We’ve had some motivation issues this week, and some whiny days, with the baby coming, it’s not surprising. I’m still trying to find the right groove to keep the 7 year old motivated and knock down the jealousy of the 4 year old having easier activities. I really don’t want to separate them, but if it’s causing me to sit for 6 hours a day in a hard chair and ignore the other kids and household activities, that’s not good either. A child shouldn’t take that long to do a few math problems correctly. I’ve had mixed success just walking away and saying ‘this is what you have to do’– it’s not fair or good for anyone to sit still that long, but I don’t think it’s out of line for me to ask for my child to ‘prove her work’ either– especially given the common core standards that are WAY beyond ‘just write 9-5= and then your answer’.. if something happened to me she’d be completely swamped by all the details that are required nowadays just for math. I’m fine with her knowing how to do it in her head for now, but later it will be important to see where she has trouble. In short, she’s being bullheaded and challenging me. I hate it. She tries to make it a big argument every time something comes up she doesn’t like and I’m beyond tired of it. I get that she doesn’t necessarily want to like home schooling, but you can tell she appreciates the benefits. I’ve even been thanked a few times, when obvious good things float their way, like days full of catching leaves, playing in the dirt, and when they know the answer and no one else does in a social setting. They are very proud of themselves!
Our sports season is over for now, and perhaps we’re feeling the pinch of that, as well. Everyone but me went in and got a flu shot, the toddler took it the best, the 7 yo the worst, although she got a bonus shot we weren’t expecting and will have to have a follow up as well. Something I must have put off as a baby since it was overdue since 2009 🙂 Besides a bit of sore arms, I think that’s about all we got, except we learned that the kids have ALL gained weight due to running and playing and EATING hard this summer. I’m shocked. Also my oldest is nearly 4 ft tall   o.0  YIKES! The doctor thinks she WILL be taller than mom ( go her). All my kids are proud of their weight and growth, and I hope that continues throughout their lifetimes, they have learned good lessons about nutrition and taking care of themselves and hopefully we can avoid some of the pitfalls of young girlhood as far as eating issues and etc. go– one night the kids were jockeying for slices of green pepper. Go figure. They mostly ate salad and fruit.
I’m trying to finish up some of their inexpensive workbooks we started out with and clear out the Halloween stuff to make room for other fall topics (pumpkins and apples, then move on to thankfulness and so forth) as well as whatever daddy wants to cover while mom is on maternity leave. Please offer suggestions in the comments, my ideas: car stuff, engineering stuff, Christmas lights set to music, programming, Dr. Who activities, measuring/building activities and anything mom doesn’t want the mess of (gak, etc) to keep everyone occupied while the baby is brand new. Some of that was pre-planned (like Christmas lights) and other stuff has come about just as topical things that need more study.
Art:
Monster’s pet (inspired by topical reading for the week)
Games and Multimedia:
Monster Go Fish
Monster Matching
The Gruffalo (movie)
4 year old reading together:
Big Pig on a Dig (Usborne- read with daddy!)
CARS (read with daddy)
Go Dog Go (with a visitor!) by Eastman
The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food by Berenstain
7 year old Independent reading:
Halloween Night by Stine
Halloween Night II by Stine
Nate the Great and the Monster Mess by Sharmat
Attack of the Jack O’Lanterns by Stine
The Headless Ghost by Stine
How to Kill a Monster by Stine
Betsy Tacy and Tib by Lovelace
Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg by Levine
Topical reading:
Ghosts! Ghostly Tales from Folklore by Schwartz
Spooky Rhymes and Riddles by Moore
My Treasury of Scary Stories by Repchuk
7 year old paper trail:
Monster readings and comprehension- Ghosts, witches, Frankenstein, etc.
Quizzed on 1st grade words from local school (entire year- missed 17 out of 300, those are now spelling words)
Math- 4 pages of piggy bank math (2 digit addition)
Monster coloring pages
Writing–A-Z of monsters
Math: Roll and cover/color Monster style – 2 pages using a pair of dice for addition practice!
Math: Finish Princess addition and subtraction study [Target $1 workbook]
Math: Complete Halloween word problems packet started a few weeks ago
Finished Rhyme book [Target $1 workbook]
4 year old paper trail:
Sofia the First math page numerals 16-20 to complete number study [Target $1 workbook]
Thomas the Train finish color word activities to complete study [Target $1 workbook]
Tracing lines, alphabet, and her name pages for practice
Monster coloring pages
Writing–copy words that end in the ‘e’ sound (we, be, tea) and ‘in’ sound ‘win, fin, bin, ink’ and ‘y’ sound ‘my, by, guy’
Math: Roll and cover/color Monster style – 2 pages using a single die for number practice!
Linking up with the weekly wrap up, find guidelines and how to play along here: WWU
We just love The Gruffalo. It was one of our bedtime stories for over a year 🙂
Just dropping in from the Weekly Wrap-up. Have a good day!