Spring Break was a bust - two weeks was too long. It's good to be getting back into a schedule, even if we're all tired.
1. Meditation
2. Journals
3. Baby check 22 weeks
4. Current Events: Khy read about protests in France while Stormy read about the President of Liberia.
5. Nicky read from a Disney storybook that I'm too lazy to check the title on right now.
6. Math review - Khy and Stormy had 10 problems of multiplication that they both had some trouble with, while Nicky and I worked on fact families in his new math workbook.
7. Nicky played Jumpstart Kindergarten Math while Khy and Stormy did A to Z Geography sheets A & B.
8. Listened to about twenty minutes of Ender's Game.

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.

1. Meditation
2. Journals
3. Current Events (Khy read about dog show, Stormy about dinosaur bones) while Nicky read Dick and Jane. Then Khy and Stormy livejournaled "If I had a million dollars..." (Stormy) (Khy)
4. Math practice - Khy and Stormy did a page of multiplication while Nicky did a page of subtraction from here.
5. We read a myth about the start of the Olympics in ebook form from netlibrary.
6. We read about the history of the Olympic torch here and here.
7. Khy and Stormy finished their math and spelling homework while I worked with Nicky on a money worksheet. I swear he was a banker in a past life - he took right to counting money.

1. Meditation with "Pompeii" from E.S. Posthumus
2. Journals
3. Current Events - Khy read and shared about Michelle Kwan dropping from the Olympics, and Stormy read and shared about the mummies they've found in Egypt.
4. Nicky read another chapter in Dick and Jane to me.
5. Math on the dry erase board.
6. Nicky did math in his workbook (today was story problems) while Khy and Stormy finished the Aphrodite assignment.

( The Letters )

7. Nicky and I read My Letter J Sound Box while Khy and Stormy did 20 problems of division.
8. We canceled spelling to take a walk/bike-ride outside in the sunshine before lunch.

You can't really tell by today's schedule, but I'm working on implementing some changes to our homeschool structure. My lesson plans went from well planned and organized (last term) into the realm of completely anal and strict and no longer fun. And I also think I'm trying so hard to stick to schedule that I'm not paying enough attention to what the kids each really need. I'll be working on individualized learning goals for each of the kids soon, and until then I'm loosening the strictures of my lesson plans and playing it a little more by ear each day. Hopefully that will help pull us all out of the rut we seem to be in.

1. meditation/journal
2. baby check and email.
3. current events - Khy and Stormy looked up an article to read on one of the kids news sites listed on the educational web portal.
4. multi-digit multiplication practice - first on the dry erase board together and later on worksheets individually.
5. quiet reading time
6. I cut the spelling list down to ten words and made them vocabulary words. The kids looked up definitions in their dictionary and on-line.
7. We voted for an audiobook to listen to. The options were Book 12 of the Lemony Snicket series and Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game won.

Nicky used a coupon and took the day off.

1. Meditation/Journals
2. We started out trying to play a multiplication game, but everyone was doing so badly we had to stop and seriously reassess math class.
3. Took a step back, pulled out the multiplication charts that they did a long time ago, and also printed out an addition one for Nicky. We spent some time quizzing the kids orally on the times tables they felt confident of, and anything they passed they would cover on their charts, using stickers. I did the same for Nicky with addition. This got everyone's heads back into math, and also encouraged them because they had visual proof of how much they've learned.
4. Went back to the game, which went much more smoothly the second time. Nicky won, but it was a close game.

( How to play )

5. Nicky did a worksheet on two digit addition. Khy and Stormy did a timed multiplication quiz. Khy improved his time by nearly two minutes, Stormy by a minute.
6. Everyone did worksheets on the treble clef, and further multiplication practice.
7. We spent some time personalizing their livejournals.

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.

Nicky had a little trouble coming to school today, on account of he was throwing a fit about getting out of bed. So we shook up the schedule a little bit, and started with Khy and Stormy's times tables. I'd sort of dropped the last few - the hardest few - numbers on them and run, so this is the first time I've gotten a glimpse of how they're faring with the 4's, 6's, 7's, 8's and 12's. Not too bad, really. Better than I expected. While ideally I want to see them memorized so they don't even have to think too much about the answers, they're doing an excellent job at mentally figuring out the answers that they don't immediately know. When Nicky joined us we did journals and phase one of our raft project. It's an activity that I found when I was looking for supporting materials for Huck Finn. Using popsicle sticks, you glue them together to make model rafts. You always start with two as supports, and then glue the rest across them. For the first raft you only use two popsicle stick "planks," and then four on the next, six on the next, 8 on the next, and 10 on the last. Then you glue a dixie cup on each one, in the center. We got that much done today (Nicky and I built the biggest raft, using the 10 planks, while Stormy and Khy built two rafts each) and then left them to dry. Tomorrow we'll fill the bath tub up with water and float one raft at a time, adding pennies to the dixie cup, to see how many we can add before the raft sinks. I have a chart for them to fill out, and then we'll graph the results as well.

During snack time we finished a story web that we've been doing for Huck Finn, and I walked them through a book report form on it as well. Then we switched gears and practiced our music. I finally tracked down a site that plays a midi-style version of both Yellow Submarine and Maxwell's Silver Hammer, so the kids can perform sans the Beatles' voices. We're stuck with Elvis on Return to Sender for now, though. We spent the most time on Yellow Submarine, first trying to get it down with different music, and then polishing up the choreography a bit. I've decided they'll be performing it for us on Yule, and I think it's going to be awesome, if I do say so myself. We also practiced a little bit on the other two songs, but they won't be ready until after Winter Break. I did ask for volunteers for a solo bit on Return to Sender, and both Stormy and Nicky tried it and were just adorable. It's going to be hard to decide which one to use. But I have something special planned on Maxwell's Silver Hammer for whichever two don't do a solo on the Elvis, so everyone will get a chance to shine. We are SO doing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody next! :P

Today was hodgepodge - we listened to two chapters of Huck Finn, made spinning color wheels out of cardboard and string, practiced with our fact family cards, and played Spelling Bingo (which both boys won.) In fact Khy and Stormy are getting so good at their spelling lists I might have to jump them up a level next term.

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.