Show Your Work

Sept. 17

Spent the afternoon carting K and Chipmunk to the doctor.  Diagnosis: ear infections for both.   Spent a long time waiting for medication also.

Gareth says he has a sore throat (the last of everyone) so very little formal work has been attempted this week.  Gareth finally got through the Life of Fred Bridge he was working on, but not without a great deal of storminess.  He does like Our Mother Tongue better than Lingua Mater and enjoyed my attempt at reading the Our Father in Old English.  Well, actually he was probably just laughing *at* me, but I guess that still equates with enjoying your grammar book.  He finished The High King (Lloyd Alexander) and Dealing with Dragons (Patricia Wrede).  I am again contemplating unschooling, and have been enjoying my read of Kendall Hailey's book, The Day I Became an Autodidact.

K has not been feeling well and has mostly been reading Warriors books and Harriet the Spy.

Farmerboy is feeling better and totally obsessed with becoming a paleontologist.  A toy catalog came in the mail yesterday with lots of paleontology-related kits in it, and Farmerboy hasn't really stopped following us around with the catalog, telling us how much he needs these kits to practice for when he's a grown-up.

Reviving this blog (Sept. 10)

Well.  I decided I needed a place to journal about what we did as well as a place to document exactly what it was we did.  In other words, a few hastily scrawled notes in a record-keeping book was not cutting it.

So, after some deliberation, I'm going to start keeping some chatty notes about our days here.  I decided to go with the blog again rather than just a spiral notebook because a)I can't lose the blog and b)if my computer dies, I can't lose the blog then either. But we'll just have to see how it works in real life 

Today was a rather coolish day, and my cold/allergies were bad again.  I think somehow I'm just going to have to adjust to living with a permanent cold.  Little boys looked through many library books upon waking, and Gareth read Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons for a long time lying in bed.  Started the morning by showing the kids these anamorphic sidewalk drawings.  When it was time to go outside, Farmerboy wanted to draw his own with our pastels.  He drew a picture of balloons and pretended to hold them.  Took a walk in the field with the little boys until we discovered a yellowjacket nest and Pop was stung. The boys also spent a long time playing cavemen and drew with the pastels on the driveway, too.

I read a book about Peter Claver at lunch and Katydid read it over in Spanish -- or tried to anyway.  She did a lot of writing today, finishing up edits on her ecology report and working on a report about the rules of soccer.  Drawing Imaginary Beasts came and Gareth was immediately engrossed in drawing weird beasts... I think he spent about 2 hrs on it.  Some of the drawings in the book are kind of grotesque; I'm wishing we had half a library to preview these things.  But we don't. 

Tossed G's language book.  It's a good language book (Lingua Mater) but of course he thinks it's "boring" and was making up ridiculous and meaningless sentences today as a form of protest.  I have to find some way of helping that child write, especially since he has so many difficulties in that area.

Tuesday- Weds, January 13-14

All:

• The Cat Who Went to Heaven

-- 5 ch.

• Jack Prelutsky CD - Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face
• Baltimore Catechism 2-- Creation, Fall of Man, Immaculate Conception
• drawing -- K, amaryllis, poinsettia, other nature journal; G and FB- Star Wars; G - map; Pop - "flowers"; Pip - SW

Gareth:

• Latin - Lesson VIII
• language -- adj.
• spelling
• Saxon - 2 lessons
• reading -- The Snow Queen (picture book Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale), Physik (Septimus Heap), Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Second Seige

Katydid:

• times tables
• wrote about a time when she was birdwatching
• spelling
• vocabulary
• read 2 ch. Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone to FB

Farmerboy:

• sorting transportation counters (thinking about how many different ways he could sort them)
• spatial/color blocks
• Mr. Popper's Penguins - 2 ch.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- 2 ch. read by K

Monday, January 12

I thought it was the 13th for most of the day.  Katydid, Farmerboy, and the twins were sick with colds today, so it was a laid-back sort of day. The little boys did a fair amount of work in the morning, just not big, physical work like they usually do.  Instead, they spent quite a while playing with Rush Hour, various types of blocks, and other sit-down spatial stuff.

All:

• story from Angel Food
• St. Hilary - tomorrow's saint, since I thought today was the 13th
• Buddha by Demi (compare/contrast with our faith)
• color puzzle

Gareth:

• Saxon lesson
• spelling
• language (trying to move him quickly to new stuff)
• Latin (Lesson VIII)
• listened to Sign of the Beaver on CD

Katydid:

• Flashmaster times tables
• spelling

• vocabulary

• reading Order of the Phoenix (almost done)

Farmerboy:

• trinomial cube (got it out of the closet; I didn't plan to show it to him, but after the morning's block play, I guess he was ready for it.  I showed him how to do it 3 times and he tried to do it on his own, but couldn't remember all the steps.  G came by and spent some time looking at it, too.  Made a point of showing Farmerboy the pattern on all sides.)
• showed Pop how to play his Galactic Heroes game
• Pink Tower/brown stair extensions
• geo board
• listened to My Father's Dragon
• Mr. Popper's Penguins for bedtime

 

Monday, January 5

First day back after "vacation", but I didn't get enough vacation to get any real planning done, change the bulletin board, or rotate the picture books.  Today was sort of spastic and a bit exhausting, but as far as things accomplished, not too bad.

All:

• Illustrated Catechism - Inos Biffi
• Angel Food v. 1 -- 1 story
• Little History of the World -- chapter about ancient India, along with mapwork (mostly for K's benefit, but G was also interested in looking at the language/culture maps, which showed the different language families including Indo-European); also had some interesting discussion about Buddhism and the merits (and possibility) of not wanting anything, bad OR good
• Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face by Jack Prelutsky -- various poems, much giggling.  K read aloud long after I said that I couldn't read anymore because I had to eat lunch.

Gareth:

• Saxon lesson -- area of a parallelogram. Some trouble with this.
• spelling
• writing-- Aesop -- the least possible
• Latin
• ancient Roman coin kit
• SciQ Sunday recorded -- future inventions

Katydid:

• times tables
• dictionary work
• spelling
• violin practice
• vision therapy
• Harry Potter
• researching chickens, chicken coops
• Latin

Farmerboy:

• stamps

• My Father's Dragon audio -- AGAIN

• Duplos/legos

• outside with K, chickens

• browsing Roman books, Usborne Time Traveler

• Mr. Popper's Penguins, 1 ch - bedtime book

Monday - Thursday, Dec.15 - 18

Monday:  Read from the Jesse Tree, but I think that was it.  Katydid read many picture books to Farmerboy in the afternoon: The Christmas Box, The Crippled Lamb, Clown of God, some more than once.  Katydid is zooming through the Harry Potter books: finished Chamber of Secrets.  Garrett still reading Half-Blood Prince.  The little boys all washed the floor, tables, (couch, themselves), then Katydid, Farmerboy, and the twinsl made shakers using empty water bottles, lentils, and tissue paper.  (glued the bottle tops closed and tissue papered the outside with glue -- all the little boys used animal prints). After the shakers were dry, they used them to sing Christmas carols.  The 3 older kids played outside in the warm afternoon; K and Farmerboy building "fairy churches". 

Afternoon work: G made it through all his, K took 1.5 hours to do 20 math problems and look up 3 words in the dictionary.  (sigh).  G had to look up a few words, too, which did not make him happy.  Farmerboy watched his mathtacular video again, made designs on the geoboard, and counted and measured with the measuring tape.

Tuesday: Read 3 chapters from The Jesse Tree and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. No art today; everybody was hungry for lunch at lunchtime (gasp).  Katydid wrote the lyrics to a song and then made a staff and wrote some music; she's learning how to read notes.  Big kids played outside in now frigid weather... boys walked through the "pond" left from melting snow and ice, of course, in spite of 22 DEGREES.  (sigh, again).  Read a Curious George book to little boys at naptime; Advent Storybook before bed.  I wasn't feeling well in the afternoon/evening for some unidentified reason and tried to watch a new DVD from Vision Forum about raising daughters, but the noise level was WAY too loud, esp. from the older boys who had been banned from computer and TV time for fighting earlier in the day.

Afternoon work: G spent almost an hour and a half working on an Investigation involving coordinates.  Before he completely understood the directions for the first activity (follow the directions to replicate a drawing), he was really frustrated, even though he's understood how to locate coordinates on a grid for a (long) while due to his early fascination with maps.  Once he understood what they were asking he was pretty engrossed in it.  K did much better today, since she couldn't see/hear Farmerboy watching mathtacular (about money and dates today): finished another Saxon test (5), did vocab, language, spelling (wrote out all definitions from yesterday). 

 

Weds.: 3 more chapters from The Jesse Tree. Again, I'm having trouble with G and K (esp. K getting up late) and Andy getting up late (and having to shovel snow), which means I have to figure out some time to take a shower that doesn't cut into our day.  (If only I didn't have to eat, bathe, or go to the bathroom - or sleep!)  Katydid colored a page of Our Lady of Guadalupe and G worked on the map he's drawing of his invented world.  Little boys colored in John Deere coloring books, played farm with blocks, trucks, and animals.  Farmerboy and Pop painted after lunch.  Katydid finished with CoS, halfway through Prisoner of Azkiban. Big kids played outside. We trimmed the tree after dinner.

Afternoon work: G finished his writing for Aesop and his report for Daddy, did a Saxon test, spelling, handwriting.  K did another Saxon test, vocab, wrote sentences for spelling (not many), language.

Thursday: For some reason, I have had a terrible problem with distraction lately, and have also been feeling really run down.  Could be because I'm not getting much sleep... or getting sick... or both.  As of this weekend, I'm taking a computer break, and next week will also be Christmas break for us.

Read 2 chapters of The Jesse Tree, and all of The Light at Tern Rock.  Read St. Francis and the Christmas Donkey, The Donkey's Dream, and Merry Christmas, Curious George to little boys at naptime, then Farmerboy listened to My Father's Dragon on audio. Farmerboy also did a couple of pages in his HWT book.   G and K did yet another Saxon test (catching up), and K had a spelling test which also involved me discovering that she didn't know what some of the words meant and hadn't bothered to look them up or write more than 5 sentences.  Then I was very cruel and made her use the dictionary.  G did more of his work - spelling and handwriting, I think.  Then Andy came home and took them with him to ring the bell for the Salvation Army.

December 11-14

Another catching up post...

Thursday... We had an ice storm. Andy was supposed to be home by bedtime but got stuck in Baltimore overnight.  Our routine continued to fray... I read a chapter from The Jesse Tree and all of Madeliene L'Engle's Twenty Four Days Before Christmas (excellent) but chores weren't done until noonish, and then Katydid sat down to paint ornaments right before lunch, and the little boys all wanted to paint, too.  Needless to say, trying to paint with 3 year olds in twenty minutes before lunchtime was not good for anybody (including Mommy.) 

Friday... Andy finally made it home, about 3:30 PM.  We did extra chores in the morning to attempt to excavate the house.  Katydid and Gareth both finished up some writing, and the big kids all went sledding.  Katydid read a bunch of books to Farmerboy... Old Befana among them.  Now he thinks that old Befana will come to our house on Epiphany.

Saturday... St. Lucia's Day.  Our bread didn't work out so well, but at least it tasted okay.  Katydid had a violin lesson, and Andy took all the kids but Chipmunk out to sled on the big hill.  Farmerboy watched almost the entire Mathtacular DVD; he watched the DVD every day during this time period.

Sunday... Went to Mass, visited with members of the S. family at "donut Day", then out to eat for lunch and a stop at the C.Barn to buy our tree and poinsettias.  The 3 older kids all picked out Christmas cacti this year, and I bought an amaryllis in addition to the poinsettias... I set the amaryllis on the nature table. K and G both announced that they had finished the Harry Potter books they were reading (#1 for K and #5 for G) and had moved on to the next in the series. Farmerboy and Pip used Andy's measuring tape as a number line to count with, as in Mathtacular.  At night, I played Scrabble with Katydid and Farmerboy (sort of) and Pip dug letter tiles out of the bag and named them.  This was the first night that we didn't all play Word Challenge on Facebook... K and G have been playing it by themselves, too -- improving their spelling skills!

Wednesday, December 10

Another long day with a late start.  A good read-aloud session, though, with one chapter from The Jesse Tree and four chapters from The Family Under the Bridge to finish the book.  Since we finished reading about 11:30, I thought that we would just do chores then eat lunch, but then Katydid sat down to paint her clay Nativity figures, and when she got out the paint, Pip wanted to paint, too, and then Farmerboy wanted to make more ornaments, and Pop wanted to make ornaments, and so then Pip was done painting and wanted to make ornaments, too, and Gareth decided he would paint his sculpture while the paint was out, and then he wanted to make a bird like Katydid had made yesterday but ended up making one of his invented bird-like creatures out of clay using a form... No time for me to take a breath, let alone make grilled cheese sandwiches!  We ended up not eating lunch until 1:30, which led to a few tense moments, but wasn't as bad as I had feared.  Pop's work turned out quite interesting, too... he made a star ornament, but then he also scored the leftover clay around the place where the star had been cut out.  It looked like a folk art plaque.  I wrote his name on the back with a toothpick, and I hope he will paint it when it's dry.

Afternoon seatwork: no Latin; we decided it would work better to do it right after lunch.  K did the Mixed Practice from yesterday's lesson and was again doing language, handwriting, and spelling at 5 PM.  She's reading Harry Potter now - instead of doing handwriting and spelling, actually.  G turned up with his writing from Aesop and a report for Andy about a creature he made up.  Farmerboy watched at least 30 minutes of Sonlight's Mathtacular video... I thought he would be bored, but apparently he thought it was interesting.  I sat down to make some # word cards for him to match one of the activities on the DVD, and he insisted on cutting the corners off the cards so that they would be *just* like the ones in the video.  It was kind of funny.

Watched a documentary about aircraft carriers on the Military Channel after evening chores and read The Donkey's Dream, Little Drummer Boy, and Christmas in the Trenches.

Tuesday, December 9

Andy was home in the morning, and we were all getting over our late night last night, so things got going slowly.  No reading aloud.  Instead we spent some time excavating all the junk that's accumulated over the past few days, then everyone worked on clay Christmas ornaments using cookie cutters.  Katydid and Farmerboy also made birds out of Sculpey: K made a robin and Farmerboy made a goldfinch.  Farmerboy also finished wrapping his castle with rigid wrap.  G had wanted to use rigid wrap for his cardboard houses, but we ran out.  Will have to order more.

Afternoon seatwork was one long distraction for Katydid, who barely managed to do a sheet of mult. facts plus her practice problems for math, and was still doing language and spelling after 5 PM.  Finished LC unit VII, finally, with both G and K, and helped G with math... he's been having trouble understanding how to do prime factorizations and using them to reduce fractions with large numerators/denominators, mainly because it involves breaking things down into a sequence of steps.  I think he got it, though, after I walked him through a couple of problems.  He also did language, spelling, and writing.

Farmerboy did two more pages in his HWT book, and everyone watched How It's Made (doughnuts and fire extinguishers) after evening chores.  Pip and Pop both pretended to make doughnuts.

Read The Donkey's Dream multiple times, and The Advent Storybook to the little boys. K read part of Our Lady of Guadalupe in honor of the feast of St. Juan Diego.

Monday, December 8

 Spent most of the day out: grocery shopping, then dinner out, and Mass, followed by a short period of Adoration.  In anticipation of this, I tried to have the kids do math in the morning.  Bad idea.  Instead I was reminded of why we do sit-down work in the afternoons.  Farmerboy did another few pages in his HWT book, though, and was very happy to actually be writing words.

G and K did language in the car; read aloud Introduction and 1 chapter of The Jesse Tree in the morning; kids colored coloring pages for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception while I read.