Yesterday was kind of a light day, but I think we could still use a less intense today today, so I'm thinking we'll do some good hands-on projects. It's another dreary day, and although it's supposed to be rainy off and on, the temperatures could go up to nearly 70, so hopefully we can get some outside time in somewhere.
7-8:30am: Relaxation and breakfast. Both kids were up between 6:30 and 7, and I'd been awake since 5:15, so we all enjoyed a very laid-back breakfast and getting ready time.
8:30-8:45am: Penmanship. Both kids had worked through all the letters that they struggled with, so I opted to work on sentences instead of individual letters. My son needs practice with spacing between letters and between words, and my daughter needs practice in joining cursive letters, so I had them copy the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs" multiple times.
8:45-9:30am: We missed a couple of the Facebook Live presentations by the Cincinnati Zoo, so we went back and watched their presentation of an ocelot. Then we played a game where I gave them a description of an animal feature and they had a minute or so to list every animal (including mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, etc.) they could think of that fit that category. Our categories were: animals with stripes, animals with spots, animals with sharp claws, nocturnal animals, herbivores, tree-dwellers, predators, good swimmers (not counting full-time water-dwellers like fish and marine mammals!), animals with good hearing, and (just for fun!) animals that are really weird-looking.
9:30-10am: Physical Education. From our school's website's list of math games, we timed ourselves to see how many repetitions of a given movement we could do in 60 seconds.
10-11am: Science and Oral Presentations. The kids requested doing research on hamsters (we have a pet hamster), so I suggested they do some research and take notes so they could do a presentation to me. They used their Chromebooks to research facts, and put the hamster in her playpen so they could observe her behavior. They cooperated quite well together, including deciding that my daughter, who writes faster and more neatly, would take notes while my son, who has better computer skills, searched for information. They decided to do separate presentations, and practiced speaking slowly and clearly, and standing without fidgeting or wandering around. That's harder than it sounds when you're 8 and 10 and have a LOT of energy!! Our favorite word that we learned was "crepuscular," which means most active at dusk. Also of note: Ryan's presentation was 7 pages and 20 minutes long; Katie's was 2 short paragraphs and about 40 seconds long. They're basically gender-swapped Hermione and Ron.
11-11:30am: Art. My son wanted to work on his recycled art from Monday; my daughter chose to watch one of Mo Willems' Lunch Doodles. I got Mo playing on her Chromebook and stocked her with paper, magic markers, and pencils, and then I gave my son a lesson in using a glue gun safely. I probably should have made him watch this tutorial instead!
11:30-11:50am: We listened to the last two chapters of "Stone Fox," chapters 9 and 10, then we talked about the book for a little bit. We discussed main and secondary characters; why the author might have chosen the title that he did; what difference the setting of the story made, both time and place; the reasons that sad books have value, especially for young readers; and what they liked and disliked about the book.
11:50am-1pm: Lunch break and free time! My daughter spent a good bit of her time listening to the soundtrack of Frozen 2 and my son played video games. It's all good.
1-1:45pm: Student's Choice. It has to be something they can do independently and quietly, like reading, researching a topic of choice, writing a poem or a letter, or watching an educational video with headphones. The 3rd-grader chose to write a story; the 4th-grader is reading "Percy Jackson: The Last Olympian," by Rick Riordan. The latter is what I've been reading to him at bedtime, so I'll have to find some time to catch up before he goes to be tonight or I'll be all confused! This session was originally planned to go only until 1:30, but both kids asked to stretch the time a little longer, so we did.
1:45-2:15pm: Dance. We practiced our choreography for my niece Kayla's dance challenge video! It's hard, but we're all getting better. We talked about how to best learn it, from practicing at slower speeds, to repeating shorter segments, to "woodshedding" particular steps that we were struggling with, to simplifying steps that continually throw us off. It was a good chance to talk about how people learn differently and struggle with different things, and how important it is to be patient with people who don't catch on as quickly as we do.
We're knocking off early today, although I'll probably get them both to help me make supper (once I decide what it is!), so that counts as home ec time.
Congratulations, we made it through the first week! Happy weekend!
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