We moved from there to learning about 1st, 2nd and 3rd class levers through Supercharged Science.
It's been a cold, blustery day but overall a very good day. :)
My headache is diminished over what it has been for which I am very grateful.
A Net In Time Schooling |
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the lad started off doing Reading Kingdom before we had breakfast. We moved from there to learning about 1st, 2nd and 3rd class levers through Supercharged Science. We then learned what Migdal-oz means how it relates to God. From there we moved on to Science and History which coincided well with each other today as both talked about the Chinese inventing gunpowder. The reasons varied... from seeking the elixir of eternal life or trying to make gold. then we headed out to take a walk in our blustery weather. :) Upon arrival at home the lad sat down to work on his math, and then relaxed for an hour before we needed to head out to the store for a bit. Cheques to deposit and all. :)
It's been a cold, blustery day but overall a very good day. :) My headache is diminished over what it has been for which I am very grateful. Today we got off to a late start with our schooling. I've been dealing with a headache for the past 10 days... doc tells me it's a particular type of migraine that is hard to get rid of. :) It causes dizziness which means headaches, your head ache with makes you dizzy. In time it will leave. Makes it slower getting going though. Anyways, we read from the warriors over breakfast. The lad was able to recall facts well from previous reading we had done. Then upstairs to work on the names of Christ study that we are doing. Today we learned about Yahweh Shamma (i may have spelled that wrong). The Lord is There. The authors connected it with Immanuel... God with us which I thought was rather cool. From there we moved on to doing Story of the World where we learned about the Grand Canal in China. Saved China (as a whole nation), cost to Sui Dynasty their leadership (high taxes, increased poverty, death, poor working conditions). I think it's amazing what they did... despite the cost to the people involved. Five million people, six years, 1200 miles I think. All of China now connected. Amazing! Then we read from our science book and were inspired to make our own Constellation viewer. This was rather fun to do. :) We fit Reading Kingdom into the mix as well. The lad then worked on his math ... doing it through IXL since by this time I'm running on empty and just need to lay my head down for a spell. We had lunch.... I did the easy chips and cheese thing, the lad had some pizza. We finished the day with the lad doing his 20 minutes of reading. Today his book was "Wood Frog". All in all a nap did me a world of good afterwards and the lad had fun just relaxing with Skyrim for a while (he's learning to read some of the options on his own as well). :)
Our days around here don't start early by any means. :) Let me run through our day today to give you a bit of an idea. 730 I'm up sitting at my computer wrote blog post for the homeschooling essentials. 815 the lad is up Lad: "mom, have you done the bunnies?" Me: "No" Lad "good I don't want to go out yet". 900 me: "Lad I'm doing the bunny water now". Lad: Okay, I'm coming mom!" First I get the computer ready so the lad can doing reading kingdom and science4Us as he'll be done before I am. Boy oh boy is it cold out there. 930 in from chores, wait for the lad to be done his science. talk about breakfast, get distracted by the stuff dad's laughing on facebook. have a chuckle together. 1000 breakfast - we read from the Warriors Series by Erin Hunter during breakfast, talk about the news abit. 1030 upstairs to do some work. Today we worked on Names of Christ (this will take us about 40 days to do if we do it daily). We started off our time working on the Illuminations pages. I worked hard to get through mine quickly so I could do some reading while the lad worked. 140: We had lunch and read another chapter of the Warriors book, and then the lad worked a bit more on his lego rendition of the clan camps. Then we moved back upstairs as I wanted to start our names of Christ study. Today we learned about the name ELOHIM which means God as a unit of three. Elohim is plural for mighty one. When we are done we hope to put it up on the wall so we have a quick recall of the one we love to serve. :) oh we're using a book I'm reviewing called "Knowing God by Name". 215 I promised the lad free time to do whatever so he set to playing Skyrim. :) After a while dad needed the computer and the lad kept bugging him so I set him to reading over the times tables. I did some bunny related business and chores....Oh.. someone came over with a sick guinea pig they couldn't care for and they ended up buying two healthy youngsters. I also got the lad to help me fold some laundry and put away his clothes. Got the lad's mice cleaned out, it's very cold out there so cleaning them out takes alot of care so I did it for him today. 6 pm. we had supper and free time before bed. the lad used to go to bed for 9 p.m. But we moved that bed time up though since he was starting not to get up until 930/1000 a.m and that was just way too late and making him get up resulted up grumpy lad. Since he goes to bed now for 830 at the latest he's now getting up between 8/830 now which works much better.
Hubby has a meeting tonight so I'll be on my own for a bit.. woot woot quiet house! I'll most likely do up my blog post for tomorrow, have a time for my devotions, and then just chill (oh after the dishes get done that is!). :) Bed will be probably.. 1130 ish as spending time with hubby sans the lad is a good thing to do as well. :) Lest you think we did no schooling today.. we did!
We did grammar (writing nouns about our life). Reading Kingdom. Math (double and triple digit subtraction). Science.. learning about cathode rays tubes, electricity waves, and radium. The lad said when learning that Marie Curie died as the result of the science experiments she conducted "Mom, that really sucks if your works kills you! Didn't she know any better not to do that???" (well no she didn't). Well that's just really not very nice is it mom? (nope, it isn't lad). Does that still happen now Mom? Do people make bad mistakes like that? (well, I think so, that's why you need to be very careful when you are experimenting with something new). Well I guess so mom! We also did some history. We learned about how the monks made most of the books (and how they did it) and about the artwork put into making books. My plan tomorrow is to make our own Illumination artwork! That reminds me.. I have to find something that we can do!!!!! We then headed up to London as I had a rabbit to sell and some groceries to buy. The weather was iffy and a tad bit scary on the way up. BUT we made it, got our shopping down the weather getting colder as the day went on. The trip home was a good lesson in trusting God to see us through, and he did. The roads were closed to traffic shortly after we got home due to poor visibility. This news didn't surprise me at all. One of the things I did with the lad last week was some practical math with him. We needed some nestboxes built for the rabbits. So I chose to use this as a learning time for him. We needed to find the wood. (go to Rona, talk to the sales people). We needed to get the wood precut since our saw is buried somewhere in the garage and in this cold weather we chose not to dig it out. More expensive this way, but you gotta do what you gotta do. :) In order to get it precut the lad needed to measure the nestboxes to find out how big they are and then write those measurements down. Why do we do that "x" mom? Oh.. that shows how this nestbox is 9 inches wide by (that's the 'x') 12 inches long. We cut out the sizes we needed. I have to admit we did cheat a bit since they are only nestboxes. We cut measured one piece and then used that piece as our measurement. Rather then measuring each and every time. We then nailed or glued them all together. I have to admit, this part was difficult as we got 1/4 inch wood instead of 1/2 inch wood. Should have gotten the wider wood, but the 1/4 inch will work, just hard to get nails into well. So the lad's responsibility was to put drainage hole for baby bunny urine in the bottom of the nextboxes. The first coupld I needed to put "x's on so he knew where to drill, but the rest he managed on his own. Here are two of the nestboxes that we completed. Nice clean nestboxes. Over time our goal is to build enough nestboxes that the does won't have to share. and just because I can, here's an image of some of the bunnies they will serve. :) All snuggly warm. :)
We did manage to do our homeschooling. I took an idea from I can Teach my Child, and did some sight word bingo with my lad. He was totally unimpressed with me. I am really not sure why, I thought he'd be happy about the chance to win some chocolates. I may have made it too easy for him as he was complaining that all the words I used were on his board and he does have a finely tuned sense of right and wrong. So should I do this again, I will make it more challenging for him. We also read from our books and did some grammar and math. The lad worked today on writing out what numbers he saw. He found this difficult so it means a bit more practice for him. For grammar it was working on common nouns. We started our "pick a pack". I have a whole whack of printables and information sheets that I've collected over the ages and I've put them into ziploc bags by subject, focus etc. The goal is the lad will pick one, once a week and I'll come up with things to do with it, or meet the questions that he wants answers. He's quite excited about the pack he picked. It's all about Snakes. :) ONTARIO snakes none-the-less and he came up with a whole host of questions for me to help him answer. 1. What snakes live in Ontario? 2. Do people track where snakes have their winter burrows and if so, where are they? 3. Where do Ontario Snakes live? 4. How do they hibernate? 5. Are they all endangered? 6. Can any Ontario Snake be caught or even just caught, looked at and then released? So tonight I need to look up facts about snakes. :) Particularly Ontario Snakes. :) OH... what part of the day didn't go as planned? This afternoon I planned to go get my hay for the season from my hay guy. Thought I'd get some gas first. So stopped in, got my gas, the van said I DON"T THINK SO. It didn't start, Called hubby. He tried. NOTHING. So I sat and waited for an hour to get towed. It was funny. The same guy who towed us a month back gave us a tow today and he asked about the rabbits and if we managed to get out on our vacation and what was wrong with the van that time. :) It was just funny. Anyways, it turned out to be well-planned by God. The weather turned sour on us and it wouldn't have been so good for me to be out on the road. It's a bit of a stress right now trying to figure if we can manage the fix the van AGAIN. Finances can be a bit tight at times....but God will help us wiggle through this one as well. It's just hard at times to remember that. Anyways, after getting home we needed to do something with our time today so we worked on rebuilding the toad/crayfish habitat. We wanted to put them into a bigger aquarium and move them into the basement. We picked up some pea stone and sand and set to work. Took a couple of hours to do but we got it done.
My camera is currently sitting in the van which is at the mechanics so I can't take pics of it. So below is a picture of the old set up, I'll get pics of the new set up when I have a chance to do so. One thing you need to know.. I HATE ROUTINE. It makes me feel locked in with no place to go. BUT routine also helps I find.. it helps to focus a day when you aren't feeling well. It helps a lad to know what will happen next. It means that sometimes it takes less time to do things because you know where you are going. BUT I still dislike routine, so I've made a flexible one. A goal that I can check things off, but don't have to feel bound up by. :) To that end I've come up with this: I've since added a couple things to it, and changed it around but basically what you see I what I am working with. Means I have less thinking to do, a checklist to keep me focused but no I HAVE TO do this or that. I hope it will work. :) Especially when I have really bad not feeling good days which I frequently have as of late. What did we do today? Our conversation jar turned up a difficult tongue twister this morning. Trying say this with us: Two Tried and True Tired. We read a chapter out of Story of the World Volume Two and looked up this picture of the Roman Empire. We read a page out of our Science Facts book. We learned abit about Leornardo DeVinci, William Harvey and Andreas Vesalius. We read some facts out of Ripley's Believe it or Not book. Blasts from the past. Talked alot about toiletry habits of the past. The lad was very much unimpressed but it gave us a chance to talk about how different cultures have differing expectations regarding going to the bathroom. Under protest the lad did some reading. Not sure why he's showing uncertainty about reading again. I thought we were going along fairly well at this point. Did some math, he's becoming more confident in doing multiplication. :) This afternoon We have chess club, swimming and gym time with the homeschool group. Should be a good fun time this afternoon. :) We have been working on multiplication in our household. The lad has "I have to get it perfect if it's on paper thing" so that's sometimes a stumbling block for us in getting work done.. particularly math. SO.. we had snow last night. It was PACKING snow. So I said.. lad.. we're going to review our multiplication. See? here's the page. Remember? YES! was his VERY confident reply. So I said prove it to me. We're going to go outside I'll give you three seconds to answer and then I'll hit you with a snowball if you are late or wrong. Deal? DEAL! COME ON MOM!!!!! We had a blast.. Lad.. what's 2 x 2? umm.... ah.... 4. We got all the way up to 10 x 2... and we had some good hits, we had some slow almost got you times, and we had LOTS of fast answers. I even got hit a couple times for being slow... Wow.. what fun. Now I have to admit, one can't take pictures and have a snowball in hand at the same time so I didn't get any pics from that fun. BUT I did get pictures during our "breaks". break one...the building of a snow penguin. Why a penguin bud? Because mom.. everyone does snowmen... I like penguins. :) Break two.. Biscuit got a carrot. Here she is looking for another.... momma penguin has a wee tiny baby penguin sitting on her shoulder.. this was I think break number four. By the end of our breaks and our math we had a whole penguin family. by the end of the day the weather had warmed up enough that our wee baby penguin sitting on momma's shoulder had melted away. The lad was very sad.... Our time outside also turned into a bit of a nature study as the lad noted that the snow on part of lawn was easier to pack, some was cleaner, some was softer to land in and so forth. He had a lovely time figuring out why. Placement of trees, location of the sun and all that.
Isn't snow fun? What fun schooling have YOU done in the snow??? Do you like knowing what your children know? Do you like checking to see if there are gaps in your teaching? Do you even wonder if your child has picked up any facts by osmosis? If so.. IXL.com is the program for you. :) Product information: Vendor:IXL.com Product: I received access to two separate areas. Math (Canadian content) and Language arts (American content). Pricing: $9.95/month or $79/year. Age Range: Math preK-12, Language Arts Grades 2-4. I have to admit, this was a tough review to fit in. We had some household and individual health issues to contend with. 1. flooding. Three flooded basements over the course of three weeks...with the corresponding cleanup. 2. plumber in the house to fix the flooding issues...this took significantly longer than expected to clear up. 3. lad with a cold and off/on fever producing a lack of desire to sit still at a computer. 4. mom with a pulled muscle in her back making helping the lad difficult. We honestly did our best, but it was tough trying to fit in times to do it well. So what did the lad think of it? One of three responses. 1. MOM! See... I know this! - me: that's good, I thought you knew it. 2. Mom... this is too hard..I can't do this mom. Why do I have to do this?. - me: remember, I told you that some would be too hard and some would be easy? What does this tell us? Lad: what I don't know mom. 3. But I've never seen this stuff before mom. - me: Okay, but sometimes you know things that I don't expect you to know. Now I know. As you can see this program did exactly what I thought it would do. For the things that lad knows...it was good practice. For the things I thought the lad knew but he didn't...it gave him practice AND provided some teaching. For the things I had hoped the lad picked up by osmosis... well.. it proved that some things he did pick up and other things he most definitely did not. And that knowledge helps me to know what I have to teach yet. In each case we had opportunity to learn as well as practice what we did or did not know. And this is a of huge benefit to eclectic teachers such as myself. So what are some of the benefits for you? Membership Benefits:
What I liked in this program?
A group of us from the TOS review crew took a solid look atIXL.com. Please go to this link OR click on the banner below to read them over. :) Take some time to read them over, and learn if you think IXL.com will do the job for you. Today the lad an I were busy in the morning. We read our books. A nest for Celeste, 1000 science facts, burgess bird book for children We worked on our bible study guide. We so enjoy using these materials. You can find the review we did here. When we finished that we did some work in this curriculum book. It's grade two, so it's got the easier words for the lad to read. We did reading comprehension and how many words can you make rhyme, and can you put them in order. He did well. Soon his confidence will be up again and we'll push on for harder grade three words. :) The lad filled out his addition facts sheet. He figured out the patterning of it very quickly. It was good to see that. In the past when I have asked him to do so he struggled. Neat to see the changes a year can bring. :)
Then he needed to do his review work for TOS. Today it wasIXL and French Essentials. In IXL he practiced learning the full subject of a sentence, and greater/lesser than in math. In French Essentials we learned the accents. There are five accents in French. We plan to make some cookies later on today, but first I have a doctor's appointment to take care. We'll make oatmeal raisin cookies, and make some with chocolate chips instead of raisins to please the boys in my family. :) The recipe we'll use is this one. |
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