What did you learn in school today?

Well, not as much homeschooling today.  Got up this morning and did other stuff all morning figuring I'd homeschool in the afternoon.  Gave dd#2 a ride to co-op, then came home and ate breakfast, cleaned up the sink, made the bed, spent some time on the computer.  DD got a ride home from co-op with someone else (yea!) so I didn't have to go out to get her.  Had lunch, did some wiping down of furniture made dusty by our renovations (power sander on spackled walls). Cleaned out the tadpole's habitat. Cleaned up and spent time on the computer again.  Trying to do HTML programming on another other blog. 

1:00 came and it was time to take DD#2 to her job. Went out the the van.  Remembered that the tire pressure warning light has been coming on, so I walked the perimeter of the van and found a basically flat tire!  Was probably quite low when I went out this morning, too, but that was only a 1 mile round trip.

Called my daughter's employer (a friend), and she came and picked daughter up.  I asked her to follow me so I could drive up to the gas station (3/4 mile away), but after 50 feet or so I decided the tire was too low now to do it.  She left. I kept trying unsuccessfully to get ahold of hubby, figuring he might want to come and help me during daylight rather than put it off until tonight. (He works 3 miles away.)

Noticed my neighbor outside, so I called over to him. “Hey, Jimmy… Do you by any chance have an air compressor?”  Turns out he does!  It's a small one; he bought it for inflating bicycle tires, but it did the trick!  He inflated my tire sufficiently, and also was able to determine that I had gotten a screw embedded in my tire!  So now I was able to drive up to my local service station.  They were able to take me right in. They inflated the tire the rest of the way, pulled the screw, plugged the hole, and re-inflated (as air had escaped when the screw came out).  All this while my son, JD watched.

Then after they were done, JD was able to get some questions answered about what is this hole here for? (disposing of oil after an oil change) How about those over there? (That's where the gasoline tank trucks pump the gas that comes up to the gas pumps to fill the car.)

So can I count that as school for today?  Between that and the time we will read to him tonight, that is fairly substantial… I gave him the A Beka phonics worksheet for the day, but he isn't quite grasping the concept of marking the vowel with the mark to indicate it is making the long vowel sound…

Have a great day!

D

A Good School Day

Amidst being a taxi for dd#2, I managed to have a great homeschooling with ds!

8:30 dd was taken to Spanish by her wonderful dad.

9:30 I picked her her up, and of course ds was with us.  DD had had a bad class, not doing well on two quizzes on some new material that had been introduced while she was away out of state.  Now, having missed two weeks of classes, she's going to have to really hussle to get back up to speed with the rest of the class.

Home again, dd studied in her room and ds watched a bit of television while I got some things done. (It started because I needed a heater in the classroom, and I remembered there should be one around here, so I was looking in the attic.)  (I know… ::gasp!  she let's her son watch the tele right in the middle of the school day?…::  Well, I'm working on it, okay?)  After a bit, time for lunch, then dd to her afternoon class at 1:50.  I thought we were going to do some schooling while she was there, but ds got caught up in some other activity, and I remembered I a book sell on the interent that I needed to pack up and get to the post office.

3:10, picked dd up from her class.  Post Office, then home again.  This time ds and I really got busy.  First, he (on his own initiative) began doing several pages from his math book!  Now, it is a 1st Grade math book and he is only supposed to be in K, but I'm starting to find he's ready for 1st in many of the schoolwork…  After quite a bit of Math, I had him do some work from our English book, and then he did some pages from our Phonics book. 

I still would like to get serious and disciplined about daily Bible, as well as make sure I am not short changing him in Science, History, Art, Music and PE, but we really do get those, just not as often as I would like, nor in as organized a fashion as I would like.

Well, we played Uno tonight, just he and I, as dad and dd were at a 4-H meeting.  It was a great day through and through.  I read some about early North America and the conquistadors after Uno, and last night I was reading about the five senses, so that is an example that these are getting covered. I just think he'd retain it more and we'd both enjoy it more if I dove-tailed the subject material with hands on stuff.  I'd elaborate, but I'm afraid this computer is going to lock up before I can transmit this post, so I am going to quit for now. 

Blessings to you all!

Diana

A Good School Day

Monday was a good school day.  We started the day Charlotte Mason style, taking a nature walk.  We took along two empty bags to collect trash–J's great idea!  While we were on our walk we observed cardinals, mourning doves, a blue jay, chickadees (or sparrows, I need to look them up to check), and some birds with black and white stripes on their back that were either woodpeckers or flickers. Need to look them up too.

J also found a heap of rolly polly's, which he tried to bring home. But he had nothing to keep them in but his hand, and they crawled away.  We walked along the creek, and he enjoyed discovering the footbridge and crossing it. As we did so a squirrel in the tree began scolding us without mercy!

On the walk we did fill the bags with trash to the point where we had to stop long before the visible trash was gone. I promised J we will go back with bags again in the future to get rid of more of the neighborhood trash on another walk on another day.

We also did math and copy work today. J copied “God is love.”  I have decided that copy work will be a good way to reinforce for him the correct directions for the letters to go, which is something he is struggling with.

Well, I'm off to prime the hallway. After that I will be off to swap cars w/hubby, since I am getting his oil changed for him today but he forgot to leave his car with me!

Blessings,

Diana