Saturday

Summary Saturday: Acting and Yacking

After our wonderful trip to Arkansas last week, we drove back home on Monday and Tuesday this week.

Wednesday morning I heard a crunching and crackling paper noise coming from the dining room. I immediately thought that a mouse had taken up residence while we were gone. I quietly walked into the room and peeked around the table. This is what I saw:


I told him to sit still so Mom could grab the camera...and of course he just kept eating and waited for his silly blogging mommy to come back!

Also on Wednesday, Magpie started running a fever. She had between 101 and 104 degree temperature until this morning when she woke up without fever. The doctor said that it was just a virus since she had no other symptoms. I will spare you from posting pictures of her laying on the couch watching TV, which is what she did the entire time.

I was able to squeeze in school with Chipette on Thursday and Friday. Before you think I'm the meanest mother on earth, please realize that we school year round in our homeschool for two main reasons: 1) It is so hot here in the summer, you can't do anything out of the house anyway. 2) Statistically children who school year round retain what they have learned better than those who have a summer break.

We finished up studying our senses in science that goes with our ballet unit study. The last thing we did was fill out a page that showed what senses Chipette uses when she dances. I included this first picture because Chipette looks so pretty in it!


This is a close up of her page:


We decided that when she dances she doesn't really use taste and smell to do ballet, but definitely uses all of the others!


About four weeks ago we started reading veerrrryyyy slowly through Edith Nesbit's Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare because I wanted Chipette to know the basics of Shakespeare's plays from a young age so when she studies them in Jr. High and high school she is not afraid. We are going to take two years to go through this book, then move on to Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare and take two years to read through it as well.

The way I am using Nebit's book is reading half of the story on day two of our week, then on day four I quickly reread the first half and have Chipette narrate the story back to me while I write it down on our Shakespeare notebooking pages. We just finished our first play, A Midsummer's Night Dream. Here is a picture of part of her narration:


I have to say that my diabolical brilliant plan is working perfectly. Chipette, who's eight years old, is already wanting to act out a scene from the original play and says that Shakespeare is her favorite playwright. Score one point for the homeschool mom who makes Shakespeare fun!

On day five in our homeschool (I number our school days instead of using the normal names because it drives me up the wall if we're doing Thursday's work on Tuesday because we got behind.), I do Math Mavens with my girls for something different. We sit down and work on Miquon together using Cuisenaire rods. I give Chipette a fun math worksheet like Funny Fairytale Math  that I picked up as a PDF file from Scholastic during their Dollar Days sale.

We also read a living math book that I check out from the library. Believe it or not, people actually write books about math...for fun. *shudder* That's one of the things that nobody tells you about being a homeschool mom, you have to be a wonderful actress.

Outside: (very cheerfully) "Yay, it's time for Math Mavens! Come to the table!" 

Inside: (groaning) There was a reason I majored in history in college...only three hours (1 math class) required to graduate. Ugh...I hate math.

But both of my girls love math and numbers so I'm thinking I should be nominated for an Oscar next year...Best Homeschooling Mother Who Fakes Enthusiasm for an Intensely Disliked Subject goes to...Chelli from The Treehouse!!!!

Anyway....I usually rotate whose book it is, but they both listen. For example on Magpie's week, I will check out something on counting, shapes, basic addition, skip counting, etc. This week was Chipette's week, which worked out well considering that Magpie was ill. We read a book called Too Many Kangaroo Things to Do. It covers beginning multiplication and adding up double digit numbers. I was shocked at how quickly Chipette has gotten at adding quite a few double digit numbers in her head. She's almost as fast as me!

Here is a look at the inside of the book:



Adding in our Math Mavens every fifth day has been lots of fun and a nice change of pace from the regularly scheduled programming.


Friday night My Man and I went out for dinner and a movie to celebrate our Ten Year Anniversary. Yay, us!!! Here is a picture of us on our wedding day:


With only about 30 minutes left in the movie my sister (who's staying with us this summer for 6 weeks) called to tell me that Chipette had just vomited in the bathroom. As soon as the movie was over we rushed home, and I've been nursing Chipette off and on all day (thankfully no more vomiting!).

I hope all of you had a wonderful week (and a much healthier one than ours)!

It's definitely been a crazier and more sickly week than normal in the treehouse,

Chelli

4 comments:

  1. I have to say- I think you look even younger now than on your wedding day! I'm jealous. And, if you're looking for another math literature book, we just picked up Math Fables. I'd rather read those than skip-counting... =)

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    1. Thanks for the compliment and the book rec. I have to say that the picture here on my blog is one where good lighting and a good angle combined to catch me in my most flattering view. I don't walk around looking like that all the time! LOL!

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  2. Mean Mom? No way! Lots and lots of homeschoolers are choosing to school year round now...and even more continue to do some type of school during the summer months but don't consider it "school". I don't think of us as year round schoolers, but we still read a lot, do some unit studies together (child-directed) and continue to work on weak areas. Summer is the perfect time to change things up a little! And if your weather isn't cooperative - perfect time for school inside! LOL

    What a cute chip eater! LOL

    We have Shakespeare Tales too and we've read a couple of the plays. The kids haven't really enjoyed them, but I think Shakespeare takes some getting used too! LOL

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    1. We really love schooling year round. It just fits our life much better.

      Keep giving Shakespeare a chance. What got my daughter interested was reading a Sisters Grimm book. The character of Puck is introduced in book one. She wanted to know who Puck was, especially since he is described as the Trickster King (she loves telling jokes). He was also the one character that she didn't know his "fairy tale". I mentioned to her that he was a character in a play called "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I found a beautiful picture book version by Bruce Coville at our library and brought it home to read to her so she would know Puck's backstory. She loved it and wanted to read more, so I checked out some more of Coville's picture book adaptations of Shakespeare. My little Shakespeare lover was born!

      And that was way more than anyone needs to know about our Shakespeare adventure! LOL!

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