A Peek Into Our Academic Morning

I love mornings that flow well, like today's did. After breakfast, J did 2 Life of Fred chapters. She does the math chapters independently and we do the "bridge" together (like 2-3 times a month). At the same time, W did lesson 10 in his Teaching Textbooks (Math 5). Today was all about estimating and rounding. He zipped through it in about 15 minutes. I love how this program keeps reviewing all the stuff from the previous lessons. After math I read a Walter de la Mare poem out loud. It was called "November" and we talked about how sad it sounded. Then the kids did some copywork. J wrote out "the Song of Hiawatha" by Longfellow and W copied all of Georgie Porgie from the Mother Goose book. He did the whole thing in cursive - in his notebook this time, not on the dry-erase shelf. Mother Goose is perfect for him since he knows the rhymes and says them in his head as he writes them out. It's really helping his reading (along with his penmanship and grammar).

We went right into LiveMocha and the kids felt like learning some French today. Je suis un garcon, tu es une fille. It was fun and I like how LiveMocha goes right from nouns to sentences and lets you make your own connections regarding the grammar rules. After French, we listened to "Autumn" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. W has been noticing Vivaldi's music wherever we go. He perks right up and says, "Hey, ma, that's Vivaldi!". We had it on the whole time we ate some snacks. Then J went to go read a chapter in Island of the Blue Dolphins. W and I read some Burges Animal Book and Understood Betsy. Everyone did brief, but fantastic narrations.

We were finished with everything by noon.

As for myself, I am getting organized. I rejoined Flylady to get back in good cleaning mode. I also started making dinner right in the early afternoon. I make the whole thing, then put it in corningware dishes and into the fridge. Then I stick it in the oven at 5:30pm (right before I leave for work) on 250 degrees so it's all hot by the time B gets home at 6. I just started doing this, so we'll see how well it goes over.