Homeschool Day 1/19

 Kindergartener

• Handwriting without Tears - drew the letter B on the mini chalkboard (the chalkboard that Handwriting without Tears sells is actually making a big difference) and did the workbook page
• He skipped math, because he really didn't feel like doing school, so I let him skip it
• Instead of reading, he put together an alphabet puzzle.  He also took foam ABCs and cuisinaire rods and played with them for about half an hour.  He built towers from the rods and put some of the ABCs in "jail" made from the rods.  

Five in a Row - Mirette on the High Wire

We watched a video of an aerialist tightrope walking over a volcano and over Niagara Falls.  We also watched a video on Niagara Falls.  He did the "metal" section in the teacher's guide and we started an experiment where we placed 3 pennies in 3 different solutions: water, lemon juice and vinegar.  We'll pull the pennies out tomorrow and see if the solutions had any effect.  I got out a set of magnets and we learned about the north and south poles on a magnet.  He played around with the magnets - getting them to repel and attract each other, based on the poles.

13 Year-old

• Algebra Honors page - Ok, I assigned this, because it's based on directions and Cartesian coordinates.  It looked like a great page to do, but she had a really hard time with it.  I sat down with her and started to work the problems and I couldn't figure it out.  At that point, we put it away.  I don't feel like the problems were worded well.
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child - picture study
• Copywork - she is using fountain pens for her writing.  They are gorgeous.  She has a beginner's set and they're very easy to use and come in different colors.  Very nice for cursive.
• She did her free reading from her book crate, I read aloud, and she listened to some classical music
• Apologia Anatomy & Physiology - we looked at connective tissue and muscle tissue under the microscope

15 Year-old

• Algebra 2 - Honors Page - permutations.  She figured this out all by herself.
• Wordsmith Craftsman....she was supposed to write a business letter.  Well, she wrote a business letter to the Wordsmith company explaining how their writing program was too easy and redundant.  Needless to say, I'll be online later tonight looking for another writing program.  This is the 3rd or 4th time she's complained about Wordsmith being too easy.
• Huckleberry Finn
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Apologia Biology reading
• German together
• Mapping the World with Art - she finished drawing North America.  I have to say, she really enjoys doing these lessons.

College Kids

• Sophomore started school today.  She currently has a 4.0 GPA, we talked about maintaining her GPA this semester and what that would mean for her if she keeps this up.  I'm trying to talk her into medical school (she wants to go into medicine, anyway).
• Rising Freshman is working on TSI practice tests.  His math scores are coming out higher than his English and Writing scores - which really isn't accurate - his English abilities are hands-down better than his math abilities.  We're trying to figure out why he's missing questions on the reading section.  I think he's reading TOO much into the questions.  They're usually looking for the most simple answer and he isn't a simple answer kinda guy.

Me

All I did was work today.  No Bible reading.