I'm doing bad at this blogging thing. I didn't realize it took quite this much of a time commitment.
Wow, what a busy day today! I made split pea soup (turned out great), breadsticks (I tried to make them skinny and they still ended up fat after the rise), granola with coconut oil so that my dad can eat it when he comes, and cookies. Oh, and apple cranberry muffins, which I totally forgot to put the butter in. They still tasted fine just a little bit dense. Turtle opened the microwave hours after the muffins were done to find the butter all softened in there. Plus we did laundry and school. Thank goodness the Bubbers took good naps and weren't quite so clingy today.
We actually started out our day with math because I was doing kitchen work and Chicklette was supposed to be vacuuming and Turtle was supposed to be washing the walls. I know they did do their chores, but I'm thinking there was some playing and talking going on too because it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. So, anyways, I had Racer start on stuff he could do independently, such as his math. He had his Xtramath and part of his math workbook done by the time Chicklette was ready to come down. I was still doing kitchen work (see above) so I had Chicklette do her Xtramath and math workbook while Racer worked on his Latin. Okay, that conjures up an image of two sweet-faced children diligently humming about like little bees, focused on their assignments. Let me reassure you, that was not the case. There was much poking, teasing, prodding, etc. that was happening.
When we were all gathered together in the same place we pulled out religion. It turned out that they kids had both already colored and cut out their Lamanite/Native American paper dolls or they had cut out something on the back of that paper and so couldn't create paper dolls. So we just worked on our memorization. Racer had a hard time following the directions to repeat the scripture phrase after me, so he had some alone time in his room and then he came down and apologized kindly.
After lunch we did our science. We created a jitter-critter from a broomstick, a paper clip, and a lump of modeling clay. We coiled the paper clip around the broomstick and stuck the modeling clay on the end for weight. We flicked the clay downwards and the paper clip jittered down the broomstick. The purpose of the experiment is to demonstrate friction. We had to try a few times and a few different broomsticks to get it to work correctly and we were really happy to see it finally work like the book showed us.
Then I corralled the kids upstairs on the couch where we read about Eli Whitney and Robert Fulton. I read the Robert Fulton book first and we found out some interesting facts about his steamboat inventions and his submarine inventions. He seemed like a very interesting person and it would have been intriguing to see what he would have come up with had he lived longer. Racer and Chicklette had started reading the Eli Whitney book last week and only got through one chapter. Heaven help me, I thought they were being lazy when they said they couldn't finish it. Then I opened it up and realized how dense the print was. It was written at a higher reading level than I expected when I got it. So we skimmed that one and talked about the highlights in his life. He had a great mechanical mind and was really able to understand processes and break them down into their specific steps.
Then I had Chicklette go back to her Latin and math to finish them up while Racer and I did grammar and Writing with Ease. His grammar dealt with indirect objects and I found it completely engaging. I had never actually learned what an indirect object was so to learn it and teach it at the same time and see how it was diagrammed in a sentence was exciting to me. I know it's nerdy, but honestly, I was very involved in the lesson. I doubt Racer was quite as absorbed as I was. In his Writing with Ease, he read about Hor-em-heb and how this Master Builder built a pyramid for Pharaoh and stole his treasure at the same time. Then we summarized the passage and Racer did a decent job on it.
After Racer was done I grabbed Chicklette and we did the same thing. Chicklette's Writing with Ease was copywork from Trumpet of the Swan. I should probably read that book sometime because I never have read it. We pointed out all the proper nouns in the copywork sentence. Her grammar also had to do with proper nouns and we talked about all the proper nouns in our family and our address. We also defined zip code.
After Chicklette and I finished her poem memorization and language arts assignments, she went back to her Latin and math (yes, she still wasn't done) and the rest of us finished putting dinner together. I signed up to take dinner to a lady in our ward who just had a baby and is looking fabulous. Split pea soup with lots of ham, breadsticks, cookies and muffins for the next day. It was great.
Wow, what a busy day today! I made split pea soup (turned out great), breadsticks (I tried to make them skinny and they still ended up fat after the rise), granola with coconut oil so that my dad can eat it when he comes, and cookies. Oh, and apple cranberry muffins, which I totally forgot to put the butter in. They still tasted fine just a little bit dense. Turtle opened the microwave hours after the muffins were done to find the butter all softened in there. Plus we did laundry and school. Thank goodness the Bubbers took good naps and weren't quite so clingy today.
We actually started out our day with math because I was doing kitchen work and Chicklette was supposed to be vacuuming and Turtle was supposed to be washing the walls. I know they did do their chores, but I'm thinking there was some playing and talking going on too because it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. So, anyways, I had Racer start on stuff he could do independently, such as his math. He had his Xtramath and part of his math workbook done by the time Chicklette was ready to come down. I was still doing kitchen work (see above) so I had Chicklette do her Xtramath and math workbook while Racer worked on his Latin. Okay, that conjures up an image of two sweet-faced children diligently humming about like little bees, focused on their assignments. Let me reassure you, that was not the case. There was much poking, teasing, prodding, etc. that was happening.
When we were all gathered together in the same place we pulled out religion. It turned out that they kids had both already colored and cut out their Lamanite/Native American paper dolls or they had cut out something on the back of that paper and so couldn't create paper dolls. So we just worked on our memorization. Racer had a hard time following the directions to repeat the scripture phrase after me, so he had some alone time in his room and then he came down and apologized kindly.
After lunch we did our science. We created a jitter-critter from a broomstick, a paper clip, and a lump of modeling clay. We coiled the paper clip around the broomstick and stuck the modeling clay on the end for weight. We flicked the clay downwards and the paper clip jittered down the broomstick. The purpose of the experiment is to demonstrate friction. We had to try a few times and a few different broomsticks to get it to work correctly and we were really happy to see it finally work like the book showed us.
Then I corralled the kids upstairs on the couch where we read about Eli Whitney and Robert Fulton. I read the Robert Fulton book first and we found out some interesting facts about his steamboat inventions and his submarine inventions. He seemed like a very interesting person and it would have been intriguing to see what he would have come up with had he lived longer. Racer and Chicklette had started reading the Eli Whitney book last week and only got through one chapter. Heaven help me, I thought they were being lazy when they said they couldn't finish it. Then I opened it up and realized how dense the print was. It was written at a higher reading level than I expected when I got it. So we skimmed that one and talked about the highlights in his life. He had a great mechanical mind and was really able to understand processes and break them down into their specific steps.
Then I had Chicklette go back to her Latin and math to finish them up while Racer and I did grammar and Writing with Ease. His grammar dealt with indirect objects and I found it completely engaging. I had never actually learned what an indirect object was so to learn it and teach it at the same time and see how it was diagrammed in a sentence was exciting to me. I know it's nerdy, but honestly, I was very involved in the lesson. I doubt Racer was quite as absorbed as I was. In his Writing with Ease, he read about Hor-em-heb and how this Master Builder built a pyramid for Pharaoh and stole his treasure at the same time. Then we summarized the passage and Racer did a decent job on it.
After Racer was done I grabbed Chicklette and we did the same thing. Chicklette's Writing with Ease was copywork from Trumpet of the Swan. I should probably read that book sometime because I never have read it. We pointed out all the proper nouns in the copywork sentence. Her grammar also had to do with proper nouns and we talked about all the proper nouns in our family and our address. We also defined zip code.
After Chicklette and I finished her poem memorization and language arts assignments, she went back to her Latin and math (yes, she still wasn't done) and the rest of us finished putting dinner together. I signed up to take dinner to a lady in our ward who just had a baby and is looking fabulous. Split pea soup with lots of ham, breadsticks, cookies and muffins for the next day. It was great.