Homeschool Day 1/11

 Kindergartener

• Bible reading from The Beginner's Bible - Noah's ark, Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah
• Math workbook page - adding 1 and 2 to a number - we used the Mathusee blocks to see what the numbers "looked" like.  He loved this lesson.
• Reading - he read about 10-15 CVC words (consonant - vowel - consonant).  We worked on reading the words "the" and "a".  He is reading really well for a 5 year-old.

Five in a Row

He started Owl Moon from Five in a Row volume 2.  We read the book, then learned a little about owls and listened to owl calls on YouTube.  We ended up watching funny videos on baby owls, which he thought was hilarious.  School ended with an owl pellet dissection.  

Owl Pellet Dissection

We soaked the owl pellets in water to soften the hair (ew).  We then used tweezers to pull apart the hair and bones.  I explained what the bones were and we looked at several things under our 3D microscope.  We looked at the rodent teeth, a femur and a skull under the 3D microscope.

13 Year-old

• Also participated in the owl pellet dissection - this goes with her anatomy & physiology course.  She was supposed to look at chicken bones, but rodent bones are fine, too.
• Math - she did the Honors Page in her algebra book, which was Pascal's triangle and how to manipulate graphs.
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• She did free reading from her book crate.  I read aloud.
• History - we read Mystery of History 4 - chapter on Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo.
• German - we worked on the textbook together

15 Year-old

• Biology - she started the pond life lab in Apologia Biology.  Collected four test tubes with pond water and four different nutrient solutions.
• Algebra 2 - I helped her with more problems on factoring polynomials (yuck)
• Latin - she worked on this
• Art Appreciation - she continued 1800's art in Gardner's Art through the Ages
• Unit Study - continued Huckleberry Finn and the Lincoln biography

College Kids

• Sophomore's books are here.  School starts next week.
• Rising Freshman talked to the Success Coach at the college and is making appointments for his TSI tests

Me

I didn't get to read the Bible myself today.  I was too busy teaching, cleaning, cooking, calling my mom (who had a stroke), etc.  I'll try tomorrow.

I'm rethinking what's working and what isn't with the 15 year-old.  I'm seriously thinking of stopping Music Appreciation, because she is non-stop practicing piano, watching musicals and working with music during ballet.  Half her day is already music.  I'm thinking of stopping American Government, because she isn't retaining anything from the book.  I'm thinking of buying Notgrass American Government and using that as a full course next year, instead.  Because she is enjoying Gardner's Art through the Ages and Mapping the World with Art so much...I'm thinking of pulling those together as two full courses - one Art History and a quarter credit to a half credit Cartography.