Facebook Archives: 2019

 November 11, 2019

Figment's health continues to decline. This morning, he was completely unable to breathe from his nose and was mouth breathing only (not a good sign for a cat). We're still giving him antihistamine pills to try and keep any nasal swelling down, and when he develops too much mucus, we're using an infant aspirator to try and make it so he can breathe. At this point, there's not much we can do except make him comfortable. Right now he's curled up in an Ikea bin where he's been all day, just resting.

To start the transition process, we've been looking to adopt another four-feet into the family. Our original thought was a dog, because Lily's top concern is having an animal that's a bit more playful than a senior kitty and a middle-aged and lazy kitty. So far we haven't had much luck finding a dog that is under 30 pounds (so it can be picked up and carried when needed into the bathtub or whatever) that is good with cats, and safe around children. In fact, it seems that it's very unusual to find a rescue organization that has smaller dogs that are okay with kids. We aren't really interested in going with a breeder because we don't want to contribute to puppy mill culture (which is likely given that we're searching for a smaller dog). The search still continues, but we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, we're considering getting a kitten (not too young, but in the will play like a crazed kitty until it falls asleep totally exhausted). That would still mean getting a dog would be an option if the right one appears, but also means that we wouldn't be a single-pet house when Figment passes on. We're also hoping that Pixie might enjoy being "big cat" for a change. So.... that's where things are at. Looking at some changes this winter to the family.

November 7, 2019

Long life update:

Been petitioning my day job to either let me go part-time with them or resign and possibly sign up at a freelancer. Haven't had much movement on that, but I have so much personal leave left, I'm basically working part-time for the rest of the calendar year. Meanwhile, building some other marketable skills for freelancing work in case I need to leave the job completely.

I figure I'll let Erwin update his life stuff as desired, but mostly because there's not a lot to report, aside from him just about being done with his certification class through UCF.

Almost done with the Girl Scout Fall Product coordinator stuff -- now it's just about time to get ready for cookies.

Homeschool has been going great--got everything planned out through December, and starting on planning for January-May as soon as fall product sales are done. Much of what she's doing will be similar to what she's done this fall.

At Lighthouse, she'll be taking Math Olympics, Magical Artifacts, Color Theory in Art, and Passport to Adventure 2. At home, she'll be doing:

* Saxon for math

* Khan Academy for ELA (and then shift into writing and editing skills.

*Reading a series of books (The Phantom Tollbooth, The One and Only Ivan, Hidden Figures, a poetry unit on the works of Shel Silverstein, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Girl Who Drew Butterflies)

* Finish up the Florida state curriculum on FL history and geography, and then move into money management

*Move from earth science into space science and meteorology

*Work on bike riding for PE

*Finish up her unit on health and move to online health and safety (as in how to be healthy and safe when online)

*Continue with spelling, typing, Spanish through Duolingo, and reading comprehension and writing practice

*Keep active with Bricks 4 Kidz, Girl Scouts, and VR, and start up swim lessons when it gets warm again

Already started planning 2020-2021 stuff. Doing Saxon for math again, moving to Lumos for ELA (plus sentence diagraming), Reading (Ben and Me, Primates: The Fearless Science of Goodall, Fossey and Galdikas, I am Malala, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Riding Freedom, The US Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation, Warriors: Into the Wild, The Tapper Twins Go to War With Each Other, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963, The City of Ember, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Wrinkle in Time, The Secret Garden), Science (trying out a new-to-us curriculum, the Building Blocks of Science to cover the five domains of science each year in increasing complexity), Khan Academy for American History, and spelling and vocabulary. Instead of health and typing, she'll be doing Home Ec next year.

Figment's health is steady at this point -- we're pretty sure he has a tumor of some kind in his nasal passages and so he sneezes a lot. Although he sounds horrible from it, he seems to be feeling okay most days. At 11 years old, it's not a surprise that he's running into some challenges. To make his life more interesting, Lily has mentioned she wants a dog for Christmas. We likely won't do it *for* Christmas, but we may add that new member to the family in early 2020.

No major house projects at this point. May find someone to seal the pavers for the driveway, and at some point we'd like to resurface the area around the pool. No rush on any of that, though.

And so, that's life down here -- we're now in the beautiful weather time of year, 70s and sunshine.

How's life going where you are?

October 25, 2019: Earned my Social Marketing Certification

October 11, 2019

Yesterday, Lily realized that if she really powered through her lessons, she could have a four-day weekend...and so she did. Ended up that she did lessons from 8:30 AM until 5:15 PM (with about an hour break for swimming and an hour break for lunch), but she said it was worth it. I was concerned that by going through so much so quickly that she might not retain it all, but she spent most of dinner talking all about the history of Deborah Sampson (who disguised herself as a man to serve in the Revolutionary War) and pointing out places in books where em dashes were used instead of parenthesis as a style choice of the author to improve the flow of the writing. I guess it all stuck.

September 23, 2019

This week will wrap up our first month of homeschool. Here's what we've covered in the month.

Reading -- mostly free read this month, as she did The Wizard of OZ over the summer.

Math -- Saxon Math lessons grade 4, lessons 1-13 and investigation 1 (with video lessons by Nicole the Math Lady). Mostly a recap of 3rd grade math, but also starting to work with negative numbers and math terminology that gets skimmed over in classrooms

Language Arts -- parts of speech. Nouns, verbs, and pronouns were a review. Adverbs and adjectives were things she had learned, but not really mastered. This week we're doing conjunctions, articles, interjections, and prepositions. For prepositions today, she asked if she could do Tuesday's work because she was totally fascinated by them. They had taught prepositions in school at one point, but just to memorize lists of them (not what they are or what they are used for, or how to identify ones that aren't on the list).

Social Studies -- spent the past month studying the tribes of Florida before and around the time of the arrival of the Spanish (the Calusa, Timucua, Tocobaga, Tequesta, and Apalachee, plus the artwork of Jacques LeMoyne as he recorded historical images of these tribes). She'll be putting together an informational booklet about these tribes as her final project this week.

Science -- introduction to science (scientific inquiry, how to design an experiment, how to draw charts and graphs, parts of a lab report, and SI units and measurements) plus some independent study on squid and octopus. This week is mostly experiment week for her.

Passport to Adventure (co-op) -- fun activities and ELA programs around the first Magic Treehouse book

Chorus (co-op) -- learning how to sing

Team Building (co-op) -- many exercises to learn how to work as a team and how to handle both success and failure

Art (co-op and after school) -- many art projects made to study different styles of art and artists

PE -- swimming lessons (continuing to work on her arm form for crawl, distance underwater, and side stroke)

Reading comprehension sheets, creative writing sheets, and personal journaling each week

Spelling -- 20 words/week assessed and then working on spelling of items missed (3-4 items/week)

Typing -- 10 minutes per day

Spanish -- 5 minutes of DuoLingo per day

Health -- how vitamins work, MyPlate nutrition

Technology -- VR coding class weekly (building a virtual reality escape room)

Girl Scouts -- Social Butterfly badge

Field trips:

1. Lake Meadows to learn how eggs are processed from the hen to the store

2. Legoland with two model builder classes

3. Disney University to see Amazon's program about how machine learning works to help "train" cars to drive on a road that they haven't seen before

Whew. What a month!

Facebook Archive: The Start of Fifth Grade Homeschool

 August 8: Everything's all set up for the first day of homeschool for the year. What does our homeschooling day look like?

Lily gets up and has breakfast whenever she wakes up (since getting enough sleep is so important at this age). After breakfast, she gets dressed and starts her day.

Last year, we used a whiteboard with a list of assignments, but this year we're using a digital planner. On a typical day, she has the following:

Reading--This year's books are Trickster (a graphic novel of Native American myths), The Tapper Twins Go to War (with each other), The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Secret Garden, Ben & Me, Riding Freedom, The Constitution (a graphic novel), Warriors, Caddie Woodlawn, Primates (a graphic novel), Mountain Meets Moon, Peter and the Starcatchers, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Midsummer Night's Dream (graphic novel, unabridged), A Wrinkle in Time, The Watsons go to Birmingham, I am Malala, City of Ember

Spanish -- A lesson or two in DuoLingo

Spelling and Typing -- A few minutes with skills-building games/apps

Science -- Big Book of Science (a multidisciplinary science course with a reading section, critical thinking, and experiments each week)

Social Studies (American History) -- Reading the Core Knowledge textbook material for a couple days a week, doing worksheets for 180 Days of Social Studies Grade 5 for reinforcement, and watching Crash Course (AP American History) for enrichment. When we get to the American Revolution, she'll be watching the full series of Liberty's Kids

Language Arts -- Worksheets/lessons with Spectrum ELA and Lumos (for enrichment). Later this fall, she'll be doing basic sentence diagramming, and the spring will be all about essay writing

Math -- Mammoth Math lessons/worksheets, plus weekly math games for fun

Vocabulary -- A Word Ladder sheet each day

She'll still be doing swim lessons, and does some work on the rowing machine. Although her co-op/social is on hiatus this fall due to COVID, she'll be doing fun online classes for things like art, video games, and just to hang out with kids.

If she decides to just plow through her work, she'll be done in around 3 hours (before lunch). Or, if she chooses, she can spread it out through the day. It's all up to her for time management.

It's a pretty relaxed learning environment, but it does give her some good academic rigor in learning. Every year is about fine-tuning the system. This year, the big change we're making is more videos and games and fewer pieces of written work. We're also doing a dedicated science and social studies curriculum instead of just winging it.

It all starts Monday...bring it on

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August 10: Started school at 8:30 AM, finished at 11 AM. Not a bad way to start 5th Grade life.

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August 12: Halfway through the first week of back to school. Wednesdays would normally be co-op day for in-person fun at Lighthouse, but that's cancelled for this fall due to COVID. Instead of trying to schedule anything else, it just becomes a day off for Lily, aside from her Spanish lesson and a math lesson. She may also finish reading her book of Native American trickster myths because she's enjoying it.

This year, we're using a digital planner, which allows her to check off her work as she goes along and means I don't have to keep rewriting things on the whiteboard every day. Here's what her schedule tomorrow looks like, and her Tuesday schedule all checked off. She's still managing to finish her day in less than 3 hours, which makes it pleasant for us all.

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August 21: Another homeschool week in the books.

Reading--The Tapper Twins Go to War (with Each Other). Technically not read this week, because someone was too excited to wait. ;)

Social Studies--Looking more in-depth on the Columbian Exchange, and why Christopher Columbus was such a mean ol' doof. Needless to say, no love in this house for ol' Chris! Her book for the week also included an optional section on the history of European movement into Canada, so she studied some Canadian history and geography that wasn't on the plan.

ELA--Lots of work on verbs (Helping, Linking, Perfect tense, and irregulars). I figure she just needs to know how to identify them, and that's that....it's a topic she'll likely never use again.

Math--Working with 3 or more digit multiplication and long division with two-digit divisors. Doing real well on that, but really want to reinforce that skill to the max, so we'll be doing some additional work on it for next week.

Science--Diving into the chemistry unit with a discussion of the Presocratics and their view of basic units of "stuff". The Crash Course videos we're using are such a great supplement. Yes, they're for AP classes, but they're right at the right speed for her. (And they're funny! We were watching them as a family, and totally cracking up about the idea of being a vegetarian without allowing beans to be part of your diet, because Pythagoras.... ah, history!)

Of course Spanish, typing, vocabulary, and swimming (PE) round it all out, too, plus social time online with Lighthouse.

It's amazing what you can accomplish in a few hours a day! Hope everyone else's week of school went awesome, too

Facebook Archives: Professional Achievements

 Had a couple 2020 professional achievements:

Working on stock photo development for the major stock firms -- April 25, 2020.

July 16 -- published an ebook: This has been my big project lately--I've written a "short" (50-page) ebook to help parents of Pre-K-5 students who don't feel comfortable sending their children back to a brick and mortar school yet, but don't like the virtual school option that will mean hours of lessons at a computer. I'm hoping this will help parents realize that they do have other options and can keep their kids progressing academically during this temporary "new normal".

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Crisis-Schooling-eBook-A-Resource-for-Parents-for-At-Home-School-During-COVID-5783268?fbclid=IwAR2WfmA1U-0srAsEBBwPsYrGqyaOfexvOJZ0rKZpBgMTWvJttrDL3Bi-iRM

Facebook Archive: What Makes an Essential Student (for in-person schooling)

 Written July 27, 2020

One other thought on the decision to send kids back to school or not: We can easily take out "my kids need socialization" from both sides of the equation--students at home and in school can have equal amounts of socialization opportunities, both in-person and online.

What we need to look at is keeping schools open for "essential students" only in the short-term, just like we used a model of essential businesses stay open but everyone else closed in the short-term and essential workers continued to work in person while non-essential workers who could still do their job did so from home.

Some (but not all) considerations of what makes an essential student:

1. A student with socioeconomic needs that relies on resources of a school for survival (food, medical care, etc.)

2. A student who is in a situation where remote learning is financially impossible (no access to computer/internet or no one at home for supervision due to parent work requirements outside the home)

3. Students with physical/mental disabilities who cannot participate effectively in distance learning

4. A student with mental health issues that require the support of the in-school psychological resources/counseling

5. Students deemed at risk by social services for the potential of abuse or neglect if left at home

6. Students who did not participate in virtual schooling in the spring even though they were enrolled in it through their public school

7. Students with an IEP/504 plan for whom in-person school is a necessity

8. Students who are academically behind by one year or more who will need more small-group interaction and remediation that is best provided in a personal setting

My advice is that everyone who is a non-essential student should opt for a short-term at-home educational experience to allow those students who must go back to school the ability to go back to school safely. Fewer students = greater ability to social distance in classrooms, lunch rooms, and other locations. I'd also recommend to donate your health and safety supplies that you normally would for a classroom to your child's local school (hand sanitizer, extra masks, cleaning wipes, soap, paper towels, etc.). They will need more resources than ever, and the funding just isn't there.

There should be zero judgment on who chooses what, because it is a personal choice and we have little to no data about the impacts of at-home schooling for non-homeschoolers (there's abundant data on homeschoolers themselves--they do just fine ;) ) and even less data available about transmission rates in reopened school buildings, although we have growing data about transmission rates in indoor facilities with HVAC systems.

For my family, whenever we go out in-person to anything, we take the next 7-14 days to self-isolate. Since that is not an option for families with students attending in-person school, I'd ask that for the safety of all, aside from school itself (and work, if in-person work is part of the reason why school is an essential), please self-quarantine whenever possible aside from school. (We all should be doing this anyhow, but since school adds one high-number vector, then reductions for interaction need to be made elsewhere.)

Hope that helps some parents, and gives a good plan for decision making for those who are trying to figure out what's the best choice for themselves and their community.

Facebook Archive -- Advice from an Educator for Fall 2020

 Advice from an educator (source unknown).

As you prepare to send your children back to school, there are a few new preparations that you need to talk to your students about now before they enter the classroom.

1. Things will not be normal. What your child experienced last spring before schools were shut down is not what they will be experiencing this fall. Don't tell your kids that things are going back to normal. They aren't.

2. Let your children know in advance what to expect, to the best of your ability. Explain that there won't be field trips this year, that they can't sit with their friends on the school bus or may not be able to ride the school bus at all. There will be temperature checks. They will have to wear masks, face shields, or both, and they will have to wear them all the time unless the teacher says it is okay to take it off temporarily.

3. Remind them that wearing PPE is not a game--they will be reprimanded for taking it off without permission. As parents, please have a plan in place if your child is suspended from school for improper use of PPE, and let your child know in advance what rewards you will give them for obeying the rules and what consequences at home there will be if they don't.

4. Be aware that schools have to limit socialization at this time, and ask your school what this means so you can relay that to your children. They may not be able to eat lunch in the cafeteria, talk with their friends face to face, or have recess involving playground equipment.

5. Tell your kids that they didn't do anything wrong to cause the changes this year and that their teachers still love them even though we can't give them the high-5s and hugs that they're used to. We aren't angry at them--we just want to keep them safe.

6. Have an age-appropriate conversation about death. It is likely that during the school year, some of their teachers, support staff, or fellow students may have to be quarantined at home with COVID. That person may end up in the hospital, and he or she may die. It is better to have the conversation about death in advance instead of when your child is told in school that their beloved teacher won't be coming back. But also explain that just because a teacher or staff or parent or classmate ends up with COVID doesn't mean that person will die--or that they will die.

7. Please buy your children "boring" school supplies this year--kids love to share and show off their backpacks, lunch boxes, pencils, you name it. We cannot allow children to do this for this school year, because we cannot have children touching other children's belongings. Please buy plain items that will not attract attention.

8. Donate extra supplies. On your back-to-school list every year, you'll see items like tissues, hand sanitizer, soap, and cleaning wipes. Please donate extra, because we will not have enough to do the enhanced cleaning required to keep students as safe as possible.

9. Be supportive financially for your school's PTA/PTO. Many of the fundraisers that schools do for basic necessities will not be able to happen due to new guidelines. Please donate generously.

10. Model patience. This is a new experience for us all, and frustration, tension, stress, anger, and anxiety will run high for teachers and students alike. Be sympathetic when your child comes home from their enclosed desk space where they've spent hours sitting still behind plastic sheeting, wearing a face mask that itches, and not able to go and play with their friends. Expect meltdowns when children get home--they don't have the skills to cope with what we're asking them to do, and so they will need to release that anger and anxiety at home. Be patient with them and give them all the love and hugs and high-5s that we can't do any longer.

We will get through this, but preparing the students will make everyone's job easier.

Facebook Archive: Homeschool advice from March 18, 2020

 My advice for parents who are starting to have to figure out homeschooling--decide whether you want to do a structured homeschool (i.e., give the students the same sort of structure that they'll have in a public school setting) or do a loose homeschool/unschool setting where you offer your kids a variety of things they can do without any sort of plan in place.

Either is fine. We go with the more structured type of homeschool, so that's what I can speak to best.

Keep in mind that it's March. Most of what your kids would be learning for this school year has already been taught. At least in FL, right now they were in test prep, but since there won't be any end of year tests, you don't have to worry about that.

I know a lot of you hate standards/Common Core. That's okay -- you don't have to like them or use them, BUT, they can provide an idea of what sort of things your kid should know so you don't feel like you're letting your kids down. For Florida kids, go to this site:

https://www.cpalms.org/Public/search/Standard

And look for the particular grade and subject that your kid is in. For instance, Grade 3, ELA, Key Ideas and Details, #2: Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths -- can your kid do this? (Ask them to retell the plot of a Disney movie!) Cool. You don't need to re-teach that.

Grade 3, Math, Geometry, #2: Partition shapes into parts with equal areas. Express the area of each part as a unit fraction of the whole. For example, partition a shape into 4 parts with equal area, and describe the area of each part as 1/4 of the area of the shape.-- Can your kid do that? You're good. If s/he hasn't learned it yet, you get to teach that.

If your kid already knows how to do all of the standards for their grade, and if your school system is not providing resources for "school at home", then my advice is to call it a wrap on instruction for the year and regroup in the fall. If there's anything your kid doesn't know yet, you get to teach them your way -- just teach them what you know.

For all students, if you do nothing more, encourage your kid to read EVERYTHING. For elementary, I'd also suggest adding in some arithmetic math drills that are age appropriate (addition and subtraction for younger elementary, multiplication and division for older elementary). That will get you through the end of the year and keep your kids' minds sharp.

Now's also the time to teach those life skills -- teach them how to cook, clean, sew a button, do laundry, make a budget, be resourceful, fix that leaky faucet that has been on the honey-do list for months, etc.

What you *shouldn't* do is throw every possible resource at them in rapid fire. Yes, there's a lot of GREAT resources out there to let you take a virtual field trip to NASA or watch opera at the MET or whatever. If you haphazardly throw too much at your kids, they're going to be over-stimulated and become panicky. Ask them "Hey, is there anything you'd like to learn about while you have the free time?" If they say yes, THEN find a resource to help with that. If they say no, that's okay.

Help them manage stress. If that means sticking to a firm schedule, then do that, but if it means staying up a bit late or sleeping in late in the morning, be flexible. Make sure they have time to decompress, even if that means they're playing video games a little more than you'd prefer in a normal school week.

You got this, parents! You can do it!!

2020 Homeschool Grade 4 and COVID Life Notes from Facebook

As part of my purge from Facebook, here's our Homeschool/COVID Notes from 2020:

January 22: Not too many other parents can say that they just dropped off their kid for the first day of Magical Artifacts class, but that's our life. (Other classes today include Passport to Adventure, Math Olympics, Color Theory, and Music and Movement.)

February 26: When we decided to start homeschooling, "global pandemic" wasn't on the list of reasons why we considered it.

Today, I'm off to do replenishment shopping for our "shelter in place" supplies. (Same sort of stuff for hurricane prep, but we're almost finished eating through last year's hurricane supplies.) Both my husband and I can work from home exclusively if we needed to, so thankfully we don't have to worry about that. We're not yet cancelling any upcoming vacations, but we do have travel insurance in place if we do need to cancel. What an interesting year it has turned out to be!
* Saxon Math, lessons 88 and 89 (Remainders in Stories about Equal Groups / Mixed Number and Improper Fractions)
* Biomes, chapters 11 and 12 with learning checks about the regions of the ocean
* A Kids' Guide to Money, chapter 3 (Ways to Save and Make Money)
* Spelling precheck
* Duolingo Spanish practice
* Journal Exercise for writing and typing practice
* A Smart Girl's Guide to the Digital World (Digital Drama and Taking on Trolls)
* Starting re-checks/assessment on grammar through Khan Academy
With the exception of teaching her the math lesson (which takes about 15 minutes tops to teach) and doing her spelling precheck with her (another 5 minutes), all of the rest of that is self-directed -- she does it 100% on her own, and just comes by if she runs into questions that she needs clarification on or if something doesn't make sense. So if you are nervous that there's no way you could teach your child at home because you can't have that kind of rapport with them, you can do it!
We've got one more order of food to be delivered (needed butter and was able to find ground chicken on Amazon Fresh), but we're well stocked for the next month. We still get boxes of fresh produce every other week from Misfits, and we can up that to weekly if needed. We ended up with two heads of cabbage last week, so last night was Chinese chicken salad on cabbage with sesame dressing. We have some pulled pork in the freezer, so that will go well with slaw tonight. The rest will be used in a stir fry with more chicken for tomorrow.
With the exception of me needing to drive to the vet clinic later this week to pick up syringes and insulin (which they can bring out to the car so we have no contact with people), nothing else planned for us as far as going out. Just life as usual here!
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March 17: After reading the Girl's Guide to the Digital World, kiddo had some concerns, especially about what would happen if she ran into content online that used bad words, and not sure how to identify bad words. So... we went to the expert in bad words to help explain it to her. Thank you George Carlin for giving the best and easiest lesson on bad language and why you don't have to be afraid of it, why some words are "bad" some of the time and others are "bad" all of the time, and what words shouldn't be used. She now feels confident that those words, while not appropriate to say, can't hurt her because they're just words. Naturally, the list has evolved over the years, but at least she now feels comfortable coming to us to discuss language she might hear in the real world to get an idea of appropriateness.
Unconventional parenting win?
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March 18: Today in homeschooling here --
* Saxon Math Lesson 90 (multiplying two two-digit numbers)
* * Saxon Test 17
Money Book Chapters 4-5 (this is the one we're using: https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Money-Book.../dp/1454919779)
* Video on Biomes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fb8143ndo8)
* Typing for Journal Exercise 28
* Reading Comprehension Lesson 25
* Catching on Khan Academy to fill in any missed grammar lessons (https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar)
* Writing spelling words 3x each
* Duolingo for Spanish practice
I picked up an extra small project for one of my primary clients, so I'll be putting in a few hours on that. Then I hope to get started on the 31 Days of Spring Cleaning exercises: https://www.stain-removal-101.com/spring-cleaning.html
And of course it's just a normal work day for Erwin.
Last night's dinner was pulled pork, Mac 'n' cheese and slaw. May have some of that for lunch today, too.
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March 19: Today in homeschooling, going to have to go back to my notes because Lily got up super early this morning and had cleared off half the items her whiteboard before I got moving. We're getting close to the end of the year, so she's wrapping up whole categories of work -- today was her last journal writing exercise.
She'll be finishing reading comprehension by the end of next week, along with grammar.
She finished up the unit on money and economics for social studies (and had already finished up Florida state history), and just has introduction to politics left.
She finished the unit on Biomes; earlier this year she had done a lot of her work in a book called Lonely Planet which is all about earth science and then did some space science books. Her final unit for the year is on weather, but we'll wait until next week or the week after to start that.
For reading, the books this year were The Wizard of Oz, No Talking, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The One and Only Ivan, The Phantom Tollbooth, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, along with reading science and social studies magazines. For the rest of the year, we're doing poetry with Shel Silverstein and Robert Louis Stevenson, a book called The Girl Who Drew Butterflies, and the young adult version of Hidden Figures.
For PE, in the fall we did swim lessons, and then we worked on bike riding, which she can now do!
So, mostly we're just down to math, with less than 30 lessons to go. I'm figuring she should be done with everything by mid-April, and then she'll start summer break.
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March 23: Just counted out what Lily has left for homeschool -- unless something changes, her summer break will start April 11.
Not counting what's on the board already for tomorrow, she's got:
Approx. 25 math lessons (and has been doing more than one/day)
5 Reading Comprehension sheets
3 Grammar level ups for Khan Academy
A book and worksheets on Weather
A book to read about hurricane hunters
A book to read about politics
Reading Hidden Figures
Reading The Girl Who Drew Butterflies
Reading and doing some fun exercises on poetry
That's it for 4th Grade!!
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January Shared with Your friNot too many other parents can say that they just dropped off their kid for the first day of Magical Artifacts class, but that’s our life. (Other classes today include Passport to Adventure, Math Olympics, Color Theory, and Music and Movement.)