Work for this week

Well, as much as my scattered brain can remember.

And just as an aside, I really CAN forget to eat. Just now (it's 10:30, the time the girls start making lunch) I went into the kitchen, wondering why I was so hungry. Saw my full bowl of oatmeal sitting there. Breakfast, never eaten. Oh, THAT's why I'm so hungry! LOL

Science wise: we have read in The Weather Report and also Wild About Weather about temperature. Did a high/low temperature plotting exercise on a map of the US (counts as geography too! and math!) We've also been charting the weather and temperature we notice every day at various times. Showed the girls how our digital thermometer from LL Bean recalls highs and lows since the last time it was set. Today we tried to make a thermometer using a water bottle, alcohol/water mixture, red food coloring, clay, and a straw. It didn't work very well, I think because we couldn't get a tight seal with the clay. But I think they got the point anyway.

We have continued on with lessons in Right Start Math. Rose is slowing getting those multiplication facts memorized. Skye is still having trouble with mental math. I think she may have my problem of not being able to hold one idea in her head, say, a number, while thinking of other things like how to work with that number. Once I start thinking about what I'm doing with the number, I've forgotten the rest of the problem! This was always a problem for me taking notes in college. I'd get halfway through writing down what the professor said when I'd forget the rest of it. I found it helped to watch the professors lips move as much as I could - maybe to get some kind of visual picture of the auditory output? I'm not sure. Anyway...

We also started a Dear America book called The Winter of Red Snow, even though I said we'd be done with learning about Revolutionary Times. It was Skye's choice and we're all enjoying it. It's about our speed right now. I think I was trying too hard to get us to read aloud more difficult/classic books. Have to tell myself there is plenty of time for that. If not with these two, then with the next three. :)

Art has been a little less directed than I'd like, but they are finding activities on their own so I've been letting it fly that way - again, can only do what we can do here, I can't constantly stress myself out by trying to teach over a baby screaming or a toddler tantruming or a preschooler crying over some injustice (and it's almost always one or the other here, sigh...). Rose made two mobiles to hang on our tree outside out of fallen leaves and yarn, they've made paper angels that all stick together in a line (what is that called? Where you cut doll shapes out of one piece of paper and unfold it and they're all holding hands?). They've made more fairy dolls and Rose tried some finger knitting for the first time thanks to a YouTube video.

Already thinking ahead to what February should hold. Spelling and handwriting have totally fallen by the wayside lately...I'll need to find a way to make this useful and fun though. I'm thinking some kind of letter writing marathon...

Happy Friday everyone! I'm off to try to create a haiku for Haiku Friday out of the starving mess of braincells I've got (I've been eating my oatmeal while typing...)