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.

1. Meditation
2. Journal
3. Read three stories from Mary Pope Osborne's Favorite Greek Myths (Helios and Phaeton, Midas, and Atalanta.) Discussed.
4. Assigned paragraph to Khy and Stormy on their favorite story of the day. Met with pretty major resistance from both. It's interesting because I've raised expectations lately with all three kids, and Nicky has really risen to the challenge. For the first time he's excited about school, asking to do extra things. Khy and Stormy, on the other hand, have been fighting it tooth and nail. I think it's just a transitional period, but there's no doubt they've gotten a bit lazy.
5. Nicky and I worked through mixed addition and subtraction problems. This one was set up so that it was much easier to show him the relationship between all the numbers.
6. Nicky took his phonics test for Letter H.
7. Stormy and Khy took a spelling test and vocabulary test. Khy missed 2 on spelling, Stormy missed 2 on vocabulary.
8. Nicky was dismissed from school early so I could focus on Stormy and Khy as we work through their first research paper. They've assembled the research on their favorite Greek gods or heroes, and now they're learning about the structure of paragraphs and papers as they write. (Khy is writing about Hercules and Stormy is writing about Hades.) Interestingly, both seemed to be having fun with the research paper, as opposed to their earlier attitudes about the paragraph I had asked them to write. Maybe it's just the difference between long hand and computer, since I'm letting them use the computer for the bigger project...
9. Tonight we'll be watching the Olympics opening ceremonies.

I am the laziest bum that ever bummed. This week, anyway. This morning started out with me saying to the kids "School starts at 9." Then "School starts at 9:30." Then "I'm gonna take a shower." We ended up watching Veronica Mars (hey, she's a clever girl so that means it's educational) and then I read Nicky another H book while Khy and Stormy finished up their spelling tasks for the week. It means we're going to have to buckle down and get some serious work done tomorrow, but everyone needs a holiday, right? Three times in one week? I just remember that this time last year we had to miss weeks upon weeks of school because we were all sick all the time, so really we're ahead of the game so far this year.

1. Meditation while listening to "Nara" by E.S. Posthumus. Khy recognized it from Kingdom of Heaven.
2. Journals
3. Khy and Stormy prepared their Spelling Bingo cards while Nicky read to me from the second book of Dick and Jane.
4. Khy and Stormy did division on the dry erase board. Nicky did a subtraction problem and an addition problem.
5. Spelling Bingo - Stormy won.
6. Snacktime
7. We read a pdf book about a visit to an airport.
8. A dot-to-dot (1-50) airplane page, and then Stormy and Khy were given a list of 37 aviation terms and had to alphabetize them.

Today I slept in again so we did school in the afternoon. I love that I didn't feel somehow guilty about that. Progress. Shane was home sick again, so we tag-teamed school today, which was really fun. He got Nicky started with two digit subtraction in his workbook and then introduced Khy and Stormy to division. I mainly helped Nicky as needed, but I also popped my nose in from time to time with the division. I thought Shane was going to get irritated, actually, since I couldn't seem to butt out and just let him teach it, but he reassured me that I was helpful. And really, we did seem to do pretty well and compliment each other. Once upon a time I think we would've just annoyed one another and fed into each other's stress, but we've grown up a lot.

Khy started to lose it when the division was feeling overwhelming, and Shane sent him to his room for a quiet moment to collect himself, careful to reassure that he wasn't in trouble. I remembered that Karen's son Kevin sometimes uses things to fiddle with to calm down and redirect his energy when he's stressed, so I gave Khy some of my clay to mess with. It really seemed to help him center himself instead of sitting back there mentally berating himself like he usually does. He recovered himself VERY quickly and came back out to finish the division. (Yay!) Nicky and I read a phonics book about Letter H, and then he asked if he could read to me from Dick and Jane. (Yay!) After everyone was done with math we looked up Week 14 of Jacqui's baby's development and sent the usual card. Then I gave the older kids their vocabulary words for the week. All of the words are either "ei" or "ie" words, and I started out by having them copy down the rule "i before e except after c and in the sound of "a" like neighbor and weigh." And then I promptly wound up proving how unhelpful that rule is, because it didn't apply to half their words! Oops. I knew there was a reason I don't trust grammar rules. I still remember my third grade teacher talking some crap about how it's the exception that proves the rule. I mean, what the fuck?

1. Meditation
2. Journals
3. Current Events (Khy read about Groundhog's Day and Stormy read about the space probe to Pluto) while Nicky read to me from Dick and Jane. With Khy and Stormy we were unschooling when they learned to read so it was a much more organic process and that's cool, but it's been a really neat experience, too, being more involved in Nicky's reading.
4. Khy and Stormy both did multiplication on the dry erase board, Nicky tested for his tens (addition) and covered them over with stickers on his number chart.
5. Two minutes of Shakespeare - we listened to the first track of When Love Speaks. It was a short little bit from the Tempest (Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises) read by Joseph Fiennes. (Yum.) The kids liked it so much they asked to listen to it a second time. I think this is going to be a great way to acclimate them to Shakespearean language without shoving it down their throats.
6. Oral Spelling Test and written vocabulary test (I made up myself) for Khy and Stormy. Stormy missed none, Khy only misspelled "distance."
7. Phonics test for Nicky with Letter G.
8. We did library prep for tomorrow.
9. We played some acting games. First we did vocal and physical warm ups. Then we stood in a circle and passed a pantomimed ball around, pretending it got heavier, then lighter, then hotter, then smaller, then bigger. Finally we played a walking game, where we walked in a circle and then pretended to walk through different substances. Mud, jello, ice, snow, water (different levels), leaves, slime, oobleck, mashed potatoes, rocks, fire, swords, a minefield, the moon, quicksand, clouds, bubblegum and a tightrope, to be exact. Big hit. At one point as I was explaining something Nicky said with awe in his voice, "Mom, did you used to be an actor?" When I said, "Yes, actually, I suppose I was." he ran over and hugged me fiercely.
10. We finished up the day by listening to another half hour of Ender's Game. I'm MAD for audiobooks.

1. Meditation/Journals
2. Baby check - 12 weeks. Sent Jacqui email card.
3. Read aloud from the Random House Book of Greek Myths while the kids drew pictures of gods.
First Humans - Prometheus steals fire from the gods. Discussed what Prometheus had in common with humans (he loves his brother) and what makes him super human (his liver regenerates every night.) and charted it.
Pandora - A different version of the myth than we were familiar with, discussed the differences and deeper meaning.
The Great Flood - After reading this we read Noah's Ark online and compared the stories.
4. Nicky and I read My F Sound Box and then made a list of F words (nice ones, that is) on the dry erase board while Khy and Stormy worked privately on their research project.
5. Nicky played educational computer games while I reviewed last week's spelling list with Khy and Stormy. First we spelled them out letter by letter together (Khy saying all vowels in their turn, Stormy saying the consonants) and then we played a spelling game.

( more spelling game info here )

6. I walked them through the beginning process of creating on-line journals.
Homework - Cursive page.

I wasn't entirely sure that we'd (I'd) survive the first week back from break, but here we are!

Today Stormy used HER day off coupon (told you it was a conspiracy to not give me a day off) which actually put me in a bind, because for most of what was on the schedule I would have needed her. But it seemed wrong, somehow, to cancel school and waste her coupon. (Even though I'd been fair and tried to talk her out of it.) So the boys and I had a fairly mellow , play-it-by-ear day, but still got some things done.

1. Meditation/journals
2. Khy finished his drawing and spelling work while Nicky and I worked in his phonics workbook, reviewing short vowel sounds.
3. Khy took a spelling test (missed 0) while Nicky practiced writing the alphabet on a mini chalkboard.
4. Khy read to Nicky from Disney's Scary story book.
5. Khy and Nicky spent half an hour exploring the new educational web portal.
6. Stormy joined us and we made "cheesy straws."

( for cheesy goodness click here )

Pretty easy, and they taste like macaroni and cheese. Honest! After that we added some bologna and fruit and called it lunch. And the kids got kitchen clean up duty, naturally. (This is the real reason I had children.)

I am sick as a dog, but officially on winter break. Hurray! For our last day of fall term we finally finished our raft experiment, floating the popsicle stick rafts in the bathtub and seeing how many pennies they could hold before sinking. When the first one took 54 pennies I got a little worried that we'd done TOO well at building the rafts, because the kids were getting a little bored with it. Once it went down, though, it seemed to up the stakes a little and they all got into rooting for their favorites to win. It was a pretty fun exercise.

After that we made scented ornaments for the tree. They were sort of a pain to make, but that could have just been me. Regardless, we had fun, and last night the whole house smelled like apples and cinnamon while they were drying! Very cool.

( Scented ornaments recipe here )

The spelling test went well - Stormy missed none, and Khy only missed one, and I think that was more carelessness than confusion, because he spelled "brain" as "brian." Nicky named 5 "B" words with ease, and would have kept going if I hadn't stopped him.

And I narrowly managed to finish the aviation unit and the Greece/Myths units for next term this last week. I really pushed myself to get it done, maybe a little too much - but now I should be able to relax through Winter break. Hallelujah.

One more day till Winter Break!

Khy is really sick today, so that tweaked the schedule a little bit. Stormy worked on Mystery States by herself, while Nicky and I did four pages of a phonics workbook. He's really starting to sound out words now, and it's SO exciting. Later, he did Spongebob Typing on the computer while I read Emily's 50 States - Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana - aloud. As I read, Stormy looked up a few images on the internet while Khy looked through a State by State atlas over on the sofa. Then Khy practiced state capitals with some flash cards I threw together for him and Stormy practiced the same thing at the computer. Nicky and I went over Letter B sounds and he drew a picture of a "bear."