Week 18, days 1 and 2

So far, this new schedule is working well, particularly in terms of my not feeling stressed out.
Monday: Language Arts. I started the day singing the Doxology (since I didn't introduce a new memory verse or catechism question last week and I'm waiting 'til Thursday to introduce this week's). P did her math 5-a-day and, when she was almost done, I did this week's SSGMR activity with E. It involved talking about "families" - for example, "mitten, glove, sock, boot" being in the "clothing family". E was supposed to figure out which of 3 items didn't belong in the same category. He struggled with this. But then, I struggled with some of them, too, because I think too creatively (or, at least, that's the excuse I came up with). I think if the activity were to find the odd one out of 4 items where the other 3 matched, it would be much easier.

We did almost the entire week's worth of Sonlight Language Arts. The only thing we didn't get to was the second copywork sentence. P did the first copywork (traced, focusing on neatness, and copied, focusing on neatness again), read the reader, did the "vowel worksheets" (it was a review week, instead of introducing a new letter), and wrote a thank-you note. We discussed it and I wrote it down for her from dictation, and then she "copied" it. She struggled to keep her place while copying, so I ended up spelling each word for her instead, but she did a beautiful job (though still with occasional b/d reversal). Mom and Dad, you'll enjoy her handiwork. I decided after she'd worked that hard on writing the thank-you note, it would be too much to ask her to do the second sentence of the copywork as well. We may do it another day, or we may not. We'll see.

Tuesday: Science. We went to Titmouse Club this morning, and the topic was bees. P was fascinated by the pictures of the bees' life cycle - they start out as eggs the size of a grain of rice, turn into larvae that look like little worms, then become pupae (like caterpillars, they metamorphosize) and then small bees. Once they're big enough, they leave their hexagonal holes and get to work. E was interested to learn that bees' antennae help them smell, touch, and taste. Since Ari's brother keeps bees, we've explained to them the honey-making process, so that wasn't new to them, but they certainly enjoyed tasting honey at Titmouse Club.

After Titmouse Club, we updated our calendar (cold today! they're even tentatively predicting a tiny amount of white stuff tonight) and P read her reader. We then went to the kitchen to make coconut milk. The kids had seen coconuts for sale when we went grocery shopping a few days ago, so I agreed to buy one. We drilled a hole in the coconut with a corkscrew, and the kids helped pour the coconut water into a bowl. They watched in amusement as I dropped the coconut on the stone floor several times to crack it in half, and then we scraped out the flesh. Some of it was moldy, unfortunately (does anyone know how to pick a coconut that won't be moldy?), so I used a vegetable peeler to get rid of the mold on the bits that were salvageable, and we whirled the good bits, the coconut water, and 2 more cups of hot water in the blender. Then we strained the resulting slurry through a dishcloth, and the result was coconut milk in a jug and shredded coconut in the dishcloth. I used the shredded coconut in making muesli, and I'm still deciding what we'll use the coconut milk for. Curry comes to mind, as does coconut rice, but if I can come up with a simple dessert that the kids can help with, that'll be more popular with them. After lunch, P did her 5-a-day math review, but after that I was tired, and asked the kids to play in their room while I took a nap with the baby. It's great that they can be asked to play quietly for an hour and they actually do it!

Now I've made P's 5-a-days for the rest of the week, and planned tomorrow's math lesson (fractions - first, exploring with measuring cups, then discussing the concepts of numerator and denominator). Bedtime!