Week 6, day 2

Bible (Catechism, Bible story, memory verse): We reviewed the catechism questions the kids had trouble with yesterday and the newest ones in the car on the way to Titmouse Club. P happily recited the memory verses learned to date in the car as well, though she mixed up the references. After Titmouse Club, we read the story of God parting the Red Sea.

Calendar (Update day of week and date of month, record weather and temperature): It was so humid today, the windows of the house were covered in condensation when we woke up. Though not overly hot, there was some debate as to whether we should write "hot" or "warm" on the calendar. We settled on warm.

Handwriting: P finished writing the 3 sentences containing the 3 different types of punctuation marks. She did pretty well, but this worksheet page used a different style of lines (the standard kindergarten style of 2 solid lines with a dotted line in between, instead of HWT's style of just 2 lines, the lower one being the base line and the upper solid one being in the place of the standard dashed line). This confused P, but after I explained to her how the letters were to be placed on the lines, she did well. I need to hold in my mind that many things, obvious to me, are not obvious to her, and that I need to explain things in advance.

Language Arts: Today's activities were fun! We read the fable of the crow and the pitcher (a thirsty crow drops pebbles into a half-filled pitcher until the water level is raised high enough for him to reach and drink the water). We then performed the obvious experiment, but this part of the country contains no pebbles, so we used raisins instead. We drew a line on the side of the glass to mark the water level before dropping in raisins, and after dropping in a number of raisins, noticed that the water level was higher than the line we'd drawn. Then I poured off the water and dumped out the raisins, which P and I separated into piles of ten. I explained how to count by tens and then by ones to reach the total of 81 raisins. Then I ate the odd raisin and gave each child 4 piles of 10 raisins to eat. P was able to see that this meant she had 40 raisins.

The other Language Arts activity was making up and dictating the story of when she was 2 inches tall. She had fun with this one, talking about how she had to slide down the bed rails and how she and E (who, in the story, was also 2 inches tall) helped each other climb down the cliffs of the stairs. Eating Cheerios helped them grow back to their normal sizes. While P was telling the story, E climbed the easel, slid down between the sides, and had to be rescued. He'd been inspired by the idea of himself, tiny, doing serious climbing.

Math (5-a-day, other activities): The first problem I gave P on her 5-a-day was a little over her head: She had to insert the > into the statement "5+2 > 5-2". She could do each step independently, but needed my help putting them all together. The rest, she breezed through. Counting the raisins during language arts counts as "other math activity".

E's "school": I added 6 and 7 to yesterday's activity. He wasn't quite as secure on those, so we'll stick with that throughout the week. He was able to order the circles from 1 to 7 without help, but had to think about them a good deal more than yesterday.

Geography and/or science: Titmouse club! Today's theme was nocturnal animals. It wasn't as well done as some of them are, but they did list a variety of nocturnal animals. The craft was paint and pairs of sequins (to represent eyes) on black paper. Unfortunately, the paint used was fabric paint, which doesn't mix well with small children. Immediate washing (using the sink there) and soaking in Oxy-clean when we got home has restored P's favourite shirt almost to its initial condition, though unfortunately the blue will always be slightly visible.

This afternoon, P made a book about the Caribbean. So did E, though his book featured Hawaii and other unidentified locales, and he traced his name pretty well on the back cover. P's book featured "The Caribbean" on the front cover, a map (which I drew) on which she labelled the USA and Mexico and coloured the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea blue and the islands green, a diver next to a coral reef, a house destroyed by a hurricane with a sad person inside, a person harvesting sugar cane, an amazing fish found in a National Geographic article on coral reefs, seaweed which starts growing on the ocean floor and then floats for part of its life, and a very colourful sea turtle with a nest and eggs.

Other: P practiced only one of the 2 piano pieces she's working on. It may be time to move on to the next piece, as she's getting a good grasp of the first piece at least and I'm afraid if I force her to perfect both before moving on, she'll come to resent piano lessons and practicing. I'll keep her practicing the old ones until she's completely comfortable with them. Both kids helped their Opa clean house, vacuuming and mopping with enthusiasm. It's fun that they're old enough for their attempts at help to actually be helpful.