We are two weeks in to our rearranged schedule and I have seen a lot of really neat independent learning.
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| IJ's Science Project |
Because the older kids have lots of free time in the morning (provided they have their math done), and they can't play video games or watch movies, they end up finding something interesting and productive to do. IJ decided to grow avocado plants, using instructions he researched online.
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| Cobra, Rattlesnake, and Anaconda |
Evie colored these three pictures of snakes, complete with habitats,
which is a perfectly acceptable method of assessing learning. I did let the kids watch an educational video about anacondas on
Discovery Education, which led to me finding more video clips starring The Crocodile Hunter handling venomous snakes. Today, in between dance classes and toddler time, we watched the last documentary Steve Irwin filmed:
Ocean's Deadliest. (Can you imagine? I had Daniel watch sharks biting a boat and then I put him down for a nap
-sweet dreams!)
The other morning, Mark caught IJ helping Fiona read and write short words. IJ is also doing a great job reading Evie's science books out loud to her on Tuesday mornings while I have dance/toddler time with the youngers.
Evie's math assignment yesterday was building three dimensional objects from two dimensional instructions using plain cubes. I pulled out the Equilibrio cubes and the
Architecto book and set her loose building more objects! Now everyone is playing with the blocks.
One ongoing project in the lower levels of Saxon math (which we are not using this year) is recording the daily temperature and charting it on a graph. I had the best intentions to keep this project going with the boys....for about three days. I found a better project for my artistic child:
a temperature scarf knit along! My knitting and crocheting friends MUST read about it. Evie and I are busy picking colors out of my stash of yarn.
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| "Please, sir, can I have some more?" |
And of course we have reading. Shane has finally caught the reading bug and is enjoying Choose Your Own Adventure books and Shel Silverstein. IJ reads anything he can get his hands on. And Lula? She devoured Oliver Twist! Mark called me while I was driving home from wrestling last night and said something about Lula being fussy all evening. But as my Nana always says, "This too shall pass." but I'm sure she wasn't talking about Oliver, specifically *wink*
The other morning, Mark caught IJ helping Fiona read and write short words. IJ is also doing a great job reading Evie's science books out loud to her on Tuesday mornings while I have dance/toddler time with the youngers.
Evie's math assignment yesterday was building three dimensional objects from two dimensional instructions using plain cubes. I pulled out the Equilibrio cubes and the Architecto book and set her loose building more objects! Now everyone is playing with the blocks.
One ongoing project in the lower levels of Saxon math (which we are not using this year) is recording the daily temperature and charting it on a graph. I had the best intentions to keep this project going with the boys....for about three days. I found a better project for my artistic child: a temperature scarf knit along! My knitting and crocheting friends MUST read about it. Evie and I are busy picking colors out of my stash of yarn. 