Monday went well. After doing the pledge of allegiance (Ian's new job is to remind us to do this. I forget about sometimes) and some scripture reading (we are starting over with the New Testament again) we listened to our chapter of Story of the World for the week which is about Japan and Korea. We read a few picture books about Japan and Korea. And broke out the origami paper to make some little animals and people. Sophie did her math and grammerland exercises. I felt like we had done pretty well. Sophie left to go to her Science club having completed what I planned for the day.
Tuesday we read some more picture books about Japan and also a few more about rocks and crystals. I had hoped to start a Lapbook about rocks but we didn't get very far. Barely even started, to be honest. Sophie took about 2 hours doing her one exercise of Math and threw countless fits about how hard it was and how I wouldn't help her. We didn't get much more accomplished this day. I was hopping we could do better the next.
Wednesday did seem to go better. Again we did our pledge and scripture reading to start. We read a few more story books about Japan and China.
The kids have really enjoyed most of these storybooks. Again we tried to do our rock lapbook but got distracted. Mostly it had something to do with the boys behaving badly. They just don't understand how much their fighting disturbs our studies. We went to the park and played with our park day friends. It was hot. But the kids had a great time and didn't want to come home.
Thursday we started our day normally. We pushed the library until later in the day. We usually go in the morning for story time but since my kids don't ever sit through story time, I didn't feel compelled to go at the same time. Instead we attempted grammerland and math. Ian did some of his math workbook. He started his Early bird 1B since he finished 1A last time. I tried to just have Sophie practice subtracting by doing some worksheets rather than a new exercise from her math book. But she again just pitched a fit about it and eventually I just sent her to her room to cool down because she was so worked up and it wasn't getting us anywhere. She hates this but I need it because otherwise we both loose our cool and I am really trying to keep calm even though she flips out. She ended up reading books in her room and not ever getting back to her math.
We did go to the library in the afternoon before heading to Ian's soccer practice. We got a whole bunch of new books.
By Friday I was tired and really didn't want to do school at all but I knew we couldn't just do nothing so I put an Audio CD on of the librivox recordings I had downloaded of Our Island Story. I cleaned the kitchen and did the laundry, Sophie colored and tried to do origami while we listened to chapter after chapter. Many of them we had read already but we got through a whole bunch of chapters and only turned it off when the CD was done. Sophie wanted more but I hadn't downloaded them all yet. And Henry had been invited to go and play at the Little Gym with a friend. We all went and watched him tumble and have fun for a bit and then we headed next door to OSH and we wandered through their garden section. We love to do this. I mentioned this to someone once and they thought we were strange. Are we the only ones who love to look at all the plants and water fountains in Osh or Home depot? Sophie has been asking for some snap dragons for months. They are her new favorite flower "even more than pansies" she says. We found some there and she picked out a small pot of them. Ian picked out some bird seed to fill our empty bird feeder and they were happy.
When we made it home we just simply read books the rest of the day or worked on projects.
One of our new books that we picked up at the library, that we all really liked is
Dave's Down to Earth Rock Shop by Stuart Murphy. It is one of Murphy's math book series but it explains how to classify rocks. The kids loved it. Sophie did end up doing a math exercise that afternoon and Ian did another in his book as well.
I have books and things lined up for what is scheduled for next week but I am starting to feel like we really need a change of pace. I can't say we had a great school week. Mostly because of Math I think. Sophie is fighting it a lot and it makes everything else difficult as a result. Maybe a break from math for a bit is all we need or maybe a whole change of pace would be helpful. Or maybe it was just one of those weeks that just doesn't run smoothly. Or it may even just be my attitude.
For what ever reason... I am feeling like we need to take it easy next week or have a break. I guess we will just see how it goes. Maybe after our Sabbath day of rest it won't feel quite so bad.
2 comments:
I'm sorry it didn't go as planned, sounds like my last week. I can't believe how many books you read though. I need to set up a time just for read-alouds, those always seem to get pushed to last and we never read as many as I'd like. I'll have to check out librivox though--we just started Our Island Story aloud, but it'd go much faster on a cd! We get a lot of listening done in the car.
I hope this next week goes better for you. I hate to take breaks from the schedule though, I have this irrational fear of "getting behind" which is silly--it's my schedule, I should be able to get behind if I want to. But sometimes you really do need a break. Good luck!
Seriously, you are amazing home schooling your kids. Ella was off track for 3 weeks and she and I both are ready for her to go back to school :) You really are so creative with school. I love reading what you do with your kids.
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