First Week

Rose went to her very first audition for the Nutcracker over the weekend.  When Clothilde saw Rose getting dressed, she insisted on also being dressed up in Rose's old leotard and tights.

This past week was our first week back to homeschool.  I was feeling nervous about it, but it really took me by surprise.  We've had a difficult summer.  Lots of bickering and fighting with the children made everything feel so stressful.  I was sure our first week would be a struggle.

To my great surprise, both children were thrilled to be back to homeschooling.  I guess they really were bored over the summer.  We ripped through everything I had planned and Rose complained that I wasn't doing enough school with her!

We are working on Geography for fourth grade, so obviously a little introduction to Area and Perimeter is necessary.  We read Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter, which everyone loved,  and Sir Cumference and the Viking's Map.  We made first a map of the living room by measuring everything out, and then a map of our street.  Mirin even penciled in details like his friend across the street playing basketball. 

We got out Number Sense and Nonsense on Thursday.  I thought they would both enjoy this book when I first read it over the summer, but it turns out Rose is too young for it.  She was deeply bored, but Mirin liked the questions about odds and evens that we were working on.

For science this year we are working with Earth, Air, Water, Fire by Walter Kraul.  It is a wonderful practical handbook of all sorts of playful activities involving the forces of earth, air, water and fire.  On Friday we did a water surface tension game with waxed paper.  I dropped water drops on it and the children had straws.  I gave them suggestions like blowing all the drops into one big drop, and then seeing how many little drops can be created.  Then we had a water-drop race.