MONDAY, Sept 13
With both high schoolers gone and Phil at work downtown we were all on Bingley duty so we started the day with a lovely walk in the neighborhood. The weather was so nice we didn't want to go back inside so we brought all of our school stuff outside and did our lessons on the swing.
Science- Personal and Bodily Safety
Had great conversations about being smart around strangers, not letting others touch inappropriately, made up a family password for if a stranger needs to bring them home from something. We did some What to do if role plays. Which was a good thing because the first role play Sam pretended to be a stranger asking Benson if he wanted some candy and he said "Sure!" Good learning opportunity.
Ally worked on her food safety packet on food born illnesses.
Sam and Benson did a fun math game called Giant Gameboard. Sam practiced 3 times tables. Benson number recognition. Ally did ordering negative number expressions.
Preschool- Benson began learning about the letter G. We learned words that start with G. We did a finger play song about 10 little ghosts. We made little ghosts out of coffee filters, popsicle sticks and cotton balls. And then danced the ghosts around while chasing each other to the song Ride of the Valkyries. Bingley enjoyed getting in on the chase.
We used The Long Walk to Water lesson from Bravewriter on writing juicy food descriptions (good adjectives and strong action words) and the use of the semicolon in hooking two sentences together.
We had Addi and Leigha come over to play after school. They play so well together. Benson was excited to play with his sassy little friend. He gets along surprisingly well with bossy little women.
TUESDAY, Sept 14
World Studies- We entered West Africa and learned about Kenya. We found it on our big map. We read Mama Panya's Pancakes and learned about some of the plants animals and cultures of Kenya including the Baobab and Acacia trees. We also learned a few Swahili words including thank you "asantay sahna" like Rafiki says on Lion King and learned Rafiki means "friend".
We read a book about the amazing Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize winner) who is sometimes called the African Johnny Appleseed. We learned she is that and a whole lot more.
We also read "Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain" which was like a Kenyan "This is the House that Jack Built" kind of story about a drought. Fun legend and cool book.
Writing- We started writing our stories from a different perspective. Eliza about giraffe on Noah's ark, Ally about Rapunzel and Sam about Jack and Beanstalk.
Math- Eliza started the multiplication unit in Beast Academy, Sam did mental math practice using a number line (and then did big hops for tens and little hops for ones on a pretend giant number line. That was fun.) Benson learned name of triangle. Ally did one-step equations with negative numbers.
Preschool- Benson and I hung up our F on the alphabet that is growing on our wall after doing a sort of words that start with G and F. He is good at letter sounds but still forgets letter names. We read Goldilocks and he cut and pasted things that are green onto a green paper.
Eliza and I went to the grocery store and to Micheal's where she bought a fun wood treasure chest to make a time capsule (Like in Bob book) and also got a wood pirate ship to paint for her fairies.
This is a pic of the cute phone case Katie designed on her own. I love it. She is so very artsy.
WEDNESDAY, Sept 16
Safety lesson for science on what to do when "flying solo" home alone and how and when to call 911. also when to call non emergency police and poison control. Wrote notes on paper airplanes. Made an emergency call list for by phone and in each room.
Ally and I did math together today. She was a bit confused by Khan lessons on negatives. But got through it just fine together. It was fun doing it with her even if she was grumpy. Sam learned 4 x . Eliza did BA.
Ally did vocab words from LWTW after reading a couple chapters aloud. I quizzed Eliza on parts of speech. Going to madlibs this week to practice that better in a more fun way.
THURSDAY
Well, it wasn't particularly educational but it was important. We cleaned Sam's room. Which took 3+ hours. And got Bensons room all tidy to be the guest room.
Sam now has Doll Land in her room. We setup barbie and american doll stuff in one area. It looks pretty cute.
We did have everyone do math. So that's good. Then we played with the neighbors. Sometimes organization and social interaction bump to the top of the important list. It's nice to be able to be flexible.
FRIDAY
We did the east africa world study we didn't do yesterday. We found east africa countries on map and colored our maps to include that section. We read Beatrice's Goat (uganda) and The Tortoise (Zambia). We made maasai bracelets with meaningful beads and also learned to play mancala for math.
