Day #9/175 Days

Circle Time - "Popcorn" Prayer. Although we did talk about not asking God for something all the time. They each have to say two sentences & we take turns. I told them all tomorrow only one can be an "asking" thing - the other sentence must be a praise. We'll continue to work on this. We sang the "Star Spangled Banner" & said The Pledge of Allegiance. Conductor had his turn at reciting the poem we were working on. Since he was also able to do this we started a new poem today. I read Proverbs 9 & we discussed (this needs work). The boys did better at this. I did warn them I would be asking them to tell me one thing they learned from listening. We sang "Amazing Grace" again & this time Miss H joined us. It was very cute. I read another chapter in Farmer Boy. We continued with My 24 Family Ways. This is going to be helpful in not only working on character issues but also on discussions. We also continued working on Roots & Fruits (a Crew curriculum). I also worked on calendar skills with Happy. We sang the "Days of the Week" song & I found him singing it later in the day.

Bible - The boys were sent to their rooms for 15 minutes of private devotions. They had to read Romans 2 today. I continued reading to to Happy & Miss H from the book that I still can't find at the moment. ::sigh:: We then moved on to our Grapevine studies. I continued to do the drawings in Paint. I stopped reading to Happy & Miss H a bit early so I could already have them drawn & didn't have to spend the time doing that while the boys waited.

Math - Each of the boys did two pages in their MUS workbooks. Happy had the quote of the day. He was sprawled on the couch working on his book all by himself since he informed he did not need my help. That's when he said this: "I'm actually really good at this." This is why I love this child so much. Oh & one of his favorite words is "actually" which he uses all the time. I did let Lego-Man & Conductor each have a turn on Quarter Mile Math today as well. It wasn't as long as I had hoped but they each got to do a few races.

Spelling - Based on the boys diagnostic tests, I did pre-tests on their lists today. They both pretty much aced them so we'll try again tomorrow with the next set. Conductor did List A (I'm using The W.I.S.E. Guide) & Lego-Man did List G.

Writing - I presented Lego-Man & Conductor today with composition books. I told them that it is their writing journal. I'm expecting them to each write three sentences about a single topic every single day. I'll continue adding sentences as the year progresses. I am using Understanding Writing for that subject & they ended the last level (Level 1) by being able to write three sentences so we'll pick it up there. I want to focus on language arts this year & I think this will help.

PE - Conductor had an hour soccer practice again. Lego-Man spends much of his day outside walking and thinking. Happy & Conductor spent time this afternoon outside playing with their cousin who spent the afternoon here.

What Miss H did today:

• coloring (of course!)
• books
• blocks
• "sang" Amazing Grace
• puzzles
• small chalk board & chalk (loved this but the old chalkboard couldn't withstand the 2 year old so I'll be picking up a new one just for her)
• milk caps & large coffee can - she would dump them all out (I have about 30 milk caps) & then use the lid to put them all back in
• lacing cards
• worked on sitting on a blanket for "school time"

Obviously we are not hitting all the subjects yet. I'm thinking on a new schedule system. Due to all the reviews needed for my commitment to the TOS Homeschool Crew, my plan as of Monday will be to do a week of my planned schedule. Then the following week we will do a "Crew Schedule" which will include Circle Time, Bible, Math & Writing followed by whatever curriculum we need to try out for the Crew. We'll see how this does at reducing my stress at trying to get it all done.

And I just realized we did our 9th day of homeschool on 9-9-09. Sweet.