Just a day

Andrew slept next to my bed last night for some reason.  The good thing about that is he sleeps in - we got up at 7:30 today.  We were up later and Skylar was up earlier so we got right to work this morning. The kids did schoolwork and I did the laundry.

Cairn finished up her 4th grade math so we had her teacher order 5th grade.  Everyone worked hard on their piano homefun.  Andrew and Skylar have a couple solos to do next week so they need some extra practice.

Cairn also finished up her skeleton for her body unit.  Skylar finished up her skin layers.  I decided to color Andrew's skin layers to help distinguish some of the different parts.  They were getting confused which were blood vessels versus nerves and such.

Andrew read some words today on his own.  Then tonight he sounded out a word and told me how to spell it.  Man, he likes to do things early before I am ready for him to do it.  I thought I had another year before he was going to read but he is doing it now so this weekend I will pull out my reader books for him and get him going.

Late in the afternoon, Dad walks in early from work.  Andrew looks outside then turns to Dad and says, "What are you doing home, it isn't dark out?"

Tonight, we watched Stars Wars: Return of the Jedi.  Andrew became Luke Skywalker, passed out markers for lightsabers and we all helped defeat the Death Star.  Andrew was jumping and spinning all over the room.

I know I saw that movie when I was a kid but I did not remember the ending at all.

Back to Normal

It was Monday and we did what we were supposed to do - school.  The only thing different was we had N and C for the day - they didn't have school today.

So we got right to work on Always Ice Cream and Clever Dragons.  Then at 9 AM I had to post my co-op classes on the homeschool board so everyone got off task.  As soon as I was finished we got to work learning about taste.  I read some books and then we made a model of our tongue.  Everyone except Andrew excitedly got to work.  Andrew just wanted to play with N even though I had warned him we were doing school first.

The kids worked so diligently on their models that it took a little longer than I had anticipated so when they finished I sent them outside to run off some energy.  It seemed to be an off day for everyone because they came back crying at one time or another because they were injured.  I was just trying to check the co-op board and make snack but I kept getting interrupted.

Finally, the popcorn was ready and I called them back in.  After snack, I had N and Cairn write a story together.  I gave them a piece of paper, a die and the title.  They were to take turns rolling the die to see how many words they were to write and then write a story.  It was an interesting story. The reason I did it was to get Cairn to write.  She always tells me how much she hates to write yet she had no problem with this assignment.  I will keep that one in my back pocket to use again except I will help her write the story next time.

Eventually, we got to lunch, clean up and then the girls and I headed to our Girl Scout service project - visiting the residents at the Care Center.  Since Dad was home I let the boys stay home with him.

The girls sang songs and played Bingo.

This is not the entire troop, a lot of girls didn't come because of the holiday.

When we got home the kids played for awhile.  Then I tried to get everyone back together to do our eye model.  Cairn got right to work but N, C and Skylar didn't want to so I said you can either do it now or do it for homework.  That got the girls but N thought he could out smart me - he wouldn't know how to do it without me.  After awhile I told him, that I could send the directions to Dad and he would make sure he got it done.  All of a sudden he was ready to make his model.

The kids got a lot of work finished today and I was really proud of their attitudes.  I don't remember what started the conversation, but at one point Skylar said to C, "you should just homeschool."

C said, "I know."

I quickly got the conversation switched to something else and then I talked to Skylar before bed - different families make different choices about education and not everyone can homeschool.  So even though it would be fun to have C with us, her family made a different choice and we have to respect that.  She said she understood.  Time will tell.