DH and I were able to get away this weekend and visit St. George with some other members of his company. We had a great time not having to keep track of anyone other than ourselves. We had a fun bus drive down due to our host. Here's one of the activities we did: A man is found dead in the desert three feet from a water hole with a pack on his back. How did he die? Then we had to ask our host Yes/No questions to figure out the mystery. I'll tell you the answer at the end.
We had a 2 hour stop at Zions National Park where we hiked to the middle pool of the Emerald Pools. It was nice not having to watch out for the kids. We went to see Mary Poppins at Tuacahn and really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed being able to just sit and enjoy the show without having to take crying babies out. The next day DH skipped golfing to spend more time with me and we had the opportunity to take a quick walk around the St. George temple. DH says I never give him credit for all the picture he takes, so he took this one. We had lunch at a Mongolian Barbecue place and then drove home. It was nice to get to know some of the people that DH works with and to get to know their wives. We met a few couples we would like to have over for a barbecue or get-together sometime.
Re-entry hasn't been too bad. The kids didn't seem to miss me much and Grandma was still standing when we got here.
Religion - We got a little bit of a late start today because we were saying goodbye and thank you to Gandma. We watched a chapter on the Three Witnesses. While we watched, Chicklette started cutting out some of the puppets she colored for Joseph Smith, Moroni and the Gold Plates. She didn't want to narrate quite as much this time. Racer did a good job, but I had to remind him to use cursive. At least his printing was legible.
Math - Chicklette still hadn't finished the assignment I gave her before we went away for the weekend. She finally did finish it after much complaining, wailing and gnashing of teeth, but she got them all correct. Racer finished his assignment too quickly; he missed five out of 21. He'll have to correct it tomorrow. Racer and Chicklette did get in some time on Study Island. Chicklette did the reading portion and Racer did the language arts portion and finally finished that pre-test. Both of them did their Xtramath. Turtle and I attempted a reading lesson while they were doing their math, but his brain was not awake so we'll have to do it again tomorrow.
After lunch and tomato picking in our tomato jungle, we moved on to . . .
Science - From our Gadgets and Gizmos book, we learned about Newton's first law, the law of inertia. We created an inertia zoom ball using some plastic pipe that DH had and some yarn that I had. It worked okay, but I think it would have worked better if we had the plastic bottles the book suggested and maybe some heavier duty string.
Latin - Per our schedule, we should have moved on to History, but one of the Bubbers was still awake and needed to be watched in our room that is more child-proofed than downstairs so I had Racer and Chicklette watch their Latin video lesson. We had to restart it a couple times because they were having a hard time being kind to each other and listening. It's hard to learn anything when you are telling your sister to be quiet because she is distracting you and when you are wiggling all over the couch. I love that we have the opportunity to stop fights quickly, practice forgiving each other and then move on. I am thinking though that I need to integrate a wiggle time into their day. For some reason, lunch recess doesn't seem to get it all out of them.
History - Bubbers #1 had gone to sleep so the three youngest were all asleep and we moved on to history. Today was a review day for Road Trip USA so we reviewed our capitals and the facts for Maine and Maryland. The Maine and Maryland facts didn't seem to stick as well in their heads as the Delaware and Connecticut facts did. It was probably because we had to go a little bit faster than the week before. Racer won because he was able to answer the 100 point question and Chicklette was never able to catch up. We kept learning our Fifty Nifty United States song, reviewed our president song, and watched Wakko's rendition of the states and their capitals.
Pushing through, we finished our grammar and Writing with Ease.
Writing with Ease - Chicklette just had copywork for Writing with Ease so I got her started on that quickly and then Racer and I did his Writing with Ease. He started learning more about poetry such as foot, meter, quatrains, and rhyming patterns.
Grammar - Racer and I reviewed sentences and sentence fragments for his grammar. We read some sentence fragments and decided what they were missing - subject or verb. Chicklette's grammar was just learning that proper nouns are capitalized, especially people's names.
Okay, you're probably wondering still about the man in the desert who died. Here's the whole story which you are supposed to learn from Yes/No questions. The man was wearing a parachute in his pack that did not open. He died because of that malfunctioning parachute. The water hole has nothing to do with it; it's a red herring.
We had a 2 hour stop at Zions National Park where we hiked to the middle pool of the Emerald Pools. It was nice not having to watch out for the kids. We went to see Mary Poppins at Tuacahn and really enjoyed it and I really enjoyed being able to just sit and enjoy the show without having to take crying babies out. The next day DH skipped golfing to spend more time with me and we had the opportunity to take a quick walk around the St. George temple. DH says I never give him credit for all the picture he takes, so he took this one. We had lunch at a Mongolian Barbecue place and then drove home. It was nice to get to know some of the people that DH works with and to get to know their wives. We met a few couples we would like to have over for a barbecue or get-together sometime.
Re-entry hasn't been too bad. The kids didn't seem to miss me much and Grandma was still standing when we got here.
Religion - We got a little bit of a late start today because we were saying goodbye and thank you to Gandma. We watched a chapter on the Three Witnesses. While we watched, Chicklette started cutting out some of the puppets she colored for Joseph Smith, Moroni and the Gold Plates. She didn't want to narrate quite as much this time. Racer did a good job, but I had to remind him to use cursive. At least his printing was legible.
Math - Chicklette still hadn't finished the assignment I gave her before we went away for the weekend. She finally did finish it after much complaining, wailing and gnashing of teeth, but she got them all correct. Racer finished his assignment too quickly; he missed five out of 21. He'll have to correct it tomorrow. Racer and Chicklette did get in some time on Study Island. Chicklette did the reading portion and Racer did the language arts portion and finally finished that pre-test. Both of them did their Xtramath. Turtle and I attempted a reading lesson while they were doing their math, but his brain was not awake so we'll have to do it again tomorrow.
After lunch and tomato picking in our tomato jungle, we moved on to . . .
Science - From our Gadgets and Gizmos book, we learned about Newton's first law, the law of inertia. We created an inertia zoom ball using some plastic pipe that DH had and some yarn that I had. It worked okay, but I think it would have worked better if we had the plastic bottles the book suggested and maybe some heavier duty string.
Latin - Per our schedule, we should have moved on to History, but one of the Bubbers was still awake and needed to be watched in our room that is more child-proofed than downstairs so I had Racer and Chicklette watch their Latin video lesson. We had to restart it a couple times because they were having a hard time being kind to each other and listening. It's hard to learn anything when you are telling your sister to be quiet because she is distracting you and when you are wiggling all over the couch. I love that we have the opportunity to stop fights quickly, practice forgiving each other and then move on. I am thinking though that I need to integrate a wiggle time into their day. For some reason, lunch recess doesn't seem to get it all out of them.
History - Bubbers #1 had gone to sleep so the three youngest were all asleep and we moved on to history. Today was a review day for Road Trip USA so we reviewed our capitals and the facts for Maine and Maryland. The Maine and Maryland facts didn't seem to stick as well in their heads as the Delaware and Connecticut facts did. It was probably because we had to go a little bit faster than the week before. Racer won because he was able to answer the 100 point question and Chicklette was never able to catch up. We kept learning our Fifty Nifty United States song, reviewed our president song, and watched Wakko's rendition of the states and their capitals.
Pushing through, we finished our grammar and Writing with Ease.
Writing with Ease - Chicklette just had copywork for Writing with Ease so I got her started on that quickly and then Racer and I did his Writing with Ease. He started learning more about poetry such as foot, meter, quatrains, and rhyming patterns.
Grammar - Racer and I reviewed sentences and sentence fragments for his grammar. We read some sentence fragments and decided what they were missing - subject or verb. Chicklette's grammar was just learning that proper nouns are capitalized, especially people's names.
Okay, you're probably wondering still about the man in the desert who died. Here's the whole story which you are supposed to learn from Yes/No questions. The man was wearing a parachute in his pack that did not open. He died because of that malfunctioning parachute. The water hole has nothing to do with it; it's a red herring.