Week 7, day 5

Before we started school today, I let the kids play with Cuisenaire rods while I showered. Getting them to stop was a huge chore, as was getting either of them to focus on anything.

Bible (Catechism, Bible story, memory verse): After slow, painful effort I got P to review the most recent catechism question and memory verse. We read the story of Rahab hiding the spies. There's a Jamie Soles song about Rahab that I love, which I sang for the kids.

Calendar (Update day of week and date of month, record weather and temperature): Today was delightfully cool, except if you stood in the sun too long. Clear, too, so that Ari can test his telescope tracking machine tonight.

Handwriting: P did 3 pages of the phonics workbook. There wasn't much handwriting involved, but she did write her name neatly twice and wrote 2 words. Looking ahead in the book, there's a good amount of handwriting review coming up when we get to the section on the sequence of the alphabet (for example, write the letter that comes after R). It'll do for now.

Language Arts: Nothing was scheduled for today, and once the phonics workbook was done, P's attention span was down to zero again, so I though I'd get us through her math and then go for a walk. After lunch, P and E both wanted to write words, so P wrote "pig, cow, cows, emoo (emu), emoos", and E wrote "moose" fairly recognizably with P's help.

Math (5-a-day, other activities): She took forever to settle down and do her 5-a-day. She also protested the fact that I had her counting coins again, instead of coming up with the correct combination by herself. Her focus being elsewhere, she couldn't figure out how to write 21. I showed her using the hundreds chart, but had to repeat the explanation twice before she actually wrote it on her paper. Most days, this would be easier for her, but her mind was elsewhere today.

E's "school": We did nothing on this. I had him play with blocks downstairs while I badgered P to get her work done.

Geography and/or science: As soon as P's math was done, we put our shoes on and went for a nature walk. This was a brilliant move, and the day went much more smoothly thereafter. We saw, and the kids drew, fungus on a tree trunk, and then we watched sunfish in the lake. I saw a pair of dragonflies land on a leaf, and just as a hopeful duck was swimming within range of them, a large fish leaped from the water to try to grab the dragonflies. The dragonflies flew off, and the duck retreated. The kids poked sticks into the water and pulled out algae to look at it.

In the afternoon, we identified South America and Brazil on the Markable Map. E traced the outline of South America and P labelled Brazil. We then read a book about Brazil and a book about piranhas. P wanted to make a book about Brazil right away, but it took her a long time to focus and finish it. I asked several times if she wanted to quit for now and do more another time, but she always wanted to keep working at it although she was easily distracted. The final result was quite satisfactory: she wrote "Brazil" on the cover (very neatly), coloured a flag and map outline I drew for her, and drew people celebrating Carnival, a piranha, a soccer ball, a toucan, and a howler monkey. E created a book on piranhas, featuring many solid objects which were declared to be piranhas, surrounded by blue or green (algae-filled) water.

Other: I started reading Marley and Me, and thus was lost to the world for whichever parts of the day I could get away with reading. Thus, nothing else happened (though I did cook dinner and do a load of laundry, which usually but not always happens when I'm lost in a book).