Thursday, September 18, 2008

Photobucket Thursday

There are new machines at the gym. WHEW - the AMT is good. I really worked but it said I burned less calories. The trainer said that 15 min on it was worth twice that on the normal elliptical.....but I sure didnt' burn the calories I wanted too. These new machines have individual TV screens...so if I remember headphones I'll be able to watch something besides CNN.

The kids' piano lessons were cancelled today - but that turned out to be a blessing. Nolan is going to begin them too.

I was SAD that it looks like our excellent homeschool drama class at a local studio isn't going to fly this semester. There's always next semester. Basically, the local homeschool co-op changed their day to the same day as drama and the drama studio didn't know in time to rearrange their schedule to pick a better day. She is so GOOD with the kids. I really am hoping they can take more classes with her before we leave. The owner of the studio works at the gym so we talked about it this a.m. I told her if someone showed up to give me a call and I'd have the kids to the class within 10 minutes. She will. LOL

Here's yet another blanket fort.
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©2008 D.R.G.

Photobucket School AGAIN

I got home from the gym and got ambushed. The RULE this year is no computer until school is done. I knew that there were some moderator things I needed to check on on SHS. How did I know this? Because I checked email early before I left for the gym. Then when I got back, I sat down at the computer. BAD move. Conviction galore. I really need to quit that. I guess I should say EARLY hours on the computer are fine but after 6:45 a.m. NO computer time until school is well underway or done.

45 minutes later Jamin asked if I could help him register from the SAT and ACT as I was "at the computer". 1 1/2 hours later we finished. Grrrr....

Now it was lunch time.

I decided not to do "book school" with the younger boys. They love to color and such. The Science Notebooks are a hit. I got out a couple of the History booklets for our Knights Lapbook and we worked on those.
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I don't know WHY Zander looks so pained. Debbie, I thought about your question about Stacia some more. No, she doesn't always cooperate with school. She DOES love it when we are working on projects and insists on being in the middle. This is not always helpful, but I've begun to plan for it. ::snort::
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We discussed the parts of a knights armor. Zander picked the knight from the level 2 lapbook and Nolan picked the knight from the level 3 lapbook. I got both of these from Homeschool Share.com (no, I'm not an affiliate). ::snort:: I love the fact that this site is full of unit studies, worksheets, lesson plans, lapbooks that HOMESCHOOL MOMS have written and decided to SHARE with one another. FREE. ::snort::

Zander's work is on the right. I engaged him. He learned....we have to approach it a bit differently than expected. LOL Notice his colorful knight. He is VERY imaginative. The sword and shield are red because the knight "plunged them all the way into the dragon" and the story goes on from there. The poor man's shin guards are different colors because he laughed at a man and so God gave him a purple shin guard, which isn't very knightly at all.

The other project they began is a timeline pocket for the lapbook. This was a lightbulb moment for me. I've been trying to figure out what to do for our TOG timeline. I refuse to keep long, involved notebooks for little ones. This project has 8 historical events. They are coloring them. I'll laminate them. Then they'll store them in that pocket. They'll play a game and put them in order. I'm thinking I could do THAT with our timeline dates.....or find a place that does this so I don't have to come up with the images. ::snort::

Arielle is running me ragged. She has read 4 books that were to take 3 weeks EACH and we are in our 2nd week. She has read ALL the assignments (history core, in depth, supplemental) for both weeks....we had our discussion today. I do need to help her plan out her work a bit better next week. She's doing great with all the new parts of the program that she's adding in at the Dialectic level (because I don't require them in the grammar level). She missed some parts that I wanted her to do.

Jared had House of Faith this afternoon. He's teaching one of the story groups this year. He had Civil Air Patrol tonight.

Jamin is still working on getting his book finished and in the right format to submit to a contest. Oh, if God would allow him to win, I'd be so excited. He'd not have to worry about college expenses, he'd be published....he could move on to the next big goal. LOL I am eagerly awaiting the chance to read this. He let Krista and Mike read it to edit. Arielle grabbed it and read it. I read the short stories that it grew from and there is a HUGE story there....it's called The Leper King...and oh the short story was good, and discussing his ideas with him are good......I want to READ it. I'll get a printed copy when it is done....I didn't do too well with my favorite parts being edited out of the last book. ::snort::

That's it for another day of school. I'm exhausted...and the house isn't clean...tomorrow is produce co-op....and I didn't make it to the library.... but I think we got enough school done.

©2008 D.R.G.