Monday, January 4, 2010

First Day Back After Christmas Break

Since this is technically supposed to be a blog about homeschooling, I thought I'd post about our first day back after a 2 week break. We had a very productive day.I know I haven't been very good about keeping on topic lately, but personal life affects homeschooling, too.

C spent more time than usual on math today, almost an hour, but she only missed one problem. She got an A+ on Spelling, and 2 A+'s in English. (We did 2 lessons, a cumulative review, and the first lesson on her pronoun chapter.) She didn't do as well with Bible as she normally does....missed 3 questions, but understood better after we went over the assignment again. C also did some "social studies", ironically through her English text. Each unit has a theme, and this unit's theme is Australia/New Zealand. We looked New Zealand up on the globe, talked about Sydney, the "outback", Aborigines, how English prisoners were the original white settlers of a continent now predominantly white, the differences between seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres, the awesome, and unusual animal life in Australia (kangoroos, koalas, Tasmanian devils, and platypusses [platypii???lol]). I wonder if we could take a field trip to The Outback Steakhouse....? LOL

E did 2 pages in math, 1 page in English, read me a book, and practiced skip-counting by 5's. As of this writing, she still needs to do her Bible lesson.

Both girls together did science, an introduction to pterosaurs. Almost every child is fascinated by dinosaurs, and pterosaurs are similar, but NOT (as the science book informed us) dinosaurs. The 3 of us ended up spending 45 minutes to get through 4 pages. We always tend to get into long discussions when doing science and social studies.

While it was nice to have a break, and I dreaded getting back to school every day, it went well, and we accompished lots. It was kind of nice to be back doing something productive, and while C may complain about doing school, I think she secretly likes it. I know it sure helps her attitude, which has been sorely lacking in repect and kindness lately, part of that due to boredom. E is always happy to do school, just not too much at a time.

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