Sunday, Sept. 21st -
We spent the day in church. It was my first morning teaching the adult Sunday School class so I was running around scattering Bibles and pens and bit of paper and trying to debate how to explain the Apocrypha to an unknown number of adults with unknown Christian education backgrounds. The children sat through most of the service and then afterwards sat in the hall, colouring Bible pictures. After church there was nap, during which I listened to the eldest playing 'church' in his room. His theology is coming along pretty well, and all of a sudden he'll launch out into something totally heretical and hilarious. We followed David to the nursing home service and played at the park and talked about wild mushrooms and whether there are trolls living under bridges.
Monday, Sept. 22nd -
S went on errands with David and on their walk they discussed numbers and what plumbers do. Once he got home we tried more numbers again - there seems to be some difficulty with his understanding of the difference between a number and a letter. I'd ask him to draw an animal with a certain number of legs and we'd count them (an octopus with 8, etc.) Then he practiced drawing shapes.
After table work we sat and read a book about dragons and then the two oldest went outside and built a huge fort in the backyard while I tried to figure out what we were doing about S's physical activity for the fall. We did soccer this summer, but I was disappointed in it. Swimming was on the schedule for the fall but now that may not happen, and regardless of whether it does or not I still need to figure out what we're doing over the winter so now I'm calling arenas and community centres and hoping that somehow something will fit into our schedule.
There is nap time for C, and quiet time for S, who plays with Lego in his room and, when asked, tells me that he is making Batman tools . David pops in to tell me that the Operation Christmas Child kick-off is this Saturday at the same time as the church-wide auction, which reminds me that I'm supposed to be baking for this auction. He also tells me that the congregation members who are moving auction items from our garage are arriving TWICE on Wed., not once, so I need to be here, with occupied children, for the entire afternoon. And then he goes outside to pack away the barbecue and throw out the tent the children have destroyed over the summer.
In the afternoon we work around the house and watch Victorian Farm.
Tuesday, Sept. 23rd -
I had to funnel prayer requests to prayer chains this morning, so the children were all ignored and given large amounts of dip to consume on the upholstered furniture. Super fun for all. They watched educational cartoons - The Cat In The Hat episode about pandas and a math show. Then David took them to the library for story time and a craft, which turned out not to be going on so he took them to the grocery store instead. The rest of the day sort of disintegrated in terms of education.
Wednesday, Sept. 24th -
The children watched a Cat In The Hat show about hibernation and then played outside in the morning; S came in to show me how spruce branches are prickly if you stroke them one way and smooth another, so we had a discussion about angles. Then everyone trooped in to work on a puzzle about fish, which was interrupted by a trip to the grocery store - we also started practicing tying our shoes today.
I hoped to talk about numbers and colours at the store but the kids were waaay too crazy. After the groceries David had the morning Bible study group at the church, which we joined him for - S did a match-up alphabet game and coloured pictures. After lunch everyone rested, somehow...kind of. I had a number tracing page for S to work on ready to go if the noise level got too much in his room and I did some curriculum planning work. I went to get a book on spruce out of the big box of homeschool non-fiction (to follow up with the conversation we had had in the morning), but ended up finding a nature book that got Sl interested in fossils and sea cucumbers - so we got to talk about how fossils are made. And then he found a book on making castles. That was pretty much the end of anything schoolish.
Thursday, Sept. 25th
The children watched a National Geographic kids show on Australia while I tried to wrap my head around the day, but they didn't like it and refused to sit for it so instead I gave C a chore and S sat down with his workbook for about an hour - he did a lot of work on numbers, colours and shapes and then started alphabet work. I was amazed by how great he was at his first lesson on left and right, but he had a lot of trouble understanding simple patterns so we skipped that and will revisit it sometime later.
I was gone for the rest of the morning and exhausted and working on housework for the afternoon, but knowing how much book work we'd done made me feel okay about not doing a lot of other school today.
Friday, Sept. 26th
We did nothing today. Really. I was overwhelmed with church things.
Saturday, Sept. 27th
Today was the big auction, and I had a lot to do so S was on his own for a lot of school stuff. I had him come with me to the grocery store and on the way we played a 'matching colours' game he made up, and we talked about how God created people and looked at footprints and revisited the idea of rocks eroding after contact with water.
Tuesday, Sept. 23rd -
I had to funnel prayer requests to prayer chains this morning, so the children were all ignored and given large amounts of dip to consume on the upholstered furniture. Super fun for all. They watched educational cartoons - The Cat In The Hat episode about pandas and a math show. Then David took them to the library for story time and a craft, which turned out not to be going on so he took them to the grocery store instead. The rest of the day sort of disintegrated in terms of education.
Wednesday, Sept. 24th -
The children watched a Cat In The Hat show about hibernation and then played outside in the morning; S came in to show me how spruce branches are prickly if you stroke them one way and smooth another, so we had a discussion about angles. Then everyone trooped in to work on a puzzle about fish, which was interrupted by a trip to the grocery store - we also started practicing tying our shoes today.
I hoped to talk about numbers and colours at the store but the kids were waaay too crazy. After the groceries David had the morning Bible study group at the church, which we joined him for - S did a match-up alphabet game and coloured pictures. After lunch everyone rested, somehow...kind of. I had a number tracing page for S to work on ready to go if the noise level got too much in his room and I did some curriculum planning work. I went to get a book on spruce out of the big box of homeschool non-fiction (to follow up with the conversation we had had in the morning), but ended up finding a nature book that got Sl interested in fossils and sea cucumbers - so we got to talk about how fossils are made. And then he found a book on making castles. That was pretty much the end of anything schoolish.
Thursday, Sept. 25th
The children watched a National Geographic kids show on Australia while I tried to wrap my head around the day, but they didn't like it and refused to sit for it so instead I gave C a chore and S sat down with his workbook for about an hour - he did a lot of work on numbers, colours and shapes and then started alphabet work. I was amazed by how great he was at his first lesson on left and right, but he had a lot of trouble understanding simple patterns so we skipped that and will revisit it sometime later.
I was gone for the rest of the morning and exhausted and working on housework for the afternoon, but knowing how much book work we'd done made me feel okay about not doing a lot of other school today.
Friday, Sept. 26th
We did nothing today. Really. I was overwhelmed with church things.
Saturday, Sept. 27th
Today was the big auction, and I had a lot to do so S was on his own for a lot of school stuff. I had him come with me to the grocery store and on the way we played a 'matching colours' game he made up, and we talked about how God created people and looked at footprints and revisited the idea of rocks eroding after contact with water.
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