Well, here we are again, getting ready to start the first day of school. I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be for this. I've got the big whiteboard, the US and World maps on the walls (along with a couple of other educational posters), and a schedule that should help keep us all on track. I even managed to get this week's lesson plan down for both boys - although, Devon's is missing a couple of important subjects. I just haven't been able to find anything on them/figure out how to start. A lot of things are going to have to wait until I get my financial aid from school....
In the meantime, I'm already starting to get some resistance from Devon. When he saw on the schedule that we were going to do bible study at the end of the every day, he started to lock up. He tells me he hates the religion. I tell him it really doesn't matter whether he likes it or not because we're going to study it just like we're going to study Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and all of the other major religions of the world. He was decidedly not happy about it. We're reading the bible this year along with the Dhammapada. I'm excited because while I'm not a religious person by any means, I've always wanted to read the bible....to really see more of what's in it besides just the stuff that everyone talks about in casual conversation.
On another subject, we've had a household vote on the "official" school name, mascot, and colors. And the winners are:
(drum roll please!)
School Name: Starfleet Academy for Earthlings
School Mascot: Spock
School Colors: Rainbow
I get to be the Starfleet Commander. Best. Job. Ever.
I put this on the white board for the boys to see tomorrow when I'm at work. :-)
Random thought before going to bed: We watched the new Star Trek movie today to get ready for school tomorrow. You should be jealous.
Oy, today was definitely a learning day for me! I did the lesson plan. I filled him in. I even spaced it out over the entire day. I had enticements and flat out bribes. I even had the pleading puppy eyes down pat. I still barely survived.
He had 7 math problems, a spelling list, and a writing prompt. Easy peasy don't you think? No...he broke down into tears. There were some math problems he'd never seen before, words he didn't even know the meaning of (and weren't in my dictionary...I need a better one) so how could I expect him to put them into a sentence....and the biggest thing that he just couldn't understand was that he hadn't even had a summer vacation and how could I be such a horrible mother to not even let him have a summer vacation!?!?!?
I had to run an errand in the afternoon. I had given him his list of spelling words to write into sentences and the (obviously lacking) dictionary to look words up while I was gone. After going through everything above I finally gave in. I didn't have time to sit and console my child about how everything would be fine for two reasons: 1. I was going to miss my bus and 2. He was absolutely right. I was a horrid mother who didn't even let her child have a summer vacation. So I told him he didn't have to do anything and that we could discuss it later.
We came to a compromise. First I asked him how much time of summer vacation he needed and after some bargining, we agreed on 1 full month. Then I told him that I would agree to a month of having fun on 2 conditions. First, we had to continue doing the things from the calendar. I mean really, tomorrow's holiday is to "Yell 'Fudge!' at cobras in North America"....who wouldn't want to do that - plus I could sneak some learning in about snakes and stuff. Second, he still had to do his writing prompts every day. He agreed very quickly and so it seems that our journey has started.
Now, as to what we learned today about feet...we stumbled onto an article about "Why do my feet stink" and here's a particularly interesting snippet (talking about sweat):
"The smell is actually caused by bacteria on our skin that eats the sweat and excretes waste that has a strong odor. "
Here are some photos we found along the way.
And one more thing for you to enjoy. Here's a video of a man with backwards feet, dancing. He's pretty inspirational.
Tomorrow is our first "official" day of home learning! We're not going to do much...just really ease into it all. There's a spelling list and a writing prompt and do you remember the calendar I created with holidays for every day?
This week's spelling words:
media
medium
immediate
vibrant
chisel
chiseled
pulse
pulsate
pulsation
ecstasy
temporary
critical
begrudge
irritable
magnificent
contempt
Tomorrow's writing prompt is: Electricity is a recent discovery. Think of 12 things to do when there's no power.
Tomorrow's holidays are:
National Heimlich Maneuver Day
National Go Barefoot Day
Say Something Nice Day
Obviously we're going barefoot all (or most of the) day. On the learning side of things, we're going to learn about the man who created the Heimlich Maneuver and why he did it and for the barefoot day I thought it would be nice to see what different cultures didn't wear shoes...Aidan decided he wanted to learn about feet. So we're going to learn about the wonders of feet!
Eventually I think I'll post our calendar so you can see all of our holidays and maybe come up with ideas we can use to learn about them!
