1. Meditation with music from R. Carlos Nakai
2. Journals
3. Livejournal topic - "My favorite food is..." HTML tag of the day - italics. (Stormy) (Khy) (Nicky)
4. When Love Speaks Sonnet #76 "Why is my verse so barren of new pride..." read by Diana Rigg.
5. Ten minutes free reading, Nicky reads Dick and Jane
6. Practiced Yellow Submarine and Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I wanted to get them videotaped, but Khy's cough is still so bad we decided to wait and try on Friday.
7. Math worksheets all around.
8. Free educational time: choice of reading, math flashcards, typing program or spelling homework. Nicky is playing Jumpstart Kindergarten Reading again.

Today we got off to a really slow start. Everyone's hours were so turned around on break that it was to be expected. I was pretty relaxed about getting breakfast and morning chores done, knowing that today's class schedule was fairly flexible. After a quick meditation we did journals. Then we looked up a baby's development at 9 weeks on this website. My friend Jacqui is expecting a baby, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity for a little education. (But isn't everything? :P) So every week we're going to be tracking the baby's development, which should be fun. We sent Jacqui an email card and I had each of the kids tell he something that we had learned. All together they wrote: "Happy nine weeks (a day late)!!! We learned today your baby still looks like an alien and its dancing. its muscles are growing stronger. We love you!!!"

We started trying to learn to read music today. I awkwardly tried to explain the Treble Clef, and the EGBDF (Every Good Boy Does Fine) notes. Khy and Stormy grasped the concept pretty quickly, but something in the way I was explaining it was just not connecting for Nicky and I had no idea where we were crossing wires. Finally Khy pointed out that the worksheet used halfnotes, and I hadn't explained that they needed to look at what line the circle part of the halfnote was on. Nicky kept trying to look at the staff of the note, which crosses several lines, and by that figure out what line it was on. No wonder we were both so confused. It was awesome that Khy was able to catch that, and it was such an example of how homeschooling really becomes a collaborative effort. While I might be a guide of sorts, we're all learning and teaching each other.

Did I mention that Khy got a Yamaha keyboard, Nicky got an acoustic guitar, and Stormy got a drumset for Yule? So we're taking this music thing to a whole new level. :P

We sang through Return to Sender and Maxwell's Silver Hammer. (By the way, the kids performed Yellow Submarine for family twice over the break and it was a big hit.) Then we played Multiplication Uno (same as regular Uno, but to make a play involving numbered cards you have to tell what the answer would be. So if you were playing a yellow 3 on a yellow 6 you would say "3x6=18." Nicky did addition instead of
multiplication.

Mostly it was a trying day. Even though I knew it would be hard for all of us to get back into things and
I tried to prepare for that, it was still a day filled with scattered energy and that's always frustrating. I spent much more time getting the kids to focus and not to spaz out while transitioning between activities than I did any actual teaching. It made me feel some real sympathy for teachers with 30 students. I don't know how they ever get anything done. Or have any hair left.

Today Khy and Stormy made fact family cards (I made Nicky's addition and subtraction cards while he worked in his subtraction workbook), which I'm requiring them to practice with for ten minutes every day. We listened to Aerosmith while we worked. Then when we got to choral practice we worked on Yellow Submarine with instruments. I purchased a "band in a bucket" from Target for the classroom, which I gaurd jealously, and I finally broke it open today. It was SO fun, we made up our own little arrangement of the song, deciding who would play what instruments and when. Khy is quite partial to the kazoo, and Nicky is already begging for his own harmonica. It's going to be SO MUCH fun getting this stuff ready to perform! For who? Shane, I guess. We have a video camera, so maybe it will just be for posterity. Anyway, it will be fun.

Khy and Stormy took times multiplication quizzes again. They both beat their times from last week, but Stormy was still a bit of a sore loser about coming in 8 seconds behind her brother. I was impressed with both of them, they both kept a cool head despite the pressure they aren't used to dealing with.