Plan #438

M: Remember when we used to read from a bunch of different books, instead of just one or two?

A: Yeah, and we actually used to do spelling and look places up on maps when we read about them?

M: And you used to leave little notes for us with stuff to do while you were at work?

Jeez, we've only been off the wagon for a few weeks, really! OK, we got a little busy with the birthday planning and festivities and schoolwork sort of devolved down to Rick Riordon's Percy Jackson series and a Laura Ingalls Wilder book, and some math a few times per week. But isn't it a good thing that my kids are wanting to get back into schoolwork, rather than me having to drag them along? Isn't it funny, the one thing I've been pretty consistent with is math, and that is the thing neither of them want to do now. How can you not like math?

Anyway, we're going to just do math games on the computer for a little while, and concentrate on some other things. Here is our new plan:

1. Pick back up _Our Island Story_ (history of England)

2. Pick back up _Augustus Caesar's World_ (alternate with 1.)

3. Find a D'aulaire picture book biography or something similar to work through a page or so at a time

4. Do regular stories from Fifty Stories Retold and similar books of tales.

5. Pick back up Sequential Spelling

6. Go through this drawing lesson book we have

7. Look up places in books we're reading on maps/globe/atlas

8. Get a steady stream of science online video sites set up.

9. Find a science book to start reading through, or finish the physics one we were reading if we didn't finish it.

10. Print some handwriting practice worksheets for M with science facts on them.

11. Go to the art museum.

M really wants to do more hands-on science, too, and we decided a little while that Singapore was just not right for us. We had the microscope out the other day and that was a big hit, so maybe I could look for some microbiology--grow some molds and get some pond water and stuff like that. We've done more chemistry and physics than biology (other than nature stuff), so that might be a good way to go. I bet I can find a low-tech growing medium on the internet.

A and I are doing another on-line writing class with Bravewriter and for some reason this one has been harder--not more work, but harder to figure out what to write. I think she's hit on an idea she can go with, now, though, so I'm hoping it will be better from here on out.