I have dropped the ball on the Journal of Days for the past three weeks! We devoted almost an entire week to caregiving (September 23-26), although we did spend three and a half hours in a waiting room and discussed anesthesia, worked on math flash cards, read James Herriott, did Explode the Code...in other words, portable school. That Monday we did regular school, Tuesday was 'portable school' and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all dedicated to caregiving.
The other two weeks were more typical, with piano practice, read-alouds, math flash cards, working through a science kit, handwriting, chores, and many other activities filling our days. I simply have not taken the time to sit and write about any of it! Life-school is such a great thing, too.....the children learn about chrysanthemums, transplanting peonies, pet care, et cetera.
The only day I actually recorded was September 15--here's what we did!
Monday, September 15: Finn slept in
until 8:45 or so; I wrote while Annie sat on my lap. We had a quick
breakfast and an abbreviated morning time before chores and piano. The
children sat at the table enchanted by Bruce Corville's illustrated
version of Midsummer Night's Dream. "When can we act this out?" I figured I'd strike while the iron is hot, so I told them after our initial, formal schoolwork we could start on Midsummer. Piano practice, a page of Miquon, a quick phonics review lesson and Frog and Toad story,
and a little handwriting began the day. We did a spelling lesson, and
seeing as how Finn knows how to spell the words already--I tested
him--we're on to the next lesson on Wednesday! More sentences v. phrases
in grammar, and then he narrated "Damon and Pythias" and we read his
health lesson. The rest of the day was spent swinging outside (for
about 1.5 hours!) and drawing backdrops and choosing Playmobil
characters for Midsummer Night's Dream. At bedtime we read about Bach as part of Finn's piano homework.
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I've been revising our year as we go. I always do this! I find it fascinating that I spend so much time at the start of the year planning in great detail only to change directions, tweak, drop, add and adjust throughout the year. Right now I am planning some school based on topics Finn has been asking about lately. For October we will (in addition to the normal skills subjects and poetry, music, art)-
*continue some read-alouds that we've been enjoying, such as Old Mother West Wind and the Little House books, and finishing James Herriott's stories
*finish Midsummer Night's Dream
*read about squirrels
*learn about New York City (anyone have any great resources on this to toss at me? I'm figuring it out....)
*read a little bit about how and why the leaves change color in autumn
*discuss Columbus Day (Finn already read a book on Columbus this fall and one of our Classical Conversation history sentences was about him; I want to discuss him a bit more)
*read a book on the Boston Tea Party
*finish our readings on India!!
*I'd also like to read a little bit about the origins of Halloween, but I am not sure I will get around to this. We hope to celebrate All Saints' Day, too.
In November I hope to add in:
*additional read-alouds
*writing letters to a few veterans for Veterans' Day
*specific readings about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, the Native Americans, etc.
*begin readings on another country (I haven't decided which just yet)
....& I am not sure what else! I will fill in near the end of October when I get a feel for what Finn is interested in doing.
For December I hope to concentrate our readings more on Advent and Christmas-related things (St. Nicholas Day!), and maybe throw a little Civil War history in there since we will be in Charleston at New Year's. Of course, December is also quite busy with the wonderful and homey aspects of the holidays--baking delicious foods, decorating the house, wrapping gifts and enjoying the end of the year together. I adore Advent and Christmas and my adoration of this season only gets more intense every year.
I also want to work a bit here and there on specific skills. Tying shoes, making phone calls, telling time, playing store (learning about coins and money!) are all things we are doing in tiny bites.
