Stuff we did!
We played with slime and putty! I will admit, here and now, that I do not understand slime. I mean, playdough you can play with, but slime is just this gross goop that does nothing. And it looks like mucus. And it's incredibly expensive. I dunno. I don't get it. But anyway, my children had never played with slime before so I picked some up just to say we'd experienced it. Shudder. The putty was no better, although it was even more expensive, made a rude noise when you squeezed it, and was slightly less mucous-like. I have looked and can't find pictures online of whatever brands we bought (the slime was glow-in-the-dark and the putty was 'galaxy' coloured). Kids are gross. The end.
We listened to audio stories from Adventures In Odyssey! (The children got volume...46? I think? as an early gift). Audio stories just make the drives so much faster.
We started forcing bulbs in the kitchen! At the end of the summer I let the hyacinths naturally dry up and lose their leaves, and then I wrapped them in newspaper and stuck them in the back of a crisper drawer in the fridge. Last week I took them out and let them warm up on the counter. And now I've put them in a shallow dish with water on the table. We're talking a lot about bulbs!
The 7yo got onto a hand-sewing-cloth-bags kick, so she spent a lot of time doing that.
The 5yo wanted to practice writing out all of her letters and numbers. She filled pages and pages with these. We took the opportunity to review the first 30 lessons of Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
The 5yo got a Prodigy math account set up and I reviewed the children's math work - they're doing well! They all got to play math games on the computer this week.
Places we went!
- The 7yo had a dentist appointment, the 9yo had a piano lesson, and on the Wednesday we welcomed my mother for a respite visit.
- We went on a nature walk and discussed our Advent reading about rabbits, how quickly the snow dissolved when you breathed on it, and how to camouflage yourself in the winter.
"I wonder why those mourning doves are in such a big flock
but some are in one tree and some are in another.
I wonder if the ones up in the tall tree are lookouts
for the ones in the spruce, who can't see as well.
What do you all think?"
- We practiced our graphing by going to a restaurant and recording how many people came in or out wearing a hat, a hood, or having just a bare head. This book is great for those sorts of hands-on math outings, if you need suggestions for things to do outside of the house in a mathy way.
We had a dr. appointment, shoveled snow for ourselves and neighbours, went to the hardware store to buy a new windshield wiper and install it on the car, cleaned the house together, went to a Christmas party and made crafts there, returned our library books and took our some new ones, cooked...
Books we read!
We finished this one as a group read-aloud (see my review of it here):
And the 9yo and I continued on with this one:
New group read-aloud was started!
Advent read alouds, various other read alouds, books in general...
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| We read about ancient Australian Aboriginal culture, the history of the Maori diaspora, and the Frankish peoples united under Clovis. |
Conversations we had!
What are the pros and cons of graphic novels versus completely print novels? What are the differences between comics and graphic novels? That hot foods are common in hot countries because they make you sweat when you eat, which cools you off. Electrons, protons, neutrons, and the Large Hadron Collider. How the atomic bomb worked. If 'c' and 'k' and 'ck' (and others) all make the same sound, why have that many options?
"Mama, the colour white absorbs less heat than other colours!"
"Hey Mom! So assuming you had been born with a hole IN your head, and someone could reach in and touch your brain, did you know that you couldn't feel that? Because the brain doesn't have nerve receptors!"
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