week in review

Hello there!
So far this week, we have done alot of schoolwork-at-the-table. We are getting over various infections and illnesses and are staying home, which is fantastic and difficult. Its hard to go out, but then it is so fun to be out, you know?
But this week has been very classic, breakfast, school, lunch, freetime, crafts, clean up, dinner, tv/videogames, baths, stories,nitey nite.

This week Greta has been studying about George Washington and Charles Darwin, who they were and what they did, etc. She has been VERY into dinosaurs again, so she has been working on a 2007 dinosaur calendar. She has started to do "Logic Puzzles", which we did with a dinosaur theme. She has started to do verbal analogies, such as Glove:Hand ---Hat:Head. She is working on a French vocabulary book which she has to cut and color herself and then put together. She is continuing in daily drill of borrowing and carrying without tears, and today we started Roman Numerals. It goes without saying that she continues to draw and sketch constantly, and her characatures are looking better than the actual thing...at risk of sounding idiotic, she really might have a career or at least a life long love, of drawing, for real.

This week Mickey has been studying about George Washington, and has been working on a 2007 Ocean Animals calendar. He also started easier logic puzzles, which he adored. He also started doing verbal analogies, and did better than i thought, only got a couple "wrong" due to not knowing the words Monsoon and Equivalent. The Roman Numerals was his idea, and he loved learning them as well. We went up to 50, "L" and are going to do lots more, perhaps even a segway into a ROME Unit which I would adore! I wanted to "Do" Greece before Rome, but whatever. He has been continuing in daily drill of plus and minus, and can carry but not borrow at all, and shows great interest in mulitiplication and we do more of that than anything else right now. He is making his own little French book of numbers, and enjoys coloring now, something he did not like at all until this past year. He is learning the parts of a sentance, and starting to draw characatures as well.

They both are very into Tamagotchi, and the Neopets website. They both draw imaginary Pokemon-type creatures and make up fantastic "stats" for them. They make pretend money, tickets, and do shows for Casey and Charlie most of the time.

COOKING is one of our themes for Winter 2007, and we have been watching many episodes of Good Eats and Nigella Lawson. We havent done as much cooking as I want to yet but we plan on it soon.

Casey, the dear little squirrel, mostly wants to be wild and do things that would work out better at a park or gymnasium. He does enjoy gluing and painting but has been fighting with Charlie so much that he seems to be forever in some type of punishment/exhile. Wish I could say something more positive but this is the true blog. He has "reverted" to running around doing idiotic destructive things like spilling and dumping and climbing and I am most dissapointed. Hope this changes ASAP, cause frankly it sucks.

His happy times are when Mickey and/or Greta play wild games with him, such as rolling, tumbling, hiding, jumping, and screaming. He likes very gentle cuddling times with me, but does not like relating to me as "one of the students" yet, at all. He will sit for stories at bedtime, because they are better than sleeping, but when we try to read during the day, he is likely to chatter....

Charlie has been hitting everyone in the face, which is naughty, but otherwise continues to like Teletubbies, Boobah, and coloring, walking around on his knees, and playing with his toys. He takes one big nap now, and goes to bed around 730 or 8 pm, with 1 or 2 nightwakings. He also throws his food and cups and that has been bad. Especially with the kids laughing uproariously, making Charlie clap and beam with pride. (I told the clappers they can clean the Ramen off the windows!)

Due to some discussion about the correct pronunciation of "Newfoundland" during lunch today, we are going to learn about time zones this aftrnoon! See how that works?