Sunday was Ben’s birthday. When I woke up early he was already dressed for Mass in suit and tie. Grandma B met us at church and came back to our house after Mass. We had a lovely celebration at home and a nice dinner out at a favorite local restaurant. A very good day with Legos and books.
Monday July 10
Back in the saddle for school. I did Miquon math with Ben, Sophie, and Anthony. Ben needed a lot of help, but ended up having fun with the counting bears and wanted to do more of the same kind of problem. Anthony and I are working on factors. Sophie is struggling with division. Sophie and I ended up spending a lot of time talking about the process of learning and theories of how we learn. She gets so frustrated when she doesn’t get things, so I’m hoping she gets some relief by talking about that frustration and about the difficulty of learning concepts. She had similar frustrations with place value, but now she loves place value and adding very very very long numbers.
Bella did Khan Academy math and a page of copywork.
Sophie and Bella both read me some poems. Anthony and I read a chapter of Stories of Great Americans.
Sophie and I read over the Hail Mary in French.
No afternoon stories. Instead, we went to the library for a presentation on owls by a guy from the Mass Audubon Society. The presentation was excellent and we all learned quite a bit about owls.
At dinner I read the kids Sir Patrick Spens after the conversation turned to whether or not one could say “yesternight.” Well, in Sir Patrick Spens, there’s a “yestere’en,” so I don’t see why you shouldn’t have “yesternight.” “Late, late yestere’en I saw the new moon with the old moon in her arm.” Then I played a couple different versions on You Tube, one spoken and one sung.
Bedtime story: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Verily a New Hope. (Ben got it for his birthday and it’s a huge hit with the kids.)
Tuesday July 11
I made up a bunch of math problems for Ben and Anthony. Ben did his copywork and two pages in his letter book. Anthony read me the story of St Benedict from his saint book and copied a sentence.
Sophie worked on her independent math project. She copied a stanza of her poem and then read me a couple of poems from the Barefoot Book.
Bella did a page of math, her copywork, and read me a poem from The Rattle Bag.
The boys helped me make chocolate chip cookies for Ben’s feast day.
Bella began a project of making a mosaic picture.
Afternoon stories: two library picture books, Fosdyke and The Sound of Colors. All of a Kind Family Uptown, Golden Fleece, Cure of Ars.
Bedtime Story: Louhi Witch of North Farm
Wednesday July 12
I thought Ben had a physical this morning, but somehow, bizarrely, I was mistaken and his appt is really on Friday. i had the appointment in my calendar twice, today and Friday. I have no idea how that happened.
So Bella and Sophie each began doing some schoolwork—math and copywork— while I was gone with Ben. Since the appointment is Friday, I mentally rearranged my week and decided to do the grocery shopping today.
Afternoon stories: All of a Kind Family, Golden Fleece, Wee Gillis.
Bedtime story: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.
Thursday July 13
Museum of Science Field Trip
My mom had never been to the MoS and was interested in seeing it. We didn’t mind going back at all.
The first place the kids wanted to head was to the hands-on engineering challenge. Today the challenge was building a platform stabilizer for a zipline. The zipline platform wanted to turn upside down. The kids had to figure out how to get it to stay upright and to get an Ewok figurine all the way to the bottom without the platform tipping. They were initially baffled, trying all sorts of ideas that just didn’t work. Then there was a girl who had the right idea, though a fairly poor execution. They saw her entry and Anthony immediately grasped the idea and decided to try it out. His carrier was much more sturdy and went faster than hers, setting an early record (which another child broke almost at once, but at least Anthony did get on the board.) Ben and then Bella saw Anthony’s design and I helped them to adapt their sled platforms in imitation. Ben’s was the fastest of the day and the smoothest. Bella’s was quite successful as well.
We also spent some times in the maps and models section, watched a “science magic” show, and then spent time in the hall of human life.
The day felt a little unfocused for me compared to other MoS trips, but everyone seemed to have fun. Next time I want to do a planetarium show.
Friday July 14
Ben’s physical.
I decided not to even try to do math and copywork. Instead, I declared it a painting day. We had great fun painting two big paper rolls.
Afternoon stories: More All of a Kind Family, Herodotus, Golden Fleece, St John Vianney, Story of the World.
