The day after daddy comes home, is always a hard day to do school. I know thought that the best thing for us to do is stick to our schedule and continue on normally. Of course it is hard to carry on normally. We have little melt downs throughout the day, because both Nathan and Genevieve would prefer to be playing with daddy and not doing school work.
We enjoyed a nice breakfast together this morning, Gigi cooked some strawberry sauce for us to put on our waffles. When we were about done breakfast I brought out story of the world, and the complaints started appearing from mostly Nathan. I don't want to do this etc... So it took us 1 hour to do story of the world instead of just 1/2 hr. We ventured off to china in story of the world. After we did our reading, we watched a video about cultivating rice. Both Nathan and Genevieve found this interesting, as did Jeff :)
Next up we brought out the poster board maps and labelled all the countries that they knew. Nathan instead of writing showed daddy all the countries he knew as he said his hands hurt too much to write the names.
Math...
Oh boy, one speeds on through and is now on chapter 26.
Nathan however I gave the timer too, and gave him 30 minutes to do 4 questions in beast. Now I must say these questions should have taken him 20 minutes if he was trying the whole time. Beast is not a speed through curriculum. Nathan only completed 1 question, I had warned him that if he was not done, he would have to complete these problems when he got back from Piano....
MBTP Final day of essays! Gig and Nathan are done. I would like to print them out and get them to edit them, but I am out of printer ink... So I will see if I remember printer ink at Costco tomorrow.
Here is Nathan's finished essay...
There
is a circle of power between Poppy and Mr. Ocax, because they are different
from each other. Mr.Ocax is at the top of the circle of power,
because he scares them to take control of them.He even killed ragweed, Poppy’s boyfriend.Mr Ocax made all mice afraid of porcupines by
telling them they were vicious, and porcupines would eat them, but he told them
he would protect them from the vicious porcupines.One of the differences between the mice and
Mr Ocax, is one is good and one is bad, I leave it to you to decide which one
is bad?The mice have not been anywhere
because Mr Ocax controls them with fear, it makes them different because one
has more knowledge of world then the other.The mice and Mr. Ocax are different because as I said before one is good
and one is bad.
Poppy
found a gigantic fake owl and , Mr Ocax thought it was real, Poppy had
discovered his fear, and gained
power.The gigantic fake owl, scared Mr
Ocax, because if he got in a fight with him, he would take his territory, and
he would loose power.Poppy gained
power because Mr Ocax, had more knowledge than her before she took control of
knowledge!Poppy was not scared of Mr.
Ocax because she felt powerful.Poppy
felt so much power that she killed mr. ocax and that’s how the mice took
control tttthhhheee eeeennndddd!!!!!!!!!
How will life change for the mice now? Life changed for the mice in many ways.The world that was once controlled by Mr.
Ocax was now theirs’ to explore without the restrictions imposed on them by
Mr.Ocax.The mice were free to explore
the world as they see fit.They now had
a place to call their own and dance in Dimwood forest.Life changed for the mice for the worst and
the good because now they didn’t have any one protecting them but it was better
because their protector Mr.Ocax was eating them.
Both Nathan and Genevieve practiced piano. Nathan is ENJOYING playing piano! I think he is liking that he has gotten to the point of perfecting his song! He has worked on this song for 3 weeks and he can hear it now, when he plays it. But it is not boring either, she has him practice other things at the same time as the song. So he is working on a showpiece song and technique songs at the same time. He practiced this morning and then he practiced again this evening after he came home from soccer practice.
Quick lunch for us, and then Nathan and Gigi were off to piano lessons.
After lessons, we came home to Math homework. Nathan finished fairly quickly with not quite as much grumbling. Lots of playing with daddy came next, so much so that Nathan was late for soccer practice at 6-7:30.
After soccer was piano practicing and bedtime. Gigi is more than half way done Jane Eyre and thinks it is the best book she has ever read.
Mondays Jeff comes home are always a little off for us. Nathan is usually highly emotional. Today was that kind of day mostly, but overall it went pretty good. We started the day a little later, by having a leisurely breakfast. Genevieve practiced her piano first. Then Nathan and Genevieve took Ginger for a run up and down the hill to get her tuckered out and well behaved for school time. Nathan then practiced his piano, he did really well today, he practiced with Yoka for a solid 30 minutes. He was really wanting to work hard today! It was so awesome to see.
Nathan's posture is fantastic! This is after 30 minutes!
Next we worked on MBTP and our essay. I worked with Gigi first while Nathan was doing piano. She was really wanting to retell the story of Poppy, instead of doing what the assignment required. I got her to read the instructions instead of me telling her what to do, and this helped. She was able to formulate what she wanted to say. I did help her a bit trying to get the idea of following the main idea of the paragraph, and also the topic sentence.
Genevieve's essay
Mr. Ocax the owl
is the king of the forest, because he is at the top of the food chain.Mr. Ocax rules with fear.Mr. Ocax can eat theme if they did not listen
to him so he is the king of fear.Mr.
Ocax told alie to the mice that
porcupine are vicious, and that if they did not ask his permission to go he
could not protect them he did this to gain there trust. Mr. Ocax controls them
with fear and lies!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. Ocax's secret's are found out by
poppy, and this is how she breaks the cycle of fear and power.Poppy the mouse found a porcupine and found
they were only bad to owls.Poppy found
an owl twice the size of Mr. Ocax and he is afraid the other owl will steal his
territory, Poppy found out the owl is fake. Poppy is friends with a porcupine
and gave Poppy a quill ,Poppy ties the quill to her self. Mr. Ocax came and
Poppy ran into the the grass then Mr. Ocax started to talk to her then Poppy
felt she had power so she came out of the grass Mr. Ocax came right out of the
sky Mr. Ocax aimed right for Poppy she toke the quill and stabbed it in Mr.
Ocax's foot Mr. Ocax is dead, the cycle of power is broken.
Poppy life will now be happy that
she is back safe at home.Poppy got
marred to a mouse named Rye.Poppy and
Rye have children.Poppy has lots of
fun with her new family.Poppy is home.
Nathan then worked on his paragraph, while Genevieve continued working on her essay, and then she moved on to math when she was done. Nathan while working on his paragraph was extremely tired, and his hands were aching. We discussed that if he makes sure that he puts in 15 minutes 1 or 2 times a day of piano it would build up his hand strength and his hands would not hurt anymore. He could see I think that the piano playing must be working out his hands finally :) So Nathan was hard to motivate to get working on his essay. So many things going on in his mind. He finally managed to finish his paragraph.
Here is Nathan's paragraph number 2, he has to finish number 3 tomorrow and then edit all three.
Poppy
found a gigantic fake owl and , Mr Ocax thought it was real, Poppy had
discovered his fear, and gained
power.The gigantic fake owl, scared Mr
Ocax, because if he got in a fight with him, he would take his territory, and
he would loose power.Poppy gained
power because Mr Ocax, had more knowledge than her before she took control of
knowledge!Poppy was not scared of Mr.
Ocax because she felt powerful.Poppy felt
so much power that she killed mr. ocax and that’s how the mice took control tttthhhheee
eeeennndddd!!!!!!!!!!
Next up was math work. Nathan worked on dreambox math today, he did 30 minutes of work. Genevieve negotiated with me to read her novel, instead of doing math, and she would work on math while Nathan was at horse. I readily agreed to this deal.
We had lunch and off we went to horse therapy for Nathan. On the way to riding, Nathan was engaging me in such mind expanding conversations, I missed our exit, which made our trip 20 minutes longer. The things Nathan thinks of while we are driving really blows my mind. He is actually kind of opposite to me, while driving I like to listen to music and kind of vegetate out. I am trying really hard to be a better listener to Nathan while we are driving. I know that this is such a valuable time for us to talk, about all of the life changing things his brain thinks about. If this kid does not make some kind of profound scientific breakthrough I think I will eat my shoe. What I find difficult about this lets ask the most difficult questions while driving a car, is I don't have anyway of looking up questions Nathan asks. And he does get frustrated when there isn't a clear answer on the topic he is asking about. I sometimes have to say, I am sorry Nathan but that is the edge of science, scientist do not yet know the answer to these questions. Just to give you an idea on what he talks about, on the way to pick up Jeff, we discussed, why children need more sleep than adults, I said it was because it requires more energy to grow. He than asked well why do we not just stay short then and save all that energy. We can grow strong by growing wider, but we would conserve a lot of energy. This of course led to a discussion on evolution, and then that lead to a discussion on whether I thought there would be a time that humans did not exist, if we would have a mass extinction like the dinosaurs. Which then brought up the idea that an asteroid caused this mass extinction, and that there is no proof. And of course he wanted exact details on what would happen if an asteroid hit, how it would cause this catastrophe, and how big it was. Then time travel was discussed, because that is the only way Nathan figures we can prove if dinosaurs live, of course we have to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, and would this then put us in an alternate universe than the one we are living though. And next it lead to some kind of suit you wear, that is kind of like iron man, but we have no skin, and wear the iron all the time. Nathan thinks we should have the technology to do this now. Did I mention this conversation was only 10 minutes long. My brain aches that I have had 3 twenty minute drives today with Nathan involved in his questions of the universe...
Here's Nathan at horse therapy, he did well in horse riding today, he choose to ride ziggy today, even though he has not ridden him in months
And then we had dinner, picked up Jeff and I am unwinding...
This is Gigi sneaking into my bedroom to share the book she is reading, jane eyre. She came to a sad part where Jane's friend dies when she is in school. Genevieve is loving the book.
Today Gigi had an extra cheer practice to learn her choreography. While Genevieve was at cheer, Nathan and I went to willow View Farms in Abbotsford. We had never been there but we had a great time. Nathan and I picked a bunch of apples. Nathan noticed that the trees looked different at the bottom, he could see where they had been grafted. So we talked about how they grow trees differently now to get more fruit in a smaller area of land. And how one tree is grafted onto a different root system. We tried out the apples as we picked them. Poor Nathan overheated today at 11 am, it was only 20 degrees and he was in shorts and a t-shirt. We stopped and got a apple cider slushy on the way out!
Nathan pulling our cart along, as I am suggesting he stay in the shade because he is hot
Nathan loves his goats...
We picked up Gigi and headed home, Gigi was excited about her new cheer routine and showed us what it was and all the moves and lifts.
Genevieve came into my room tonight at 9 pm, (I thought she was already asleep) to tell me she was loving a book I had bought her. She is reading Jane Eyre :) and loving it. It is a classics retold version by Usborne lexile count of 820. I love how she loves reading. I bought her a tonne of books off of eBay, and she has read them all I think except a couple. I think she was holding off on this book because she thought it was too old for her, but she is really enjoying it. She came in asking if this book was a series because she would be needing more of them.
Our first epic adventure with the DIY club was today. A trip up lindeman.
1st up was packing our packs this morning. Why you ask am I doing it this morning, good question I think I work better under pressure. Thankfully nathan and Genevieve know how to get their owns packs together and can help me pack lunch.
Group hiking and ginger is not so great especially when I am walking ginger and nathan is way ahead. Who knew ginger was so strong!
When we got to the top we used two different water purification systems. First up was tim's fancy charcoal filter and my chlorine and phosphorous. I thought mine would taste terrible but it actually tasted pretty good.
Next challenge was building a fort
We then had a challenge to build a fire. Tim and I both had flints as well as another dad. All the kids had turns trying to light. What did Tim and I learn, it will take a really long time to light a fire with a flint. I brought cotton balls soaked in Vaseline, and it was still hard. It was great practice, thankfully our flint is usually only our backup method.
Next challenge cleaning up a trail.
After our epic journey we went home and I had a nice hot bath, kids went outside to play. Nathan came home I was still in the bath, he said mom we need dinner why do you always leave everything to the last minute, we are going to be late for the hockey game. Right the hockey game, how could I forget. Just what my hip needs three hours in a hard seat after a hike. Oh what we do for our kids.
So here we are at hockey.
And I am sitting here blogging at the game. I'm not the most dedicated hockey fan :).
This morning we slept in after the late night last night. I thought I would have very grumpy kids today but so far we are doing ok.
This morning for fun I got out the dry erase maps I bought the other day and nathan and Genevieve labeled all the countries they knew. I was surprised at how many they got! They wanted to know more so I gave them a country and asked if they could figure out where it was, and then I have hints. Nathan and Gigi both really liked this.
Next up we did moving beyond the page. We worked on our essay. I had anticipated writting 3 paragraphs today, but I changed that to writing 1 as it was taking them a while to do this. I thought having their ideas written down already would help but that did not.
Genevieve's paragraph started out well, but then she really strayed off topic. It was well written but not what we needed, so she will need to work on this another day. Our printer is out of ink (Jeff remind me to get some ink), so I didn't print hers out. I let Gigi type hers today and I found she payed more attention to spelling this way. She could see she spelt the word wrong and she was willing to look at the word and figure out how it should be spelt. She did this by phonics, she is so good at phonics, but not as good at spelling, I understand it's a different concept, but I don't really understand why :)
Here is Nathan's first paragraph, of his essay. I worked with him getting him to discuss what he wanted to convey to the reader. He would read out what he had written and then he would verbally get his next sentence worked out before typing it. He would then re-read his sentence and see if he could improve on it.
I just copied and pasted Nathan's work
There
is a circle of power between Poppy and Mr. Ocax, because they are different
from each other. Mr.Ocax is at the top of the circle of power,
because he scares them to take control of them.He even killed ragweed, Poppy’s boyfriend.Mr Ocax made all mice afraid of porcupines by
tellingthem they were vicious, and
porcupines would eat them, but he told
them he would protect them from the vicious porcupines.One of the differences between the mice and
Mr Ocax, is one is good and one is bad, I leave it to you to decide which one
is bad?The mice have not been anywhere
because Mr Ocax controls them with fear, it makes them different because one
has more knowledge of world then the other.The mice and Mr. Ocax are different because as I said before one is good
and one is bad.
After mbtp, we moved on to math, both nathan and Gigi did dreambox again. Gigi did some work in her book as well.
At the moment they are dancing in the hallway to Christmas music. Safely dancing in their own space, without endangering other classmates. Lol. I know there are way too many plo's on dancing :)
Genevieve dancing in my room, I think trying to get me in the music, playing let it snow. Although my feet feel cold enough it may be getting ready to snow.
Today we started off the day with Math, Gigi did not want to do her math book, she said she was bored of it. She said it is too easy and review. She is on lesson 21 and so far it has been review for her. I am glad I ordered her grade 4 math instead of grade 3. If she carries on at this pace she will be done 4th grade math in 5 months. So I signed up for a trial of Dreambox, and she did that today for Math. She enjoyed it so far, she is just doing the assessment. I'm thinking this might be a good supplement for her in math, and maybe slow her down and deepen her knowledge a bit, instead of her just keeping on skipping ahead grade wise. She is completing 2-3 lessons in 1/2 at the moment. I had no idea she could do the math that fast, and all of her answers are always correct, a couple of times I thought aha I found a mistake, but I just could not read her numbers. Since Gigi was doing dreambox, Nathan wanted to do dreambox as well. He wanted to show Gigi how it works. So they did their math work on dreambox for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Next up we did some work Poppy and moving beyond the page. Although we have finished the novel, we still have a few activities to do to complete our novel study. We did some worksheets on suffixes. And then we worked on starting a three paragraph essay. We worked on the outline today. They were given topics for each paragraph. They then had to come up with the topic sentence (main idea), and 4 supporting details and a conclusion for each paragraph. Tomorrow we will work on turning their outlines into paragraphs. And if we have time some editing.
And that was all we had time for! We needed to eat before we left for Physio singing, because I promised the kids I would take them swimming after. So off to physio, where Nathan worked very hard, and Gigi expressed herself wonderfully to music. She played a duet with her instructor which was wonderful. Gigi picked a tune from the song someone like you and played it, and her teacher accompanied it, while gigi made up her own lyrics. Her teacher was talking to her that a lot of songs are just a few chords and when you make changes like gigi did it becomes your own song instead of Adele's song. I should have recorded this one!
So next we went swimming. The pool was deserted, which was perfect. I gave both Gigi and Nate some swimming lessons. Gigi has almost perfected her stroke she is turning a little too much as she swims, but her stroke looks wonderful. She swam about 15 lengths of the pool. Nathan, was somewhat hesitant for instruction, but he did pretty good too! His shoulders are doing so much better than they were a year ago, although they still dislocate all the time, he seems to have a better understanding of where his arm is in space. He is able to move his arm without dislocating it swimming. I only got Nathan to swim 2 lengths of the pool, as he had already worked out 1 hr at physio, and I did not want him to overdo it. We ended up staying 2 1/2 hrs as Finn and Anika showed up at the pool, so gigi and nate played with them for a long time.
So because we stayed so late swimming we did not get home until 4:30, I still had to cook dinner, get Genevieve bathed, as she needs to dechlorinate, as the chlorine really bothers her. So we had to eat and all get ready to go by 7:10. Of course I was in the bath tub at 6:30, and I really need a blowdryer, Jeff make sure I buy one when we go to Costco, going to an opera with soaking wet hair, was not the greatest, and I am sure the people driving by me while I was trying to dry my hair with the heat from the car vents thought I was a little crazy! But we made it to the opera in time. It was a fantastic experience, and sitting in front of us was our piano teacher! That was pretty neat for the kids, she talked to them about the opera and about what they thought. At intermission they were serving tea in royal doulton tea cups, we all had a cup of tea. As Nathan and I sat down to drink our tea, I watched my little Gigi daintily drink her tea in a very pretty dress, with shoes with heels on them. As I had to sit down so I don't spill my tea in my very comfortable granny shoes.
We were so busy drinking our tea, we forgot to take a picture of us, and it was super long so after the kids were just plain exhausted. It was not over until 10:30, the kids were sooooo tired! They had wanted to come to the opera on Thursday because you get to meet the singers after the show, well Nate and Gigi were too tired. Gigi was actually grumpy and said I just want to go home, can we please go home. So we didn't get a chance to really discuss the opera too much after like we usually do as the kids were just too exhausted.
Can you please just open the door! But look how handsome he looks, he does like dressing up.
So I woke up with a headache this morning, took out the garbage and climbed back into bed, until my headache subsided, which was about 9:30 am. Before I woke up Nathan and Genevieve played a game of chess, and then they used the chess pieces in imaginative play and set up some kind of family. But they are definitely on a chess kick. We had breakfast and both Nathan and Genevieve worked on Math and piano practice. Genevieve completed chapter 20 in Math. She is already three weeks ahead of schedule in Math, but so far it has mostly been review, so I am sure she will slow down when she gets to more new materials. Nathan finished another page in beast academy. He was solving word problems gram weights. He would have to determine how many weights were needed, or a question was like you have a 44 gram eliphinch, how many 8 gram weights and 4 gram weights would you need to get to 44 grams. I have Nathan using a 100 chart to do this. I wish I had a balance scale, and a bunch of different size weights. I think Nathan would love it then. We then had to head out to hockey.
Genevieve is sure a different player on the ice this year, she has more determination, and is excited to get out there. Nathan's always played with that intensity it seems. Both sets of grandparents came out to see Nate and Gigi play today.
After hockey today I told Nathan that it was important he have a shower. All of a sudden he is sweating like crazy while playing sports. He really did not want a shower as we only had 30 minutes before we had to leave to take Gigi to cheer. I finally convinced him by telling him if he did not he was going to get jock itch. I explained that Jock itch is a yeast infection in the jockstrap area. I explained the peeling, the redness, pain and itchiness that come with it. He promptly went into the shower when we got home and wanted more information on how exactly to make sure he did not get jock itch. Hopefully this will work and I will not have a stinky boy ;)
We then raced off and took Genevieve to cheer for her 1.5 hr class. I went to the teachers learning store and found some great poster board size dry erase world maps. They are outline maps and basic and clear. Kids were excited to see them, hopefully they will learn more world geography this year.
So tonight has ended with Nathan in tears and a pretty bad migraine. His headache is not the my head may implode, and he turns purple magnitude headache, but it is pretty significant. He asked for me to turn off his light for him, Nathan always goes to bed with the light on, so you know its bad when... He also was begging me to do something to get rid of his headache, unfortunately there is nothing I can do to get rid of his headaches but time.
He did have some change in his routine today that he did not like. I got him to change in the hockey change rooms instead of the front entrance. We usually just put on the skates and the last few pieces of equipment in the front of the rink, but last week we were kinda in the way. Well Nathan really did not want to go to the change rooms. It ended up he was okay with using the changerooms, but he gets so nervous. Not sure if this anxiety played a role in Nathan's headache tonight. Dr Pleydell Pearce was thinking his headaches are from sensory processing issues that Nathan has, not sure how change fits in there but Nathan hates change and always has :)
Hopefully tomorrow will be headache free, we are off to see an opra tomorrow night "the Magic Flute" This will be our first opera, and Nathan's horse riding instructor will be singing in the chorus.
Today the only subject we did was math. Nathan started his next chapter in beast academy. It is still on skip counting/multiplication. This is the last chapter before he starts the next unit. I look forward to the next unit.
Genevieve continued on in her book and is working on chapter 18.
They both practiced piano before we left for piano lessons.
Now they are busily playing chess. I think once a month chess club will be wonderful to learn different strategies. It was neat to hear the excitement of players telling their parents, I learned a new move from this kid, it was so cool. I love how they learn from each other.
While grocery shopping today I found gluten free perogies, this was Nathan's favorite dinner and we have not had them in a year! For the bargain price of $16 we are having perogies tonight! Not quite like cost is $16 for 8 meals of perogies...
Today was the first day of our science coop. It was fantastic. Today's topic was slime and non-Newtonian forces. Although properties of matter is a grade 2 PLO, it definitely went well and above this. They definitely had lots of more advanced chemistry and physics. We had 44 students in with the SFU teachers today and it worked quite well. They listened to a 20-30 min lecture, then they made their slime. ( Elmer's glue and borax). Next they had another 1/2 hr lecture on non Newtonian forces. And back to hands on goopy cornstarch and water, for the non-Newtonian experiment. All the children listened really well.
Doesn't Nathan look excited
look at these cuties!
That's a big group of well behaved kids!
Nathan loved this, he got to mix up the non-Newtonian fluid! he loved the feeling.
lots of moms helping
After science 12:00 we had lunch there and we started chess club. Nathan and Gigi started out playing a game together. I spent 5 minutes showing Gigi the moves and she was off. Although she only played one game with Nathan. Nathan spent the entire time playing chess and loved it.
they played so well together, I only stayed for a few minutes, and they were good to go.
aww look there's Simone! Poor Simone is sick today...
Woke up this morning and wanted to stay in bed. Thankfully my wonderful housecleaner was here nice and early. She made oatmeal for the kids for breakfast and I stayed in bed until 9 am. Unfortunately I did not feel that much better at 9. So I got the kids to do Math work. Nathan did dreambox, and gigi did some of her work, not really sure what she did but she did some math. Next I let them watch brainpop. Nathan watched all science ones, Genevieve watched all art and music ones. Nathan said what genevieve was watching was boring but genevieve loved it. They watched lots of these, for about 1.5 hrs.
Both Genevieve and Nathan had a friend come over for a playdate in the afternoon. I got to visit with one of the moms as well, and I was feeling much better in the afternoon.
Nightime came and I wasn't feeling that great anymore.
Saturday - oh boy I have to be two places at once
Genevieve has cheer on Saturdays from 9:30- 11, so off we were at 9 am to head to cheer, I than raced back to Chilliwack because Nathan has soccer at 10 am at vedder middle. We arrived just before the game started. Nathan had a great game and scored a goal. This year for soccer, Nathan s age group is a mess. We have to travel all over the fraser valley, which isn't too bad, but we don't find out the exact times of the games until Thursday! How am I supposed to organize, help transporting my kids around on Saturdays when I don't know when, or even where, we sometimes know the city ahead of time.
So after Nathans soccer, we race back to Abbotsford to pick up Genevieve who has been done cheer for 45 minutes. Thankfully she is the most patient little girl I know, well most times.
After I picked up Genevieve we went to Valhalla and picked up Nathan a new pair of hiking boots. For the bargain price of $200, and a size 8.5! Hopefully they will last a few months. He outgrew his last pair, and he can not fit into mine either, and we are going on a hike up lindeman next weekend with the DIY class with TLA. Unfortunately even though it is a pretty easy hike, Nathan can not do it without hiking boots! Tim I am sure would be carrying my 100lb child down the mountain :)
I am also excited that along with two other moms, we have organized a science club. We will be meeting once a month. When we were first organizing this us moms were going to be teaching. We were lucky to be able to arrange to have SFU come and facilitate all of our science club days, from science alive! How cool is that! We also have an environmental scientist as a mom and she is taking all of the older grade 8 plus kids and doing some environmental testing studies. We have also organized for the younger science fans grade 1 and under to do some Charlotte mason style nature walks and local field trips. We have rented out the yarrow hall to accomplish this task.
And we have had great amount of interest in this of course! we have 80 kids in all three groups!
In the afternoon, we have also organized a chess club from 1-3.
So tonight I am sitting here and messaging everyone and confirming attendance and registration. But it is so going to be worth it! I will post pictures of Mondays science fun. The first day is slime....
I have been feeling tired the last few days, and I think I know why. I think Jeff shared his cold with me! Not what I needed. I was thinking I was feeling run down with all the activities starting up etc. but now I know it's all your fault Jeff.
School started late today at 9:30, I just could not get going.
We read the last of poppy this morning, sad and nice to be finished too. Nathan and Genevieve both enjoyed the books and would not mind reading the rest in the series.
Next up was math. Nathan struggled a little today, but managed to muddle his way through 2 pages.
We did not finish all of our mbtp activities before we had to go to physio so we are behind about a day or so.
Physio was good, Genevieve had a good time in her music class as well.
Nathan has a love hate relationship with his weighted puppy
I sent a kids out to take ginger for a run before school as ginger has been getting restless while school is on and has started trying to chew pencils! So I think I will get them to take ginger for a walk before breakfast every morning.
And look what was brought home from the walk, a whole colony of snails!
Wednesday, well I think this will be the day I officially dread. Wednesdays are busy!
Started the day off with reading poppy during breakfast. We then switched subjects and jumped into math. Genevieve continued in her math books, and Nathan completed 2 pages in Beast Academy today! He likes to know how much and what is expected of him each day, he has definitely learned that if he just gets it done it gets done quicker. Of course when hes not feeling great this will fly out the window. I think we will keep on gradually increasing the amount of Math required over the next few months. Genevieve is doing great with her math, except she definitely needs help with the calendar. I found something funny today is that Gigi is definitely motivated by a feeling of accomplishment as she completes a page. Nathan feels a sense of accomplishment when he learns something new. Gigi really did not care to learn more about the calendar she just wanted it done. Not too worried, I know she will learn when the start of each season is and be able to know the months in order better at some point. I will have to look up a song to sing for memorizing the months of the year.
Next up we jumped back to moving beyond the page and Poppy. We did not finish all of our activities in MBTP today. But we did do a bit of writing, and our chapter summary questions. The wrting assignment was to write a story of something that had happened in your own life where you had overcome a fear. Before I got the kids to write, I asked them to think about the topic sentence and told them that the topic sentence was to tell them what the whole paragraph will be about, they then needed at least 3 supporting sentences. I also told them they needed a windup sentence at the end to conclude it. Nathan wanted to print his instead of typing it, of course his hand hurt after printing the first sentence. I printed most of the rest of his for him. He dictated what I was to write. This worked fairly well for Nathan and helped him I think say it out loud so he could hear what he was saying. I think he was better able to think of what he wanted to say.
Nathan's story of overcoming fear
Genevieves story of overcoming fear
Page 2 of Genevieves
Next up was homeschool hockey. Both Genevieve and Nathan were very excited to start playing again. They both played very well and lost very little skill over the summer.
Home for 45 minutes and then off to cheerleading.
Now I'm tired, but I am attempting to read some of julie bogarts, writers jungle tonight.
Well today got off to a bumpy start, I was making oatmeal when I checked my email, and there was a message from Rebecca reminding us that the DIY club started today! Oh no, I was making steel cut oats, and class started in 20 minutes! I got the kids to mad dash to get ready, and I popped some waffles that Jeff had premade for me and stuck in the freezer. We made it to class I think 10 minutes late, we hit a train too!
Since I was unprepared, Gigi and I went shopping, she needed a new pair of cheer shoes, she also got a new pair of fancy shoes.
Nathan had a great time at DIY and is looking forward to the year ahead.
We arrived home and I had to make lunch as we had piano at 1. So we went to Piano and their teacher says they both have some musical talent. She is working with Nathan and both Marlene and Nathan are okay, that they take their time, learning the songs, just do a little bit at a time, and as much as he can do. She is definitely individualizing their music training! Exactly what they needed, they are so different. Nathan likes to hear the whole song first and needs to hear the complexities of the music, before he will play it, its like he needs to know it ahead of time. Gigi will sit down and look at the music and plunk her way through the keys until it sounds right, she says its like a puzzle. I think gigis way is how I played a musical instrument. We talked about voice lessons for Genevieve, Marlene says she would teach her in a musical theatre type way, in that Genevieve shows so many of her emotion when she is even playing the piano, she says you can see it even in the way she moves her hands. So while she is singing she would get the whole showmanship stuff too! Oh boy :)
This reminds me of Genevieve, how much I admire her!
Nathan was off all day today, just grumpy and picking fights with Gigi, of course Gigi did not help the situation! I am sure this is because of the confusion this morning and Nathan does not do well with change, or the unknown. But they fought on the way to Abbotsford and the way back, and on the way to Piano. I went to Starbucks and had a pumpkin scone and an iced tea, while they were at piano. I think it was enough for me to have that hour to decompress and figure out what my poor little over stimulated boy needed. So we went home and had some down time before we had to race off to soccer tonight.
After soccer, Nathan asked to have a bath, which was probably a good thing because I think it relaxed him and he was able to fall asleep quite quickly tonight. We talked about that it is probably a good thing he is having a bath after soccer now, as he is getting older and he is starting to sweat, Nathan pointed out he has his cologne (deodorant) that he can wear for that. I told him that that just covers up the smell, and he needed to wash with soap to get rid of the bacteria. Lots of puberty questions arriving at our house lately. Thankfully we he is not shy about asking things and I am handling the questions okay, jeff does better in this department! And mostly Nathan has pretty much figured out everything on his own somehow, and just asks us for clarification, or to make sure his ideas are correct. Anyway, I think this is a grade 5 PLO, and we are definitely hitting those :)
Maybe tomorrow we will get some sit down schoolwork accomplished?
Today we dropped Jeff off at the airport, for his 2 week work shift. When we arrived back home we had about an hour to do some schoolwork. We completed are next latin lesson, and a worksheet on prefixes and suffixes.
We then went to horse riding therapy. We listened to our latin CD on the way to horse riding and math CD's on the way home.
And I called school done for the day, Nathan and gigi had a few hours to play and relax, before dinner, and then we took ginger for a walk and played with our friends for about 45 minutes before coming home to go to bed.
So even though daddys fly out days, are usually disruptive in our family, today was ok, I think sticking to some routine helped. We kept busy but had some down time as well. I don't think Nathan would have tolerated a full day of school well. Nathan had never done well with change, even tonight I can hear he just fell asleep, after laying in bed for 2 hours.
Here is a schedule that I have printed out and the one we look at every morning. This has helped both of the kids know what to expect every morning. They know beforehand what is expected of them.
Monday is going to be horse therapy instead of Friday
Tuesday Nathan also has soccer practice from 6-7:30
Latin - Finishing up Song school Latin 1, going to start 2, and also minimus mouse
Math - Nathan is doing Beast Academy, he is still enjoying dreambox occasionally too, and dragonbox
- Genevieve teaching textbooks 4 - she is loving it, she also loves dragonbox, I think she might have finished it.
Math games - we have a lot of math games, I am also using the rightstart math games, and matching the games to what concepts Nathan and Genevieve are learning
AAS - all about spelling for Gigi
Moving beyond the page - finishing up a few units from 7-9, and starting 8-10 in a few weeks.
Science - this block is also socials studies. We are using Moving beyond the page. We do three weeks of science and then do 3 weeks of socials.
Canada - Donna Wards - Canada's natives long ago. I had only planned 3 months for this, but as I am going through it I think it may take us a bit longer. There is a lot to learn and read. And I have decided to read some of the novels that came with the package. They seemed so good and a good way to learn that I decided to maybe slow it down and incorporate them.
SOTW - story of the world, I thought we were farther ahead last year, we are only on chapter 11 I think, so only 1/2 way, and then we will start story of the world 2.
And I am not strict with the times, it was just to give me a rough idea of where and how I was going to fit everything in! If one subject is taking us longer that is fine and we finish it. But I needed an idea of how to fit everything since most days we need to leave the house by 12:30.
Alliteration, Nathan and Genevieve had to read 2 chapters and find examples of alliteration, and then write some alliteration at home. We have also noticed alliteration when we are speaking and what we have read the last few days.
This was a page on Porcupines I found in Genevieve's book on Canadian animals.
they also read this book, as Nathan and Genevieve had a few questions on porcupines
Nathan also made a mouse puppet and Gigi a porcupine puppet. They acted out scenes from the book.
Friday.
Day started off with canada studies. We read some more in our novel julie and the wolves. Nathan and Genevieve designed title pages for our note booking on natives. While doing this they were looking at the different holmes the different native tribes had. They enjoyed looking through the books from Donna ward for inspiration. Nathan's drawing was much better today Rachel :). I will have to take a picture.
We then did more moving beyond the page. They did a synonym crossword, they had to look up synonyms of a word in the book. I thought this was a great exercise in reading for information. They had to read the page but were reading for a purpose of finding a word. Same kind of thing they did the other day liking for alliteration. I though Nathan may have difficulties with this task, as he only likes reading certain books. He complained but I left him to his work, and he was done fairly quickly. Genevieve was able to complete this task quickly as well.
Nathan and Gigi both practiced their piano.
And then I called it a day as we were off to see a live taping of a ytv show, some assembly required.
On the way there we listened to math wrap ups, and then skip counting CDs. We are still working at perfecting skip counting by 6 and starting to get 7's.
Here are some pics of the live taping! What an experience this was! They got to see what happens in the production of a sitcom.
Genevieve reading on the way down, she started the Ramona series and is loving it, Yeah!
Always ready for a picture
Don't worry he's having a great time, just being goofy. I was trying to take a picture as if tweeted with a hashtag you could win a prize, unfortunately I could not figure out how to tweet!
Getting all of their autographs
This actor was so nice and talked to Nathan and Genevieve for a bit. He engaged Nathan quite a bit.
According to Gigi this actor knows fashion! She loved her outfit, and before Gigi could compliment her, she had told Genevieve what a pretty dress she was wearing.
Tuesdays we are starting with Story of the world. We read about India and the Citadels of the indus river. We have been reading the chapter in story of the world and then doing the review questions and discussing. We then looked at the map provided, and also looked at the globe and the map of the world, and found the indus river, as well as Mesopotamia, and ancient Egypt, and looked at how they used the rivers for roadways.
next up was Moving beyond the page. We read the next few chapters, and answered our discussion questions. We then drew two pictures of good v.s evil. The directions were to give 2 pieces of paper and without any other directions besides good v.s evil to tell them to draw. Next up we did some poetry writing, Nathan and gigi enjoyed this exercise!
Here is Genevieve's Poem
Nathan's Poem
Genevieves good!
Genevieves evil
Nathan's good V.s evil. He said see one has a smile the other is grumpy, hmmm, but that is okay, it meant he got to spend more time on math and writing his poem.
Next up was math, Nathan struggled a lot less with this! yeah Nathan. Gigi ran out of time, and did not do math today.
Both practiced piano, before we left for piano lessons
so tonight at bedtime, both Nathan and Genevieve asked to do math at bedtime tonight. Nathan wanted to do it so he did not have to do math tomorrow, and gigi just wanted to do it today and tomorrow....
