Lesson Plans: Day 3

Facebook keeps marking my blog posts as spam due to the "C-word" in the title, so I'm deleting it for the day. Hopefully FB will get their spam algorithm straightened out quickly! Anyway, today's lesson and schedule has been adapted based on how our last two days went. The biggest change has been the focus on math for my daughter. I realized based on yesterday's less-than-successful "math sprint" that our homeschooling math time for her would be well spent on drilling (and, in some cases, learning) multiplication facts. So instead of my planned worksheets, I'm having my son work on a self-driven online math program while I work with my daughter and help her master multiplication. I also discovered a great history link last night, so I added that to our curriculum. The beauty of homeschooling is flexibility, based on not only how your kids (and you) are feeling on a given day, but on the availability of resources. When you find something cool, use it!

Anyway, here's what we did today:

7-8:30: Up, get dressed, have breakfast, clear breakfast dishes, brush hair and teeth, free time. Today my son and I were both awake and up before 6, so we enjoyed having a slow start (we both need some time to get going in the morning) and listening to the birds sing their sunrise song. My daughter, in a highly unusual twist of events, slept until 7 this morning!

8:30-8:45: We had left yesterday's science experiment  overnight, so this morning we looked at it to see what had changed. We reviewed the principles of capillary action (cohesion! adhesion! surface tension!) and noted that the fluid levels were even in all six cups - and that the capillary action had started working in the opposite direction, as the colored water had started to climb back up the paper towels!

8:45-9:15: Penmanship. I have realized, as I prepare my daughter's practice sheets for cursive capital letters, that I have either forgotten or morphed a lot of cursive capitals over the years. This segment is turning out to be a good refresher course for me, as well! My son continues to struggle with printing neatly. It's probably a good thing that his generation will generally type rather than write by hand. Which reminds me, I should probably add some typing/keyboarding practice to this segment for next week.

9:15-9:45am: Exercise. I gave the kids the choice of going for a walk or doing a video exercise program or dance party in the living room. Netflix and Amazon Prime both have lots of choices for kids' exercise and dance videos, so if you have a fairly large, open room with a TV in it, that's a good option. In a pinch, you can use a laptop screen (indoors or out!), but it's a lot easier to follow the instructor with a larger screen. My kids actually opted for doing a video dance party, but then they couldn't agree on a video and when I picked one they whined and then wouldn't dance, so I overruled them and we went for a walk.

9:45-10:30: History. We took a virtual field trip "Beyond the Battlefield" with author Lauren Tarshis of the "I Survived" book series. We then grabbed a quick snack before sitting down to read her nonfiction short story, "Blood, Smoke, and Freedom: A True Story of the American Revolution."

10:30-11am: Art. Time for Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems! We're big fans of all of the Mo Willems series: the Pigeon books, Gerald and Piggy, and our favorites, Knuffle Bunny. If you haven't read the Knuffle Bunny trio (Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Knuffle Bunny Free), you NEED to read them. Be sure to have tissues handy for #3; it's very bittersweet. We missed the first couple of Livecasts, so today's doodle was from Monday, and we learned how to draw the Pigeon! I was surprised at how much my son enjoyed drawing with Mo; he's not usually eager to draw. But he does love the Pigeon - and it didn't hurt that he was fascinated by Mo's wild hair.

11am-noon: My 3rd-grader needs to work on her multiplication facts, so I'm watching over her shoulder while she works through her basic multiplication tables online. My 4th-grader is using Khan Academy math to forge ahead on his own (he's something of a math whiz, and he enjoys it, so it's a good opportunity to give him his own reins and trust that he'll do the work without prodding from me). But when he went to get his Chromebook, he came back with the hamster who was apparently  "begging to come out," so I let him get in some pet cuddles. When his sister ran out of steam for math practice, they got to trade. Everybody won, especially the hamster.

Noon-1pm: Lunch break! And free play time, including getting to use electronics or go outside. We have a nice sunny porch that the kids like to picnic on, so I always encourage them to go outside, even if they're not actually running around and exercising. Sunshine is good for the soul, and it's gorgeous out there, even if it's a bit chilly. Come to think of it, I think I'll go have my lunch on the porch. It's a good excuse to have another nice hot cup of coffee.

1-1:40pm: Life skills. We're learning how to sew on a button! Plus a little about how buttons work.

1:40-2pm: Drama. Wednesday is "Philpott drama day" since both kids have drama as their daily special at school on Wednesdays. So I challenged them to teach me one of the games they play in drama at school. We played "Wha," "Monster Museum," and "Habitat."

2-3pm: Language arts. They each did their own grade-level Common Core ELA practice test, grade 3 and grade 4. My son finished very quickly (it's a very short set of questions), so I had him go on and take the 5th grade test as well. Every question he missed was because he hurried through and didn't read the questions carefully. Will have to figure out a way to work with him on taking his time and being careful! Once they finished, we listened to chapters 3, 4, and 5 of "Stone Fox". They read independently for the last 20 minutes.

3-3:30pm: Music. Each of them practiced their instrument (cello and trombone) for a while, then they noodled together on the piano, both picking out tunes they know and making up tunes of their own.

And school is out for the day, hooray! We survived Hump Day!