Today we started to settle into our groove. I like to take pictures of what we do so I can record our lives and document school
just in case I ever have to prove I actually schooled these kids of mine. I don't take pictures of everything, but I do like to capture the cute and fun things. Tonight, as I downloaded the camera, I enjoyed looking at the work we did.
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| Two Peas (S on D duty during math) |
Although my fancy, pre-made timeline hasn't arrived, we started our timeline activities. We started by making our own unprofessional timeline with one of the 50 pieces of white poster board ($20) I ordered. Since my arms were full of cranky D, I turned the timeline making into a cooperative brainstorming problem-solving activity *clear throat* The boys had to figure out how the cut the poster board in half lengthwise and have both side be equal. They had to tell me what tools they needed. They had to honor each other's ideas. It was cool.
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| S's first day without pain medicine! |
E chose how the two pieces would be assembled: glue or tape. She chose glue and poured on so much we couldn't add the line or numbers today. It'll have to dry for awhile. Then we decided what symbols we were going to use for the books we've read so far. IJ chose a gear and a shoe for
Shoes for Everyone. S chose a bear paw for
Moccasin Trail (IJ wanted to add a wagon to illustrate Jim's inner conflict-but I won't tell, you will just have to read the book!) A pile of gold glitter will be the symbol for the Gold Rush.
This is E's math sheet. She is my third child to go through Saxon 1, but she is the first to put so much beautiful detail in her work. I was wondering what was taking her so freakin' long to finish! I'm pretty sure her brothers used one color and didn't stay in the lines.
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| "One...What's next?" |
Because Saxon starts out so easy in every level, I told E that one of her jobs was to teach F how to count. F gets to 3, has E finish up to 9, and then she calls 9, "P." Very cute.
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| "I'd rather be doing Latin!" |
I had a little creative fun time before language arts...tonight. Yes, it takes us all day to do school. But we take a lot of breaks. IJ above is using a device I made to help them with writing. It is based on the worksheets from
Sonlight's Diamond Notes. I was supposed to make a million copies of the baseball diamond worksheet for writing on, but instead I made this big, colorful baseball diamond. I used two more pieces of the 100 pieces of colored poster board ($36) I ordered. I covered with four of the 75 feet of clear contact paper I ordered. (I'm recording the use of these materials because the school district didn't think I could use 150 pieces of poster board or 75 feet of contact paper in one year-I guess we'll see about that!)
Anyway, they start out writing the topic with wet erase marker on the pitching mound, three specifics on the bases, and home plate has a topic sentence that joins the specifics to the topic. It was a great tool for my baseball players. I've used
Daily 6-Trait Writing in the past, but it just seems to be too disjointed and not really related to writing. The kids never use the skills covered in the workbook to write anything more than a sentence. And IJ needs to be writing reports by now! Not just free form poetry and fables!
Tomorrow is Saturday, and they owe me one more day of work. I'm hoping tomorrow goes as smoothly as today!
This is E's math sheet. She is my third child to go through Saxon 1, but she is the first to put so much beautiful detail in her work. I was wondering what was taking her so freakin' long to finish! I'm pretty sure her brothers used one color and didn't stay in the lines.
Anyway, they start out writing the topic with wet erase marker on the pitching mound, three specifics on the bases, and home plate has a topic sentence that joins the specifics to the topic. It was a great tool for my baseball players. I've used Daily 6-Trait Writing in the past, but it just seems to be too disjointed and not really related to writing. The kids never use the skills covered in the workbook to write anything more than a sentence. And IJ needs to be writing reports by now! Not just free form poetry and fables!