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How goes the planning?

 

DS and I started back at our homeschool today. We both need the structure. We had a little planning meeting at the city library today. I had a coffee and he had a cookie. We wrote this week's plan into his shiny new diary, then we picked out some books for his current research topic, and got stuck into it.

 

DS is 2E with ASD and going into grade 3.

 

We've started with our daily basics:

- Reading

- Spelling

- Maths

- Writing

 

Next week we'll return to last year's Morning Time plans, which consist of:

- A picture (drawing or art history)

- A poem (read or recite)

- A story (readaloud)

- A song (I play guitar and we sing together)

 

And when that's going well we'll add

M/W/F: grammar

Tu/Th: history

 

I'd love to see what others have planned!

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Sounds lovely Pegs!

 

We plan to start back on the 22nd. I'm putting the finishing touches on the implementation aspects of my plans. My kids will be in 7th, 5th, 2nd and 4 year old kinder and we have some cool stuff planned!

 

We'll jump in with morning time from the beginning - we do bible/copywork, history/narrations, read one of Shakespeare Plutarch Spurgeon or Poetry/dictation, we do some translation practice of either Latin or Russian, sing, art (drawing or watercolour)

 

Science will start off slowly with only nature study for the first 4 weeks, with some tying up loose ends in botany (mostly just harvesting and collecting seeds). Then we'll spend about 28 weeks on an electronics/circuits unit.

 

My older 3 are all doing Classical Writing levels this year, I remember how much I love this program.

 

Lots of interesting things and I feel like I haven't over planned so I'm looking forward to starting!

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My curriculum plans for next year. I will only have 3 at home next year


 


 ds14 Year 9- Profound Dylsexia


 


Math - Saxon Algebra 1/2


 


Science - Apologia Biology - 1/3 way though already


 


Technology - Raspberry Pi 


 


History- Working our way through Usborne Internet Linked History Encyclopaedia Medieval this year.  We have just discovered NotebookingPages and he will be using the Notebooking publisher. https://notebookingpages.com/ Why have I never heard of these before. It is as if they were made for Dyslexic people. It is going to revolutionise his writing for history.


 


Spelling -LEM book 2 ( almost finished) along with the dictation From AAR3 ( I would have preferred to switch to AAR as I love it but ds will not change, wants to do the same book as his older brothers did)


 


Grammar - Grammar for the Well Trained Mind


 


Writing- Writing with Skill


 


Reading/Literature - TWTM reading list for the Logic stage with some adaptions for easier to read abridged versions of some of the books


 


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Twins boys  nearly 7- these guys have only been living with us for 3 years ( Permanent care from Foster). they have significant  fine, gross motor and cognitive delays and many learning problems.We have already started this school this year for them :-)


 


AAR1


 


Reading Eggs


 


Readers - AAR, Bob Books, Fitzroy Readers, Reading Eggs phonics books


 


Grammar- First LAngauge LEssons


 


Penmanship- Progressive Phonics Writing ( just the penmanship part)http://www.progressivephonics.com/handwriting


 


Writing - Copywork from History and Science - We will be using NotebookingPages and making a book with Arnos fasterners, also level A form Writing workshop


 


Math- Saxon K


 


History - SOTW book 2 


 


Science - plant and animal kingdom using a range of Lapbooking Units - they are very visual and love lapbooking 


 


 Music- Music Maestro 


 


Art - Will be craft for SOTW


 


They will also continue to have Speach Pathology, Occupational Therapy, Play Therapy etc. 

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American here, but going towards a Calendar year schedule. But love hearing from you Aussies :) 

 

 

I need to dig stuff out. We've been bogged down with issues and appointments. Plus I finally upgraded my laptop and dd got the old one {worked fine but starting to act up}. So I need to go back and reconsider things I passed on because sharing a laptop didn't work. 

 

DD11 said she wants to do Spanish - so I need to figure out that. Otherwise, we'll be doing Saxon 54, Lifepac grade 5 history, a LA workbook, and I think Apologia General science {done very slowly}. I need to figure out grammar / writing still too. 

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A New Zealander too!  Have almost finished my plans for my older boy.  He goes off to an American university in late August, so he will be done by mid June.  So a very short list for him.

 

As for younger son, I'm in the middle of trying to make WWS3 work for him given that he needs to start angling towards the NZ exams.  I think I can do it, but will take a bit of planning. I just didn't realise until 3 days ago how much I needed to plan to teach 2 kids in high school.  

 

Older boy (last year, university in late August):

English: teaching

Biology: teaching

Economics and Government: co-learning

Mandarin: tutor

Violin: tutor

Maths: self taught

 

Younger boy (year 10 in NZ, year 9 in Aussie):

English: teaching

Maths: teaching

History: teaching

Digital technology: co-learning

Violin: tutor

Biology: self taught

 

That means I'm teaching 5 classes, and co-learning 2.  Wow is that a lot of work!!!  Planning looks like it will take me the next 2 weeks, and then I am still going to have to stay on my toes all year long!  This homeschooling gig is crazy hard in high school!

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited by lewelma
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You really are an inspiration, Ruth. :)

 

Aw, thanks.  :blush:  I'm not feeling much like an inspiration right now.  More like I'm in panic mode.  I had a vague feeling about what I was going to do this year, and sat down to start getting organised about 3 days ago only to find out that I have a TON to do!  I'm feeling very  :willy_nilly:  and a bit of  :blink:.  I don't think I need to buy anything, thankfully; I just need to use what I have.  By the time I finish this homeschool gig, I'm going to be so SMART!!! 

Edited by lewelma
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... Continue poetry memorization, which is probably the single most effective thing we've ever done in homeschool. It helps that the goal you have to reach to consider it effective is so cut and dry!

 

And each has a booklist that I'm excited about :-)

Hooray for success with poetry!

 

Care to share your booklists?

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Aw, thanks. :blush: I'm not feeling much like an inspiration right now. More like I'm in panic mode. I had a vague feeling about what I was going to do this year, and sat down to start getting organised about 3 days ago only to find out that I have a TON to do! I'm feeling very :willy_nilly: and a bit of :blink:. I don't think I need to buy anything, thankfully; I just need to use what I have. By the time I finish this homeschool gig, I'm going to be so SMART!!!

You've totally got this! Here's to making many happy homeschool memories with your older boy while you still can.

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We pretty much homeschool year-round and only take semi-breaks when my husband is home for holidays. It's in my daughter's best interest to keep her mind active.

And schooling year-round gives us the flexibility to have some off days here and there for various reasons.

 

If my daughter (11yr old) were at school, she'd be starting Grade 7 in late January, which is the first year in highschool here in QLD. 

I don't think this milestone will change how we do things here at home, but it is a little reminder that she's growing up.

 

Our first couple of days have gone quite well.

 

Here's how we organise ourselves:

 

Daily: some maths, some independent reading, some spelling (commonly misspelt words lists), some fitness. She chooses when to do these and how long to do them, with a bit of nudging here and there if needed.

 

Within the week: I have a list of tasks that she can choose from at any time, with the goal that they will all be done by the end of the week.

 

At the moment, this week's list looks a bit like this (with some identifying bits and pieces left out):

 

 

Jan 8 Ă¢â‚¬â€œ 14, 2018

 

Daily must-dos:                                               M            T           W            Th            F

 

Whiteboard maths 

Own reading

Spelling/vocab

Fitness

 

Get done this week:

·         Cello Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

·         Piano Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

·         Phineas Gage book

·         Navajo Codetalkers book

·         Creative writing Ă¢â‚¬â€œ work on your own writing or choose an activity from your Great Courses Fiction course

·         Brain chapter (Ellen McHenry)

·         Molecules book (Theodore Gray)

·         Science lecture - chemistry (Great Courses Joy of Science)

·         Some coding (with older sister)

·         Quiz book Ă¢â‚¬â€œ pick some geography pages

·         Korean Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

·         Friday Ă¢â‚¬â€œ re-check all spelling/vocab

·         Radium Girls book

·         Planning/filming - drama/media

 

There's always a lot of crochet going on too. A lot of crochet.

And a lot of our reading ends up with Google searching of this and that and discussions about all sorts of things.

 

And some bigger-picture stuff - 

 

Short-term goals:

- somehow reignite her interest and confidence in maths (Pegs, any ideas??)

 

 

Some overall goals for the year:

 

- two or three essays, hopefully one related to art history

- work on creative non-fiction writing

- start bumping up the output level. We have pretty high input, but not so much output at this stage

- keep working on strategies to manage her anxieties

 

 

I love hearing how everyone structures their days/weeks and what they are using.

Thanks Pegs for starting this thread.

Edited by chocolate-chip chooky
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You've totally got this! Here's to making many happy homeschool memories with your older boy while you still can.

 

Yes! Thanks for the reminder.  I have only 3 main goals, all to shore up weaknesses as I see them:

 

1) Be able to write a research paper in humanities - (2 literary analysis research papers and 1 socio-scientific research paper)

 

2) Lab write ups (1 for physics and 1 for biology (bio will be a full scientific research paper write up comparing findings to literature))

 

3) Learn to use some important tools: statistics software, citation organization software, and research databases

 

Those are the holes I think we need to fill.  The rest of his schedule is just ticking some american boxes like foreign language and economics, and of course a wee bit of maths just to fill in the time.  :001_smile:

 

I definitely want this time to be fun and less stressful than last year, which was pretty stressful!

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We pretty much homeschool year-round and only take semi-breaks when my husband is home for holidays. It's in my daughter's best interest to keep her mind active.

And schooling year-round gives us the flexibility to have some off days here and there for various reasons.

 

If my daughter (11yr old) were at school, she'd be starting Grade 7 in late January, which is the first year in highschool here in QLD.

I don't think this milestone will change how we do things here at home, but it is a little reminder that she's growing up.

 

Our first couple of days have gone quite well.

 

Here's how we organise ourselves:

 

Daily: some maths, some independent reading, some spelling (commonly misspelt words lists), some fitness. She chooses when to do these and how long to do them, with a bit of nudging here and there if needed.

 

Within the week: I have a list of tasks that she can choose from at any time, with the goal that they will all be done by the end of the week.

 

At the moment, this week's list looks a bit like this (with some identifying bits and pieces left out):

 

 

Jan 8 Ă¢â‚¬â€œ 14, 2018

 

Daily must-dos: M T W Th F

 

Whiteboard maths

Own reading

Spelling/vocab

Fitness

 

Get done this week:

· Cello Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

· Piano Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

· Phineas Gage book

· Navajo Codetalkers book

· Creative writing Ă¢â‚¬â€œ work on your own writing or choose an activity from your Great Courses Fiction course

· Brain chapter (Ellen McHenry)

· Molecules book (Theodore Gray)

· Science lecture - chemistry (Great Courses Joy of Science)

· Some coding (with older sister)

· Quiz book Ă¢â‚¬â€œ pick some geography pages

· Korean Ă¢â‚¬â€œ at least 2x

· Friday Ă¢â‚¬â€œ re-check all spelling/vocab

· Radium Girls book

· Planning/filming - drama/media

 

There's always a lot of crochet going on too. A lot of crochet.

And a lot of our reading ends up with Google searching of this and that and discussions about all sorts of things.

 

And some bigger-picture stuff -

 

Short-term goals:

- somehow reignite her interest and confidence in maths (Pegs, any ideas??)

 

 

Some overall goals for the year:

 

- two or three essays, hopefully one related to art history

- work on creative non-fiction writing

- start bumping up the output level. We have pretty high input, but not so much output at this stage

- keep working on strategies to manage her anxieties

 

 

I love hearing how everyone structures their days/weeks and what they are using.

Thanks Pegs for starting this thread.

Hi Chooky, my oldest is Dd age 12 who would be going into grade 7 - high school - this year too!

I'm surprisingly not at all worried about it, I'm really happy with our plans and we're pretty much just doing the next thing from grade 6 to 7.

My biggest worry in upping output is probably spending longer on maths. She's good at maths and enjoys it, it just simply takes longer!

Would adding missions in Khan Academy help her interest in maths?

My daughter has been compulsively watching Vi Hart (maths related) videos on YouTube so I have hexagonal bits of paper all over my house!

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Hi Chooky, my oldest is Dd age 12 who would be going into grade 7 - high school - this year too!

I'm surprisingly not at all worried about it, I'm really happy with our plans and we're pretty much just doing the next thing from grade 6 to 7.

My biggest worry in upping output is probably spending longer on maths. She's good at maths and enjoys it, it just simply takes longer!

Would adding missions in Khan Academy help her interest in maths?

My daughter has been compulsively watching Vi Hart (maths related) videos on YouTube so I have hexagonal bits of paper all over my house!

 

Thanks for reminding me about Vi Hart. It's been ages since we watched her videos. That could be maths-inspiring.

 

Khan... we did some of that a few years back and my daughter got frustrated with how repetitive it is for maths. 

We use Khan for isolated bits and pieces in other subject areas, usually to supplement a topic we're already studying with some other spine.

I'll ask my daughter if she'd like a maths mission on there though. She may be interested now. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Ha. Things all over the house. I can relate. We still have playing cards blue-tacked all over the house from when my daughter went through a memory-training phase, after watching Todd Sampson's show Redesign Your Brain. Great show.

 

All the best for your year ahead  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've got to finish planning by tomorrow as homeschool camp is Tuesday to Saturday, and school starts in a week!  I'm ready.  This will be my only 6 months teaching two in high school (14 and 17).  Older ds goes to American university in August, and we will call him done mid-June.   I'm reducing my tutoring load for this 6 months to make sure that I'm not overwhelmed.  I will be teaching an additional 7 students age 11 to 18.  As always, I will feel  :willy_nilly:

 

My big focus this past week is coming to terms with the NZ assessments for Geography and History.  I think I've got it.  6 assessments each subject. Younger ds will do NZ assessments for Math, English, Geography, History, and ABRSM for music.  He will read Biology but no assessments. Younger ds has dysgraphia, so we will continue to remediate through dictation.  Too bad he grew 2cm in 19 days this month.  I think his brain is on holiday!

 

Ruth in NZ 

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Going really well with twins.

 

We have introduced narration- which they call operation 

 

They are finishing off the last few pages of their ROd and Staff preschool books then we will introduce First Language Lessons.

 

DS14 will start back next week. he wants to go strictly by public school schooldays and public schools around here are not starting back until next week. gives me time to watch these IEW videos 

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We start back tomorrow officially! We did a couple of days of morning time this past week to get the routine started again. Then it hit 40 degrees so we just stayed in the pool lol.

I'm looking forward to starting tomorrow, I should have been preparing today but...

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We start back tomorrow officially! We did a couple of days of morning time this past week to get the routine started again. Then it hit 40 degrees so we just stayed in the pool lol.

I'm looking forward to starting tomorrow, I should have been preparing today but...

we stop school when it hits 40 oC as well, unairconditioned house , children who get grumpy and mother who falls asleep when it gets that hot doesn't make for a positive school day. it was 43 oC here on Friday.  Fortunately we only have a few days a year when it gets that hot.

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we stop school when it hits 40 oC as well, unairconditioned house , children who get grumpy and mother who falls asleep when it gets that hot doesn't make for a positive school day. it was 43 oC here on Friday. Fortunately we only have a few days a year when it gets that hot.

Yikes! We had 41 and I was a whimpering puddle. I can't think straight in that heat blergh.

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Just coz I wanna play too...

 

We spent this festering day under the air con. We read some sex ed, some of 'Queen Bees and Wannabes' (my word that author is annoying,) a story about the Buddha and some Harry Potter. She made some sauerkraut and learned that tempeh is tolerable to eat if soaked in orange juice instead of being left plain. She was happy about a nice message from Sadie about the protest sign she made for the protest we didn't get to attend after all. We watched an episode of Tudor Farm for history, (highly recommended) and another episode of Mahabarat, which when watched only every second weekend-ish, is more like the never-ending story than The Never-ending Story. Epic, I tell ya.

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I daren't give DS time off for heat because he'd just flop about moaning about his boredom.

 

Lucky for us we are nice and close to the beach, so as soon as lessons are done we can go for a dip! Sometimes, if it's truly too hot to work, we take a break during the heat of the afternoon and come back to lessons in the evening.

 

Recently we had a play date on a Friday and didn't get any Friday lessons done, so we just did them on Saturday instead. I'm kind of proud that we managed to get them done, and DS very happily ticked them off in his diary. I'm pleased with myself for modelling flexibility and still getting everything done.

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Hoping camp will be sunny and warm. I'm the last one standing at this point. There are two other families left from when I started, but they aren't coming to camp.  There is just such a drop off in high school.  I feel like everyone else are all just newbies even if they have been at this for a decade.   :tongue_smilie:

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Well I for one am glad that you don't mind associating with us n00bs, Ruth! I learn a lot from your posts.

 

What's involved in a homeschool camp? Is this an annual event? People local to you? Regular meeting attendees, or folks from all over?

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I'm also basically the only academic homeschooler in the region.  There are some in Auckland, but Wellington, nope. And homeschooling to elite universities is a crazy big ask, but there is just no one to discuss it with.  No one to understand.  The parents I like talking to the most are the ones with the kids with learning disabilities because they are working to meet their kids where they are at academically. So they understand me better than most. 

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Homeschool camp is an annual event held at the boy scout camp.  We have kayaks, absailing, flying fox, nature walks, orienteering, gaming, a bonfire, singing, etc.  Each parent takes on a job or two for the 5 days, so I will run the kayaks.  There is a kitchen, bbqs, etc, but we will do cold food because I'm lazy.  Most people tent or RV camp, but we just day trip because I'm lazy.  I love it because there is no cell phone reception and I just wander around and talk to all the parents, lots of dads there. I love meeting the new people, and catching up with those I only see at camp every year.  Super fun.

Edited by lewelma
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Homeschool camp is an annual event held at the boy scout camp. We have kayaks, absailing, flying fox, nature walks, orienteering, gaming, a bonfire, singing, etc. Each parent takes on a job or two for the 5 days, so I will run the kayaks. There is a kitchen, bbqs, etc, but we will do cold food because I'm lazy. Most people tent or RV camp, but we just day trip because I'm lazy. I love it because there is no cell phone reception and I just wander around and talk to all the parents, lots of dads there. I love meeting the new people, and catching up with those I only see at camp every year. Super fun.

That sounds really cool! Have a wonderful time. :)

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That sounds really cool! Have a wonderful time. :)

 

Tuesday to Saturday.  I'll bring 2 other boys on Tuesday and Wednesday -- so 4 boys aged 14-17.  Most of the kids will be younger, but the older ones often gather for gaming.  So we will bring  a ton of games.

 

My older has the British Maths Olympiad Round 2 on Friday unfortunately, so he will miss Wednesday and Thursday as he has to study, and friday because he has to take a 3.5 hour exam!  But younger ds and I will go alone those days.  He will just run and run and run.  He might stop by once or twice for food, but otherwise I never see him.

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NZ here - we haven't started back yet, won't start properly until after Waitangi day (6th Feb) when we're done travelling and daddy goes back to work :-)

 

DS is year 7 this year (y6 Aus I guess) and DD is year 5 (Aus year 4). 

 

I have a vague idea of what's happening this year, but I'm sure it'll change.  It will involve a lot of maths for DS and art for DD I'm sure. 

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I miss playing this game, so I'm gonna play again today.

 

We've read some sex ed (should finish the book tomorrow,) some of 'Queen Bees and Wannabes' and a section of a kitchen witchy book on tea. This spoke about Japanese tea ceremonies, so dd dictated an email to the lady we did a miso making workshop with the other week, to see if she would run a class on tea ceremonies. We watched another episode of 'Tudor Farm.' Dd did some *cleaning of the bedroom* :svengo: while I made bread dough. I found some hard wheat so am hoping for better bread than my last few attempts. So far, so good.

 

She's currently sitting out in the veggie patch picking purslane one leaf at a time, so may be there for the rest of the afternoon. The idea is she's going to make some tzatziki to go with dinner, and to share with Nanna. I think we'll get in another episode of Mahabarat tonight, but we'll have to see what happens. 

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Just coz I wanna play too...

 

We spent this festering day under the air con. We read some sex ed, some of 'Queen Bees and Wannabes' (my word that author is annoying,) a story about the Buddha and some Harry Potter. She made some sauerkraut and learned that tempeh is tolerable to eat if soaked in orange juice instead of being left plain. She was happy about a nice message from Sadie about the protest sign she made for the protest we didn't get to attend after all. We watched an episode of Tudor Farm for history, (highly recommended) and another episode of Mahabarat, which when watched only every second weekend-ish, is more like the never-ending story than The Never-ending Story. Epic, I tell ya.

Which is Tudor Farm? I have tales from the green valley (I think 1600s but maybe 16th century, Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm. Full Steam Ahead is good too.

 

DS10 doesn't go back to school until 7/2 (after Waitangi Day) so we are waiting until then although the honeschool PE class starts on the 5th. Ds8 and I will concentrate on getting Maths, Composition, and exercise every day while trying to work 40 hours a week.

 

When we have that down and I drop my hours To around 30 we will add History/Science etc.

Edited by kiwik
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Which is Tudor Farm? I have tales from the green valley (I think 1600s but maybe 16th century, Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm. Full Steam Ahead is good too.

 

Tudor Farm

 

 

Today dd turned down the opportunity to go down the pool to make us play Cashflow 101. About three hours of maths. Weird kid.

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Tudor Farm

 

 

Today dd turned down the opportunity to go down the pool to make us play Cashflow 101. About three hours of maths. Weird kid.

Ă¢ËœÂº awww

 

Day 2 went okay, a little more attitude and foot dragging - from the kids too! Sigh, it's always tough to get the brain back into routine and hold 4 students daily needs! We'll get there, I was just feeling very pouty yesterday afternoon, matching my tween lol.

 

We'll try again today. I've got builder's coming to work on our house build (at the other end of our block) today too so hopefully we won't be too distracted...

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I love these sorts of threads. 

It's great to hear the nitty gritty of everyone's daily homeschooling. Love it.

 

Yesterday for us:

 

- a cello lesson in the morning (but our rental cello is still in for repairs  :( )

- spelling (commonly misspelt words taken from Webster's Word Power)

- Navajo Codetalkers - reading together with discussion

- independent reading (she finished a book in a series and declared herself in 'the deep pit of book grief')

- crochet (of course) - there's now a new listing on my daughter's Etsy shop and she was quite thrilled to see that someone somewhere has 'favourited' her shop  :thumbup1:

- Korean lesson

- creative writing

- fitness

- lots of general knowledge quizzes over dinner with the whole family. Good fun. Lots of laughs. Pegs, we'll have to do this when you visit. Start practising your buzzer sound  :D .

 

Hmm. No maths or science yesterday. That's unusual, but we'll balance out over the week.

 

I hope you all have a lovely day today.

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I can play again!

 

This is yesterday's blog post.

 

 

Miss Muffety must have finally relaxed properly, because she had a good sleep 12 hours sleep last night. When she woke up, she very quietly snuggled up in bed with her Harry Potter book, as any self respecting child who claims they don't want to wake their mother does (not that she can tell when I'm awake, though I can tell when she is from the light under the door) when they really want to read their book instead of doing school. :D When I went in to say good morning, she had only a few pages to go, and no reasonable parent can interrupt a child when they only have a few pages left. School can wait. Even breakfast is going to have to wait, lol.

 
When school time finally arrived, we read a botany lesson, another section of 'Queen Bees,' and finished the sex ed book. Her next book, 'The Little Red Book' which is about first period stories, not communism, is assigned reading. I'm sure I'd have died of embarrassment if my mother had given me something like that, but Zia is not me. She cracks me up! Since we now have a reading slot opened up in our schedule, I suggested we read more of our other read alouds, but she wasn't keen. 'Queen Bees' is necessary, but not enjoyable, and neither of us care how long it takes to get through the Indian myths book. I suggested we read some feminist books, and she responded enthusiastically. So, we'll start off with one I haven't read before, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'We Should All Be Feminists,' while we wait for our next sex ed book to arrive. 
 
Zia had a play with her picture study cards while I ordered the new books and did a few other administrative tasks, then we flicked through a chapter of the kitchen witch book on seasonal recipes. We thought some were a bit gimmicky, and not at all appropriate to our climate, but she liked the idea anyway. She knew what seasonal eating meant, which was good, but, we wondered, how local do the seasons need to be? Seasonal in our hemisphere? Our country? Our state? Our backyard? Zia offered our town as suitably local, so she dictated a post for me to put on the local FB page, asking about the tomato harvest status. The first lot I put in are nowhere near ripe and the later ones are flowering, but that's all. One respondent told a story about seasonal eating from her own family history, which was nice, and while we're on the topic, I pulled out John Seymour's sustainable farming book, and his autobiography. I was going to get dd to read the latter to me after we'd finished the 3rd Parker reader, but fate determined otherwise. Perhaps she'll get bored of reading Roald Dahl in the car and read these.
 
We watched another 'Tudor Farm' episode and **finally** Uncle Boris came back! He'd gone out three hours earlier to check if he needed out help collecting SIDS bags and we'd been waiting for him to come back for us. Turns out he didn't because he thought we were too busy, but we were only doing busy things while we waited! Anyhow, since he's back, Zia roped him into a game of Cluedo. Then, while I was grocery shopping, a game of the Recycling Game. Then when I got back, both of us into a game of Cashflow 101! She turned down a trip to the swimming pool for all this. Weird kid!
 
When Cashflow, which is a very long game, was finally over, Zia helped Uncle Boris make dinner and we watched Mahabarat #56.

 

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Regarding seasonal eating- as we try hard to eat just form the garden ., I can tell you we have been harvesting tomatoes since mid-December. We also have corn, beans, snow peas, carrots, leaks (are year round) onions, capsicum, Lettice, cucumbers and beetroot. Berries have just finished and apples are just starting.

 

 We don't grow brassica during the summer because of caterpillars, but it does grow atm.  

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