Day 34, 35, 36

Wow!

How can so many days have gone by?  What have we been doing?  A lot of getting work done, actually.  We managed English and Math days 34 and 35, despite heavy running on day 35.  We had dance, went to the Saugerties lighthouse, went to Aikido since we won't be going Friday, and went shopping in the evening for Emily's dress for her Uncle Ben's wedding.  Long day.

The lighthouse was pretty neat, though.  The walk was very pleasant and wound around so we were walking along the edge of the Hudson, then through the (very) tidal marsh and finally to a walkway to the lighthouse itself.  One walks up to it, then around it, and when you get to the other side, there is an open area with picnic tables and you feel like you are on a boat.  One of our number unfortunately took that too far, and ended up falling in.  If it had been a hot day, and the girl could swim, it would have been fine, however neither of these were the case and the poor thing called it a day.  The others went to the edge to sit, and I told them that if they fell in, they should swim to the stairs, because I wasn't hauling them out if there were stairs they could climb out on.  :)  Next time we go there, we'll check the tides a bit more carefully, as we did get a tad wet on our way out to the lighthouse.

Today we learned about Marco Polo, who I found very boring when I was in school, but now he seems like such an interesting person!  I'm going to try to find The Travels of Marco Polo for my kindle so I can read some of it to the kids.  Not that they find it very interesting...On the other hand, I found a site with instructions for dioramas that was really pretty cool, so we may try that.  I sometimes wish it was just me learning these things as I seem to be the one interested.  Oh well.

At least music went well tonight.  Especially for Luke.  He sounded a bit harsh at first, but after a little while, he was able to match the sounds of his teacher.  I'm impressed!  I think this was the last evening session, which may be good as we are approaching winter, the I-don't-want-to-be-out-in-the-dark season.  Ugh.  I was glad to hear the kids become enthused about playing their instruments.  The one site I keep going back to is 8notes where I found finger charts for the clarinet, several free sheet music pieces for each instrument in our house, and midi files so you can hear how the piece should sound.  I have been using this site for a while, and I'm still finding it useful.

Now, I'm truly pooped.  Tomorrow we're going to Family Mole Night at SUNY New Paltz, so that will be fun!

Day 33

Busy day today.  MUSET led to Eilah and I discovering that our kids play the same instruments, and so do we.  If we get together, we have two clarinets, two trumpets and two violins!  Kind of funny.  I think the kids played some, but it's hard to tell. 
After MUSET, we were off and running to Aikido, which it seems they have fallen into strong like with.  It's good to go to something they WANT to do for a change. 
After that, the day went sort of hooey on us, and we shopped for halloween costumes.  We went to four stores!
 After that, home, math, English. 
One other thing we did was use the Reading Logs Spelling.  I think it's a valuable tool, and the kids seemed to get the hang of it.  It doesn't have the zip and game-iness of Spelling Connections, but the fact that you can put your own word list in makes it quite useful.
And now this post is starting to seem like my day.  Disjointed, a bit crazy,...wait.  Maybe it's a bit like me.  :)

Day 32

Today isn't day 32.  Day 32 was Thursday, but somehow I didn't get to it, and here we are and it's Sunday.  Time does have a way of flying!  Thursday we had our US History class at the library.  We did manage to look at our history book for once!  Having only gotten it a few days ago, I'm pretty excited about it.  I must say, though, that the kids seem less than enthusiastic.  Ah well. 

I did find a neat web site where you can make up word lists for spelling and vocabulary called Reading Logs.  It can also be used for reading logs (hence the name), but we don't do that in our house.  Basically, for the vocabulary lists, you type in the words, then you can print them out and glue them onto index cards.  The other thing you can do is put in words for spelling.  Once you've input your words, the student can then practice by listening to the word and spelling it.  They can also click to see the definition of the word.  Registration is free, so that's helpful too!  So, I've input the words for the History text, and we'll see what happens. 

We also went to the library program in the afternoon, and they took a chemistry quiz in the evening.  Busy busy!  They both did well, though, and I know they enjoy chemistry with Dad.  Much more fun than math with Mom!  :) 

Day 31

Went to the Fireman's Museum in Hudson today.  I didn't have high hopes for the kids being interested, but what with October being Fire Safety Awareness Month, I felt we should do something related.  It turns out that the kids had a great time.  There were several activities that they really enjoyed including the bucket brigade, in which they had to get a certain number of balls, or 'water', into the burning house (weight controlled?).  They tried it just running on their own and then in a line passing the buckets to see what the difference would be time-wise.

There was information on the Fire horses, magnetic timelines of firemen and fire engines, there was a play area that had a display that lit up hazards in the home. 
They also had a few sections that surprised us as there were musical instruments in one section, and a siren, bell, and other noisemakers in another.  Too late, we saw the sign that said not to do them all together, but it was fun anyway.





Luke driving the firetruck





One of the highlights for the kids was dressing up in the firefighter's gear and getting into the trucks.  They have a huge warehouse full of trucks that the kids can get in!  They really enjoyed it.

Day 30

What a beautiful Fall day in the Hudson Valley!  It turned out to be the first day that we managed to play tennis since we decided it would be fun way back in June.  Summer is just too busy and/or hot, so this was perfect.  The trees are all changing, the air is crisp and we had the court to ourselves for 45 minutes!

It worked out well as we had 5 people and 4 rackets.  I know, it sounds less than ideal, but actually, it was just right.  When someone (or, actually, 'someones' at different times) needed a break, I could step in and play, which was just right for me as I can't do too much at once or I'll be feeling it for a month or two. 

Luke got the hang of serving, though back-and-forth volleys were sorely lacking for all of us.  That's ok.  We ran around the court some, we hit the ball some, and we shared some time with a friend.  Between that and getting some school work done, life is good. 

Not only that, but I took some time out to play a game with the kids today.  Everything in me was saying we should be doing 'real school', but it was really nice to take the time to play with them.  I don't do it so much anymore, and I know that the time will come when they won't want to play.  This thought makes me sad enough that it alleviates any guilt I feel about 'losing' the time.  Maybe I should view it as I 'made' the time, because really, that's what I did.

Day 29

Luke has had a really dramatic improvement in his handwriting.  Due to my fabulous teaching, you ask?  No, not so much.  I've heard that for boys, handwriting comes later, and there's no good pushing it.  Not that I haven't tried on occasion, but it never worked out very well.  As you can see by the images, there is definite improvement.  Would you believe there is only one MONTH between these pages?  To those who say Don't push them to write, I say, right on!  On the other hand, would he be writing so well were I not pushing him to write every day?  So let's say, don't push hard, don't push often, but push some. 

Day 28

Another resource I've decided to use:  Assignment: the World.  It's available (at least here in the Hudson Valley) through WMHT.  ATW, as it's known, is a fifteen minute news show for kids.  It is well done, and holds their interest fairly well, if only because it gives a quiz question at the end of each segment.

Each segment was short enough to hold their attention, and was not dumbed down particularly.  The ones we saw were on Haiti's recovery from the earthquake 8 months ago and why it was so slow, and the protests in Russia for the Day of Wrath that didn't end well.  They flashed definitions of certain words (i.e. activism and others).  Those were the 2 main segments, and then there was a kid segment.  The kid-hosted segment in the episode we watched was about soda, how much sugar is in it, and alternative drinks. 

They then discussed last week's "clues".  Each week, they give three clues about stories they are going to follow for the week.  The first clue gives you a lat/long to find the location of the first story.  The second clue gives you a word scramble to unscramble for the second story, and the third is a fill-in-the-blanks for the third story.  So, they give the answers for last week's location, scramble, and fill-in and give each story as they do.  They wrap up the episode by giving the three clues for next week.  They suggest that kids follow the news during the week to see if they can find news stories about the clues. 

The whole thing is only 15 minutes, but if 1010WINS can do it in 10 minutes, ATW can in 15.
I give this program a high rating!