This year I read 70 books, which is up from my total of 62 in 2017! I try to beat my own personal best of the year before, but of course the danger of doing especially well is that the following year you have to best it. 2019 will be the year of 71 books!
Here's the breakdown:
18 fiction
22 non fiction
1 play
1 book of poetry
28 children's books.
I count books I read aloud in the car to the family, books I read on my own, those I read aloud to the children at bedtime, and if I used Audible (I don't, but not for any particular reason) I would count those as well. If I start a book, and don't finish it, I don't count it. Even if there is only a page or two left. However, I can count those books on the next year's list. I use my own common sense with children's books - I will count The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, but I will not count Mr. Putter and Tabby Bake A Cake - even though 'technically' it has chapters. A book has to be somewhat substantial for its genre. To this end I do not count long essays in my yearly total - although I do write them down on my list for my own records.
Of the 28 children's books:
2 of them I read aloud in the car (I actually read three books in the car this year, but only two were recorded as 'children's' books):
More About Paddington
Abel's Island
18 of them I read aloud to the children:
The Family Under The Bridge
Ballet Shoes
When My Naughty Little Sister Was Good
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Poppy
Stories From Grandma's Attic
More Stories From Grandma's Attic
The Four-Story Mistake
Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case
Twenty and Ten
The Doll People
Catwings
Catwings Return
The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook
Pippi Longstocking
Book Scavenger
Mr. Popper's Penguins
8 of them are children's books that I read on my own:
Catherine, Called Birdy
Moominvalley In November
Island Of The Blue Dolphins
Every Living Thing
The Gift of the Pirate Queen
Shoeshine Girl
Everything on a Waffle
The Boggart
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Monday, December 24, 2018
Grade three and grade one - 2018 - first semester
I'm taking this blog post to record what the two oldest children worked on since September *something* when I started our school year. A lot of this post will likely be of minimal interest to general homeschooling since it is very specific to our family needs and education plan, but I'm always nosy about other people's school stuff, so I'm sharing anyway.
The 8 Year Old
Math
The sole purpose of this year's math curriculum is to prepare the 8 year old to begin working with the Saxon 5/4 material next year. To that end, rather than focusing on any particular resource, I've sort of pieced together the odds and ends he needs to know in order to get to that level.
From September to October we covered multiplication - the distributive property, commutativity and associativity, single with single digit multiplication, single with multiple digit multiplication, and multi digit with multi digit multiplication. We worked through pages 53-64 of Dr. Wright's Kitchen Table Math volume 2 and pages 290, 291, 293 and 299 of the textbook Journeys In Math 3 (published in a similar style to Saxon). We practiced skills with the workbook Kumon's Multiplication - pages 10-11, 22-23, 26-27, 30-31, 36-37 and 40-41.
Next we used this kit for a week:
It gave us a little mental break before launching into our next session.
Session 2 (the second half of our first semester) was devoted to measurement. We focused on metric system measurements, not imperial, although at some point he will learn both, and conversion between the two. We learned about millimetres, centimetres, metres, kilometres, grams and kilograms. Our primary goal in this was reading scales and measuring devices, and converting measurements up or down - eg. how many millimetres in a centimetre, etc. For this work we used the Kumon workbook Geometry and Measurement.
Spelling
The 8yo is working on Spelling Workout B. This semester he finished lessons 19-30. His handwriting improved noticeably over the course of the lessons and mistakes with basic punctuation are non-existent at this point.
Literature
In the first half of the semester the 8yo read four books for his literature study, and one poem. He also listened to and discussed five stories read aloud to him. In the first session I included a list of topics relating to the books read aloud/listened to. In the second session I let that take its own form. The second half of the semester the 8yo read five books and one poem and listened to and discussed two poems, one book, and four articles.
We attempted, with little success, to keep track of additional books read as 'free reading'. I have seven titles listed that he read in that category but I know that number is very inaccurate.
Music and Physical Education
In the summer the 8yo graduated from the piano book his instructor is using with him and progressed to book two. I can't speak to what specific techniques he is using because I don't play the piano myself, but his playing does seem to be smoother this semester. This is the course he uses:
The 8yo was enrolled in twelve weeks of swimming lessons. He worked through the Swim Kids 1 level and has passed into Swim Kids 2, which will start in the new year. I've noticed smoother movements in his swimming and more confidence in using the flutter board.
History, etc.
I finished reading The Story Of The World Volume 1 aloud to the children and began A Child's History of the World.
The 6 Year Old
Math
For kindergarten and grade one I do as Memoria Press and use the Beginning Arithmetic program from Rod and Staff publishers. It covers all the basics and one workbook functions for each of those two years. The 6yo is working through the second workbook in Rod and Staff's level one curriculum. In the first semester she completed lessons 86-109. Topics covered were addition and subtraction review, reading a thermometer, reading an analog clock to the quarter hour, coin values, simple fractions, etc.
Spelling
The 6yo uses Spelling Workout A and this past semester she completed lessons 1-14. Her handwriting is readable but we are focusing on proper use of capital/lowercase letters. She still reverses some numerals.
Literature
This semester she read aloud three Frog and Toad chapter books to me. She listened in on many of the read aloud/discussion books used with the 8yo. I neglected to keep track of the books she read independently, but she spends much of her free time with her nose in a book so I assume several of those were finished over the months.
Physical Education
This semester the 6yo (and her 4yo sister) were both enrolled in an early swimmers program. I believe their level was Sea Otter at the onset. The 6yo finished two levels in the 12 weeks and is now a Starfish and gets to progress to the deeper lap pool in the new year.
The 8 Year Old
Math
The sole purpose of this year's math curriculum is to prepare the 8 year old to begin working with the Saxon 5/4 material next year. To that end, rather than focusing on any particular resource, I've sort of pieced together the odds and ends he needs to know in order to get to that level.
From September to October we covered multiplication - the distributive property, commutativity and associativity, single with single digit multiplication, single with multiple digit multiplication, and multi digit with multi digit multiplication. We worked through pages 53-64 of Dr. Wright's Kitchen Table Math volume 2 and pages 290, 291, 293 and 299 of the textbook Journeys In Math 3 (published in a similar style to Saxon). We practiced skills with the workbook Kumon's Multiplication - pages 10-11, 22-23, 26-27, 30-31, 36-37 and 40-41.
Next we used this kit for a week:
It gave us a little mental break before launching into our next session.
Session 2 (the second half of our first semester) was devoted to measurement. We focused on metric system measurements, not imperial, although at some point he will learn both, and conversion between the two. We learned about millimetres, centimetres, metres, kilometres, grams and kilograms. Our primary goal in this was reading scales and measuring devices, and converting measurements up or down - eg. how many millimetres in a centimetre, etc. For this work we used the Kumon workbook Geometry and Measurement.
Spelling
The 8yo is working on Spelling Workout B. This semester he finished lessons 19-30. His handwriting improved noticeably over the course of the lessons and mistakes with basic punctuation are non-existent at this point.
Literature
In the first half of the semester the 8yo read four books for his literature study, and one poem. He also listened to and discussed five stories read aloud to him. In the first session I included a list of topics relating to the books read aloud/listened to. In the second session I let that take its own form. The second half of the semester the 8yo read five books and one poem and listened to and discussed two poems, one book, and four articles.
We attempted, with little success, to keep track of additional books read as 'free reading'. I have seven titles listed that he read in that category but I know that number is very inaccurate.
Music and Physical Education
In the summer the 8yo graduated from the piano book his instructor is using with him and progressed to book two. I can't speak to what specific techniques he is using because I don't play the piano myself, but his playing does seem to be smoother this semester. This is the course he uses:
The 8yo was enrolled in twelve weeks of swimming lessons. He worked through the Swim Kids 1 level and has passed into Swim Kids 2, which will start in the new year. I've noticed smoother movements in his swimming and more confidence in using the flutter board.
History, etc.
I finished reading The Story Of The World Volume 1 aloud to the children and began A Child's History of the World.
The 6 Year Old
Math
For kindergarten and grade one I do as Memoria Press and use the Beginning Arithmetic program from Rod and Staff publishers. It covers all the basics and one workbook functions for each of those two years. The 6yo is working through the second workbook in Rod and Staff's level one curriculum. In the first semester she completed lessons 86-109. Topics covered were addition and subtraction review, reading a thermometer, reading an analog clock to the quarter hour, coin values, simple fractions, etc.
Spelling
The 6yo uses Spelling Workout A and this past semester she completed lessons 1-14. Her handwriting is readable but we are focusing on proper use of capital/lowercase letters. She still reverses some numerals.
Literature
This semester she read aloud three Frog and Toad chapter books to me. She listened in on many of the read aloud/discussion books used with the 8yo. I neglected to keep track of the books she read independently, but she spends much of her free time with her nose in a book so I assume several of those were finished over the months.
Physical Education
This semester the 6yo (and her 4yo sister) were both enrolled in an early swimmers program. I believe their level was Sea Otter at the onset. The 6yo finished two levels in the 12 weeks and is now a Starfish and gets to progress to the deeper lap pool in the new year.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Reading Notes - November
What I've been reading recently...
Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving From a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda
Korda was, at the time of the book, a senior editor (possible THE senior editor, I'm not certain) at Simon and Schuster, a major North American publisher. He also moved from downtown New York City to rural New York State to live in a farmhouse built before George Washington became president, which takes a certain amount of chutzpah. I picked up the book mostly because it reminded me of the similar narrative of Marsha Boulton, a Canadian high up someone who moved from urban Toronto to a country farm to raise sheep. And I really enjoyed Boulton's stories, which are also in the same popular one-story-per-chapter format as Korda's. Country Matters gave me something light and fluffy to read while on a three day work trip with my husband, and it was ideal for that purpose, but there were too many annoying little details for me to really enjoy it. I feel a little pedantic writing them down, but here they are:
Korda refers to the blacksmith coming to shoe the horses. Blacksmiths don't shoe horses. The proper name for someone who shoes horses is a farrier. This sort of detail bothers me and it should bother a professional senior editor as well.
There is a lot of pussyfooting around the subject of fox hunting. My opinion on the issue is irrelevant to my book review, but the author mentions having no particular opinions about it at one point, and then mentioning later that he didn't agree that the hunt was environmentally friendly and was very much a snobby and new gentry type thing to do. This kind of 'say one thing here then say another thing there' writing was all through the book. It made it very challenging to get absorbed into the story because I kept getting sidetracked. "wait, he just said all these things about this guy over here and now he's saying he likes him?"
I know this is trivial but honestly so much of the story is about the vast amounts of money Korda and his wife poured into the property. The bought more land that butted up against their own, they erected new buildings, they did masses of renovation work, they hired a very expensive decorator, they kept buying horses, they hired multiple staff members, even at one point buying and renovating a second house so the handyman and barn hand have somewhere to live...you get the idea. But instead of being able to focus on the story all this mention of money just kept making me wonder where it was coming from! Where? How much do a former model and horse event participant (his wife) and publishing house editor MAKE? Which I realize is not part of the story, but was such an ever-present question.
Anyway, all this is to say that there were little details that annoyed me enough that I didn't love it. It wasn't Marsha Boulton. But it was interesting.
Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elizabeth Elliot
I only knew of Elizabeth Elliot through the movies about her first husband, Jim, and their work with indigenous people groups in South America. I knew she had written books, of course, but this was the first one I've read. I really enjoyed it! There were a few times I felt as if Elliot and I had differing views on a religious subject but compared to her I haven't lived, so who knows, maybe years from now I will re-read her and those more challenging views will suddenly be in perfect alignment. The vast majority of her writing was spot on, and I found it very interesting to see how faith based non-fiction has changed in the thirty or so years since Discipline was published.
The struggle I had with the book was in knowing how to suggest it to others. It's not a particularly deep exploration of the topic of Christian discipline, so I would tend to think it would be more helpful for those without a lot of experience with the topic or who need a peaceful refresher, but then the style is very old fashioned and that makes me hesitant to recommend it to a new Christian nowadays, because I'm not sure they would take the time to get past that to the meat inside.
It's...it's like Oswald Chambers! My Utmost For His Highest is, in my opinion, probably one of the best devotionals ever written, but the only Christians I know who read it are older, or appreciate the classics in that genre.
Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor
I am puttering through this one slowly. Kidd and Taylor, a mother/daughter author team, take turns alternating viewpoints of the same time period when Taylor has been rejected from her first choice of graduate school and Kidd is progressing through menopause - two seasons of life that seem very different but are knitted together by the story of Demeter and Persephone. There was quite a bit of 'divine female' type delving into the topic of womanhood, which can be very heavy handed in some texts but I thought was handled well and sensitively by Kidd and Taylor.
I'm not done yet. But I will say it has inspired me to look into more Christian feminist writings and see what else people have to say about all that.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
I've heard people say they just love the Maisie Dobbs series for a very long time, but I am a slow embracer of new mystery authors in a way that I am not, necessarily, with other genres. The last time I really, really enjoyed a new mystery author was when I read the first Flavia De Luce story, A Sweetness at The Bottom of The Pie, by Alan Bradley. Since I read that while in labour with my first child, who is now 8, I think I can safely say that new authors in this genre do not come to me easily. But I really enjoyed Winspear's rather endearing Maisie. There was tension, and also a very unexpected twist, and I was pretty captivated by the novel. I think I might just have found my once-per-decade addition to the mystery shelf.
What Is Stephen Harper Reading? by Yann Martel
Not only do I (obviously) love talking about the books I've been reading, but I equally love hearing about what everyone else has been reading, and I think that must have been my thought process behind picking up this book. Which in hindsight was perhaps a little narrow sighted of me because one very obvious reason why someone would decide to send a book every two weeks to the leader of one's country, along with a letter talking about the book...it's an attempt to 'educate'. And this seems to be Martel's plan - he apparently has judged Prime Minister Harper as uneducated in the literary arts and has taken it upon himself to show him the light. Frankly, with the condescending tone of many of the letters I am surprised that Prime Minister Harper's office bothered to respond even the two times they did.
That being said, and if you are able to ignore the heavy handed advice in the book suggestions, it's an odd list that Martel offers the politician.
And there you go. That's what I have been reading.
Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving From a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda
Korda was, at the time of the book, a senior editor (possible THE senior editor, I'm not certain) at Simon and Schuster, a major North American publisher. He also moved from downtown New York City to rural New York State to live in a farmhouse built before George Washington became president, which takes a certain amount of chutzpah. I picked up the book mostly because it reminded me of the similar narrative of Marsha Boulton, a Canadian high up someone who moved from urban Toronto to a country farm to raise sheep. And I really enjoyed Boulton's stories, which are also in the same popular one-story-per-chapter format as Korda's. Country Matters gave me something light and fluffy to read while on a three day work trip with my husband, and it was ideal for that purpose, but there were too many annoying little details for me to really enjoy it. I feel a little pedantic writing them down, but here they are:
Korda refers to the blacksmith coming to shoe the horses. Blacksmiths don't shoe horses. The proper name for someone who shoes horses is a farrier. This sort of detail bothers me and it should bother a professional senior editor as well.
There is a lot of pussyfooting around the subject of fox hunting. My opinion on the issue is irrelevant to my book review, but the author mentions having no particular opinions about it at one point, and then mentioning later that he didn't agree that the hunt was environmentally friendly and was very much a snobby and new gentry type thing to do. This kind of 'say one thing here then say another thing there' writing was all through the book. It made it very challenging to get absorbed into the story because I kept getting sidetracked. "wait, he just said all these things about this guy over here and now he's saying he likes him?"
I know this is trivial but honestly so much of the story is about the vast amounts of money Korda and his wife poured into the property. The bought more land that butted up against their own, they erected new buildings, they did masses of renovation work, they hired a very expensive decorator, they kept buying horses, they hired multiple staff members, even at one point buying and renovating a second house so the handyman and barn hand have somewhere to live...you get the idea. But instead of being able to focus on the story all this mention of money just kept making me wonder where it was coming from! Where? How much do a former model and horse event participant (his wife) and publishing house editor MAKE? Which I realize is not part of the story, but was such an ever-present question.
Anyway, all this is to say that there were little details that annoyed me enough that I didn't love it. It wasn't Marsha Boulton. But it was interesting.
Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elizabeth Elliot
I only knew of Elizabeth Elliot through the movies about her first husband, Jim, and their work with indigenous people groups in South America. I knew she had written books, of course, but this was the first one I've read. I really enjoyed it! There were a few times I felt as if Elliot and I had differing views on a religious subject but compared to her I haven't lived, so who knows, maybe years from now I will re-read her and those more challenging views will suddenly be in perfect alignment. The vast majority of her writing was spot on, and I found it very interesting to see how faith based non-fiction has changed in the thirty or so years since Discipline was published.
The struggle I had with the book was in knowing how to suggest it to others. It's not a particularly deep exploration of the topic of Christian discipline, so I would tend to think it would be more helpful for those without a lot of experience with the topic or who need a peaceful refresher, but then the style is very old fashioned and that makes me hesitant to recommend it to a new Christian nowadays, because I'm not sure they would take the time to get past that to the meat inside.
It's...it's like Oswald Chambers! My Utmost For His Highest is, in my opinion, probably one of the best devotionals ever written, but the only Christians I know who read it are older, or appreciate the classics in that genre.
Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor
I am puttering through this one slowly. Kidd and Taylor, a mother/daughter author team, take turns alternating viewpoints of the same time period when Taylor has been rejected from her first choice of graduate school and Kidd is progressing through menopause - two seasons of life that seem very different but are knitted together by the story of Demeter and Persephone. There was quite a bit of 'divine female' type delving into the topic of womanhood, which can be very heavy handed in some texts but I thought was handled well and sensitively by Kidd and Taylor.
I'm not done yet. But I will say it has inspired me to look into more Christian feminist writings and see what else people have to say about all that.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
I've heard people say they just love the Maisie Dobbs series for a very long time, but I am a slow embracer of new mystery authors in a way that I am not, necessarily, with other genres. The last time I really, really enjoyed a new mystery author was when I read the first Flavia De Luce story, A Sweetness at The Bottom of The Pie, by Alan Bradley. Since I read that while in labour with my first child, who is now 8, I think I can safely say that new authors in this genre do not come to me easily. But I really enjoyed Winspear's rather endearing Maisie. There was tension, and also a very unexpected twist, and I was pretty captivated by the novel. I think I might just have found my once-per-decade addition to the mystery shelf.
What Is Stephen Harper Reading? by Yann Martel
Not only do I (obviously) love talking about the books I've been reading, but I equally love hearing about what everyone else has been reading, and I think that must have been my thought process behind picking up this book. Which in hindsight was perhaps a little narrow sighted of me because one very obvious reason why someone would decide to send a book every two weeks to the leader of one's country, along with a letter talking about the book...it's an attempt to 'educate'. And this seems to be Martel's plan - he apparently has judged Prime Minister Harper as uneducated in the literary arts and has taken it upon himself to show him the light. Frankly, with the condescending tone of many of the letters I am surprised that Prime Minister Harper's office bothered to respond even the two times they did.
That being said, and if you are able to ignore the heavy handed advice in the book suggestions, it's an odd list that Martel offers the politician.
And there you go. That's what I have been reading.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
The literature we're using in this session
This year I have split up my lesson planning into sessions, or sections, each one lasting a few weeks and outlining what we will focus on weekly. At the end of the session I can re-evaluate if we need a break, if we need to focus on any particular areas, if we need to revisit any topics, etc. It's a bit easier for me than trying to lesson plan for an entire year, or even for a semester. So much can change from week to week or from month to month.
Here is the literature that the 8 year old and I are using for this session, which will last until early December. I chose reading that focused on nature for this session, not for any particular reason, just to help me pick readings because I have so many books. Poetry is in quotation marks. Sections from larger books are underlined.
One Day In the Woods - Jean Craighead George
Grass and Grasshoppers - Rose Wyler
How To Be A Nature Detective - Millicent Selsam
Can You Find The Animal? - Wilda Ross
Who Lives There? - John Hawkinson
Animals In Winter - Henrietta Bancroft
"The Lonely Land" - A.J.M. Smith
"Indian Summer" - Wilfred Campbell
"A Vagabond Song" - Bliss Carmen
Migration of Birds - The Handbook Of Nature Study
The Asters - The Handbook Of Nature Study
First Walk In November - Enid Blyton
The Chipmunk - The Handbook of Nature Study
Here is the literature that the 8 year old and I are using for this session, which will last until early December. I chose reading that focused on nature for this session, not for any particular reason, just to help me pick readings because I have so many books. Poetry is in quotation marks. Sections from larger books are underlined.
One Day In the Woods - Jean Craighead George
Grass and Grasshoppers - Rose Wyler
How To Be A Nature Detective - Millicent Selsam
Can You Find The Animal? - Wilda Ross
Who Lives There? - John Hawkinson
Animals In Winter - Henrietta Bancroft
"The Lonely Land" - A.J.M. Smith
"Indian Summer" - Wilfred Campbell
"A Vagabond Song" - Bliss Carmen
Migration of Birds - The Handbook Of Nature Study
The Asters - The Handbook Of Nature Study
First Walk In November - Enid Blyton
The Chipmunk - The Handbook of Nature Study
Thursday, November 1, 2018
November
Several years ago I became interested in the idea of starting to organize our family year in a more seasonal fashion, mostly using the liturgical year as a basis but incorporating a lot of the old seasonal rituals and folklore that used to be prevalent when we were all more closely in tune with the cycles of the year. I don't remember exactly what started me on this but I definitely remember the first book I read about it - Sarah Ban Breachnach's Mrs. Sharp's Traditions. I have to say, regardless of your faith or how much time you might have to engage in more optional pursuits, I can't recommend this book enough to start building your own family traditions.
I always turn to thinking about this topic in the fall. There is something about fall that makes me feel like doing things, some primitive urge to put away and tidy and prepare. In past years I've mostly satisfied that urge by making masses of preserves and cleaning the house out, but in more recent years I've had to change that up as schoolwork has become more intense and I just don't have the time to spend six hours bottling jam.
Today, being the day after Hallowe'en, and also All Saints' Day, is a good day to work outside. The pastor is visiting the bereaved (a good day for that, as well), and the children are very happily busy creating a fort out of a large box, and so I am putting away the summer toys and bicycles, sweeping the decks, tidying the last of the gardens, picking up the clothespins that have flown from the line these many months, and stacking wood.
The lead up to Remembrance Day on November 11th is always filled with a lot of little tasks as we get ready for a day of several cold, windy, bitter services back to back to back - a day of standing silently in churchyards and at cenotaphs in the surrounding valleys and villages. It does us good, like a fast before a feast, to start this season off remembering the saints, and stacking the wood.
Monday, October 29, 2018
A school day in October
It is a slow start to our school day today.
Around 9ish - The 8 year old and I sit down to do a practice run of a multiple choice math test - he's never done one of these before but we printed off some because he is interested in doing a math competition in the spring and this is their preferred format. He figures it out fairly well and we go on to review millimetres and centimetres - our lesson from last week. When I'm sure he remembers it all I send him off with a clipboard and a ruler to measure and record ten things around the house.
The little girls are chattering up a storm and colouring pictures for Hallowe'en. I redirect the six year old onto her math lesson - today we are reviewing subtraction facts and introducing the concept of temperature and how it can be measured in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. She's having trouble focusing in the kitchen so off she goes into the living room
10 - Redirect, redirect, redirect...the six year old is not focusing. I send the boy to the church with his father to practice the piano before his lesson.
10:30 - She finishes her subtraction and I get her to go outside and circumnavigate the house running like a crazy person for 15 minutes to get all the wiggles out and then feed peanuts to the chipmunk. When she comes back in the girls and I sit down and read the chipmunk section from The Handbook Of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, stopping to discuss camouflage and speculating as to why a chipmunk might want two entrances/exits to its burrow. I hadn't planned what to read to the girls but generally these things resolve themselves.
11:00 - Snack, and then getting the girls set up with an Uno game. This is my time to set up our flu shots, handle emails, switch the laundry, etc.
12 - The boy is home from piano lessons and we sit down to leftovers for lunch.
12:30 - The boy peels and chops carrots and works on fractions while he cuts them into quarters for supper and the 6 year old reads me a chapter of a Frog and Toad story. When she finishes we set the stove timer for 15 minutes and she picks picture books to practice reading on her own - today she reads The Paperbag Princess.
1:00 - The boy finishes helping for supper and I get it in the oven. He sets the timer for 30 minutes for his own silent reading time - the fourth Encyclopedia Brown is his choice for today. The only requirement for any self-directed reading is that is has to be text-centric - no comics. While he reads, the six year old starts her spelling work. When she finishes her lesson she does a printing page - the children practice printing daily - and a copywork sentence.
1:30 - It's time for afternoon rest. I put on a dvd for whomever wants to watch it - Mary Poppins - and also put out the tangrams on the coffee table, and lie down with a book of my own.
2:30 - The children are tired of watching tv and are getting louder and more boisterous so I put away my book and get everyone up and outside. We work on cleaning up the front yard and then they help our neighbour carry in her groceries and get a chocolate in return.
3:30 - the girls play while the boy and I start on language arts. His scheduled reading for today is the final chapter of One Day In The Woods, by Jean Craighead George and also some of a science book from the series Outdoor Science - this one is called Grass and Grasshoppers by Rose Wyler. We look at them together as he reads aloud to me, and then I read him Bliss Carmen's 'A Vagabond Song' - the perfect autumn poem. He does his copywork but it is getting close to supper so we skip spelling.
4:30 - Lessons done for the day.
Around 9ish - The 8 year old and I sit down to do a practice run of a multiple choice math test - he's never done one of these before but we printed off some because he is interested in doing a math competition in the spring and this is their preferred format. He figures it out fairly well and we go on to review millimetres and centimetres - our lesson from last week. When I'm sure he remembers it all I send him off with a clipboard and a ruler to measure and record ten things around the house.
The little girls are chattering up a storm and colouring pictures for Hallowe'en. I redirect the six year old onto her math lesson - today we are reviewing subtraction facts and introducing the concept of temperature and how it can be measured in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. She's having trouble focusing in the kitchen so off she goes into the living room
10 - Redirect, redirect, redirect...the six year old is not focusing. I send the boy to the church with his father to practice the piano before his lesson.
10:30 - She finishes her subtraction and I get her to go outside and circumnavigate the house running like a crazy person for 15 minutes to get all the wiggles out and then feed peanuts to the chipmunk. When she comes back in the girls and I sit down and read the chipmunk section from The Handbook Of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, stopping to discuss camouflage and speculating as to why a chipmunk might want two entrances/exits to its burrow. I hadn't planned what to read to the girls but generally these things resolve themselves.
11:00 - Snack, and then getting the girls set up with an Uno game. This is my time to set up our flu shots, handle emails, switch the laundry, etc.
12 - The boy is home from piano lessons and we sit down to leftovers for lunch.
12:30 - The boy peels and chops carrots and works on fractions while he cuts them into quarters for supper and the 6 year old reads me a chapter of a Frog and Toad story. When she finishes we set the stove timer for 15 minutes and she picks picture books to practice reading on her own - today she reads The Paperbag Princess.
1:00 - The boy finishes helping for supper and I get it in the oven. He sets the timer for 30 minutes for his own silent reading time - the fourth Encyclopedia Brown is his choice for today. The only requirement for any self-directed reading is that is has to be text-centric - no comics. While he reads, the six year old starts her spelling work. When she finishes her lesson she does a printing page - the children practice printing daily - and a copywork sentence.
1:30 - It's time for afternoon rest. I put on a dvd for whomever wants to watch it - Mary Poppins - and also put out the tangrams on the coffee table, and lie down with a book of my own.
2:30 - The children are tired of watching tv and are getting louder and more boisterous so I put away my book and get everyone up and outside. We work on cleaning up the front yard and then they help our neighbour carry in her groceries and get a chocolate in return.
3:30 - the girls play while the boy and I start on language arts. His scheduled reading for today is the final chapter of One Day In The Woods, by Jean Craighead George and also some of a science book from the series Outdoor Science - this one is called Grass and Grasshoppers by Rose Wyler. We look at them together as he reads aloud to me, and then I read him Bliss Carmen's 'A Vagabond Song' - the perfect autumn poem. He does his copywork but it is getting close to supper so we skip spelling.
4:30 - Lessons done for the day.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Storing Away Bulbs for the Winter.
There are three sick children here today and I am just doing my best to keep my head above water. When my littles are sick, there are three recipes I always make - hot lemon/ginger/honey water, apple and pear sauce, and boiled chicken with egg noodles. The technique is this: You take a sick, shivery, unhappy, whining child and you put them in the bath. My mother was a firm believer in having a bath and clean bedding if you were sick because it made you feel better. And it does. Then you get into clean pajamas and get propped up on the sofa with pillow and blankets. And then you have to have a few bites of something.
Working around the sick children, though, is my plan to store my bulbs today. After trips to multiple stores I finally found one that was still selling peat moss (apparently the recommended medium. I'm just following instructions.) and since my bulbs, rhizomes and tubers are all dry but not too dry it's time to carefully layer them away. I can let you know how it goes next spring since I have never before planted things that require digging up in the fall and special storage plans.
I also have the excitement of a bag of completely unknown bulbs to contend with. I'm fairly certain that three of them are hyacinth, and undoubtedly many are random tulips, but some are absolutely a mystery. How exciting! I have one that looks like those odd citrus fruits called Buddha's Hands. All weird fingers and such. Some inquiry seems to say that it could be jonquil, but I don't believe I've ever planted that! I'm thrilled, anyway, and next summer I can't wait to see what happens.
Working around the sick children, though, is my plan to store my bulbs today. After trips to multiple stores I finally found one that was still selling peat moss (apparently the recommended medium. I'm just following instructions.) and since my bulbs, rhizomes and tubers are all dry but not too dry it's time to carefully layer them away. I can let you know how it goes next spring since I have never before planted things that require digging up in the fall and special storage plans.
I also have the excitement of a bag of completely unknown bulbs to contend with. I'm fairly certain that three of them are hyacinth, and undoubtedly many are random tulips, but some are absolutely a mystery. How exciting! I have one that looks like those odd citrus fruits called Buddha's Hands. All weird fingers and such. Some inquiry seems to say that it could be jonquil, but I don't believe I've ever planted that! I'm thrilled, anyway, and next summer I can't wait to see what happens.
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