a bit while reading to check one's attention status (these are things I got from reading that book about the Right Brained Learner -- I don't remember the exact title -- and also there is a list of reading strategies here, and these in PDF and a list of others). He has been very agreeable, not arguing, but sometimes making excuses for not paying much attention. I have become more aware of the natural noise level around here -- it's true, it is challenging for him to focus with everything going on around him.

Paddy --

I read him Cincinnatus from 50 Famous Stories. I asked him to tell what it was about and he said, "He was a king for 16 days" (which was the last sentence of the story). Other than that, he was fairly vague. That was a tough choice for a beginner narration though, since it was 3 or 4 pages long.

We finished reading Jimmy Skunk. He certainly loves to listen to stories and brings a book every time I sit down.

I read a couple of poems from A Child's Garden of Verses. I found a more general anthology of poetry for young children and am going to use that sometimes since I have to admit I am not particularly fond of RLS's Child's Garden. I am very sure it is me and not him, but it's hard for me to read them to Paddy when I don't really care much for reading them. Right now I've started just skipping through the book and having him look at the pictures and then listen to the ones I prefer of the lot.

We worked a bit on math. He can add two 2-digit numbers in his head. And he likes picture stories with his math.

We tried to do "S's" in HWT but he had a lot of trouble. If anything he seems to be worse than he used to be.

Aidan

We worked a bit on adding and recognizing larger numbers. He listened in to some of Jimmy Skunk. Maybe by the time we get to Year 1 with him it will already have a bit of familiarity -- that would be nice.

Day 102

We didn't get to history or religion today. I was talking to the older kids and the younger boys were enraptured by all the things Brendan brought out of his closet and handed off to them (every Lent he goes through his old treasures and discards what he can bear to part with, and this year it was some old Star Wars lego sets and some Lord of the Ring figurines). So I had Kieron do his independent work -- Math, Latin, Poetry, Science, Bulfinch's Mythology.

He took photos of Brendan's old treasures so I could have them as a keepsake (seeing the old things makes me feel sad remembering the days when he was that young) and also kept the little ones entertained while I worked on decluttering.

Paddy and I finished reading Old Man Coyote and started reading Jimmy Skunk together.

Day 101

If you look on the sidebar you can see Kieron's weekly schedule. Monday's a light day -- we save it for catch-up and for errand running and housecleaning. So besides cleaning and going to the library, he did most everything on there.

• Chores (dishwasher, room)
• Poetry: Tennyson --In Memoriam (part), and one other
• Math (computer) ---That Quiz -- place value
• Language Arts --talked about narration; copywork
• Nature Study --listened to coyote, loon and fox on youtube
• History: GWW --Frederick the Great, George III -- narrated
• Weekly House --Pick up, wipe
• Library and market

With Paddy, over the weekend I read How the Whale Got His Throat (from the Just So Stories), plus a bunch of stories from the Collier Junior Classics. We finished Mrs Peter Rabbit and are now started on Old Man Coyote.

Aidan did a few more "reading lessons" with his Spell to Read and Write cards and with me writing down a story he told. Aidan also did a bit of math from a first grade workbook.

I forgot to mention last week that we played a lot of card games -- UNO and Go Fish and a few hands of poker. ... the three younger boys and me.

The main habits we've been working on are using nice voices and picking up/cleaning up after selves. Still a ways to go.

Day 99 -- time with Paddy

I didn't log yesterday but Kieron completed pretty much everything on his list. Paddy didn't do any academics yesterday -- but today we had a nice little learning time together.

First he did a bit of handwriting and read some of the pages (from Handwriting without Tears). Then he asked to do math. We worked on several pages -- he chose the 100's. He made up a game to do with the robots illustrating the page -- the numbers were their scores so he rated them from weakest to strongest. Basically he is pretty much able to do anything in the MCP Math A book so when we take it out it's just a matter of choosing the ones he wants to do and talking about what it is about.

Then I brought out the Parables from Nature -- a Lesson of Faith. I had been dreading reading this. I first printed out the Parables several years ago during one of my earlier essays into Ambleside, but I'd always skimmed through it and been put off by the rather feminine and Victorian tone of the writing. I thought it would put my bionicle- and -Sonic- aficianado boys off and that it would be embarrassing to read aloud. But I read it and he got that hush that he gets when he is deeply interested. So my skills at predicting what will absorb my kids are not that great -- which is one of my weaknesses when I am trying to unschool. (but on the other hand, it was unschooling that taught me to try things and not be overly invested in whether they "took" or not).

He didn't narrate, but we were talking as we read and I realized he didn't know much about the caterpillar to butterfly process. Then I remembered that I had a caterpillar book in the Stopwatch series I have been reading to him. Butterfly and Caterpillar. To my delight, it is about the exact same cabbage butterfly that was in the parable. So we read it and made comparisons between the facts in the parable and the science in the actual book. Later I found the book beside his empty plate which means he was rereading it while he ate. I thought that was cool -- a natural little mini-unit. And I'm delighted that he was so interested in the little parable.

This is what I'm finding nice about Ambleside. It suits the way we tend to approach things around here. When I do a unit it takes a lot of planning, which I'm not that good at because of my difficulty in decision-making and frameworking, and sometimes I lose interest along the way, or the kids do. And I usually overdo it by gathering too much and then get stressed about deciding between them. But these spontaneous connections and the minimum of good quality readings are just delightful. So, a nice day. I am sure they won't all be like that but when there are some it usually means we are doing someething right!

Day 97

Kieron

• Another page of Plutarch -- Romulus
• 1 chapter of Johny Tremain while exercising
• George Washington's World
• Tennyson -- Sea Fairies
• Tales from Shakespeare -- Winter's Tale
• Math on Computer (Algebra)
• Weekly Jobs
• We discussed Romulus, and he narrated GWW and AWT

Paddy

• Reading (Henry and Mudge go to the Sea, other incidental reading)
• MCP Math A -- I was going to have him do a page of addition but instead he did a whole bunch of pages through the book -- I'm not really sure if there's much in there he doesn't know.
• Computer Addition -- a fishing game -- he made it through all three levels with only a bit of help from Kieron.
• Island Story -- chapter 2, Coming of the Romans -- he was a bit distracted.
• Bible Story -- Tower of Babel -- read and discussed.
• Paddle to the Sea -- 3 chapters since we were at an exciting part
• 2 more Aesop's Fables

Aidan

• all this weekend and today he has been working on the SWR flash cards I made for him and has actually mastered several of them. He really enjoys doing these.
• He worked on the orange Miquon Math book
• He had a "reading lesson" where I wrote out a story and we read it.
• Aidan and Paddy both worked on typing in all the words from the VTech phonics board and I printed out their accomplishment.

Today we went to the library and got "Babe". I was telling Paddy about it after we read about Moses the Kitten and how he was brought up by pigs. So Kieron said our little library had it and he had never watched it, so they are watching it now since it is rainy and slushy outside.

Also, I did a lot of reading aloud to Paddy this weekend:

• Toads and Diamonds by Charles Perrault
• The Swan Maiden by Howard Pyle
• Snow White and Rose Red by the Grimm Brothers
• Adventures of Pinocchio (an excerpt)
• A Bird Came Downt he Walk (by Emily Dickinson)
• Bingo has an Enemy (a short poem)
• The Blind Men and the Elephant (the version in rhyme)
• The Thief of Cathay
• A child's book of Old Testaments stories
• Nursery rhymes
• Sylvester and the Magic Pebbles
• Let's Talk About.... Disobeying (I've read this to him several times).