Monday January 8
Anthony did math, copywork, read to me from Child’s History of the World.
Ben did math and Explode the Code.
Sophie did math, copywork, dictation, French, and read aloud.
(She’s reading a book about King David, Bible- just finished 2 Corinthians, The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia, and The Mitchells.)
Bella did math and copywork and Latin and read aloud.
As the streak of below 20 degree days has finally broken, we went for a frolic/nature walk in the state park nearest us. While we go there frequently in the warmer months, we’ve never been there in the snow before. It was beautiful and we had fun exploring familiar places in a new guise, the pond frozen over. Seeing mallards swimming in an icy stream, sliding down the favorite rock into a snowbank, noticing tracks in the snow.
Afternoon stories: finished Beowulf, King of Ireland’s Son, Book of Angels.
Bedtime stories: Ink Garden of Brother Theophane.
Tuesday January 9
Anthony did math, copywork, read to me from Child’s History of the World.
Ben did math and Explode the Code.
Sophie did math, copywork, dictation, French, and read aloud from Child’s Geography.
Today’s copywork finished her notebook, so we looked back over the notebook at her progress and commented on how much her handwriting has improved. I also noted that her spacing is better, with the words coming up against the margins. And commented on her use of the opposing page in the notebook for practicing hard to spell words and words she’s finding difficult to write.
Bella did math and copywork and Latin grammar. She read aloud to Sophie and she worked on some math and reading skills with Lucy.
Bella and Ben and I went to the library.
Afternoon stories: King of Ireland’s Son, began Adam of the Road, St Francis of the Seven Seas.
Anthony is reading Castle Diary. He and Ben are deep into constructing with the K’nex sets that Anthony got for Epiphany.
Bedtime story: Therese Makes a Tapestry. Not quite as good as Marguerite Makes a Book, but still a nice historical fiction picture book that goes through the process of making a tapestry in the time of Louis XV.
Wednesday January 10
Bella did copywork before I got up. Math- Khan Academy, Latin read aloud one passage and then sight translated that passage and then sight translation of the next passage as well.
Bella and I had a discussion about dictation. She proposed a plan to ease into it next week. I concurred. Also detailed meta-cognition discussion about math. She’s very aware of her cognition, how she approaches problem solving, developing emotional awareness and ability to plan around being overwhelmed.
Sophie did math and copywork, both seemed especially hard today. She read to me from Child’s Geography.
Anthony did math, copywork, read aloud from Child’s History.
Ben did math and Explode the Code and read to me from a Bob book.
Lucy did copywork at her request.
We went on another nature walk to Ames Nowell, doing a bit more of a hike down one of the trails to a rock overlooking the pond. Bella wanted to go further, but Lucy was too tired. Still, walked about a mile. We saw the mallards again. And I saw a song sparrow.
Afternoon stories: King of Ireland’s Son, Adam of the Road, North with the Spring.
Adam of the Road led us to listen to several versions of the song Adam sings in the book, “Summer is a Cumin in”, a poem I learned in my Medieval Poetry class in college. It’s really beautiful sung as a round.
North with the Spring took us to Stephen Foster’s song, The Old Folks at Home, which he mentions as he describes driving along the course of the Suwanee River. (Fun etymology of the Suwanee is that it comes from the Spanish San Juanito, or little St John.) So I played the kids a couple of versions of that song as well.
Funny that we had two different songs from two very different eras pop up back to back in our reading. I love that I can seize the moment, find them on You Tube on my phone, and work music appreciation into our read aloud lesson time.
Bedtime story: Tall Tales and a library book about race cars.
Things I saw: Lots of play with the K’Nex, they’re now making more stuff that’s not in the instructions, going off book; Dress up game set in the middle ages; Asterix books
Thursday January 11
We had to stay home waiting for the microwave delivery.
Anthony did math, copywork, and read aloud from Child’s History. He did a long selection, most of a chapter. I guess he got really into the recap of the history of the Jewish people. We also had a conversation about the liturgical season and him asking why some people celebrate Christmas and not Advent and that got me into talking about the Reformation and Puritains and also about secular people ceebrating Christmas. Sorry, kid, no easy answers. Just… not everyone does the liturgical year like we do.
Ben did math, copywork, Explode the Code.
Sophie did math, copywork, French, and read aloud from Child’s Geography. Which led to a conversation about the Iron Curtain and communism and the end of the Cold War. Also to her looking at the map.
Bella did math (Khan Academy), copywork, narrated to me a bit from her history of Spain book (Romance of Reality, I think the series is), did some Latin, read aloud Longfellow’s The Arrow and the Song. Also she had me look up a poem she remembered me reading to her before, BC: AD by U. A. Fanthorpe. And somehow we got to talking about sugar molecules and I looked up the diagram and showed her. I think she wants a periodic table poster and more books about chemistry.
Read alouds: King of Ireland’s Son, Adam of the Road, Book of Angels, Augustus Caesar’s World.
KoIS is such a twisty, complicated book I’m having trouble following it at times. Today Ben reminded me of a detail from the beginning of the book that I’d forgotten. We like to stop and speculate about what’s going to happen next. And today we excoriated Princess Flame-of-Wine for being so selfish and mean.
Adam of the Road is fun so far, kids are also speculating about what will happen next.
Book of Angels we’re up to the New Testament. Talked about Joseph’s dreams being like the OT Joseph.
ACW. I want a family tree showing all the marriages and divorces for the families of Augustus and Antony. So much intermarriage! I really can’t follow it all. Interesting discussion about the cult of Augustus as god, being a bit like the reverence of a saint and not as much about worshiping him as a creator like God. Also, why God didn’t want Israel to have a king besides Him, because ancient peoples were so prone to worshipping their kings as gods.
At dinner: more medieval poetry, lots of laughing over “bucks ferteth” everyone likes a fart joke.
Friday January 12
Grocery store and stove repair guy plus I overslept. Ben did math and Explode the code before we went to the store. Bella did math and copywork later and Anthony did math.
Read alouds: King of Ireland’s Son, Adam of the Road, St Francis of the Seven Seas, Story of the World, Life in a Bucket of Soil.
