We started the morning with devotions. Two weeks ago we talked about thankfulness. Last week we discussed contentedness. This week we're discussing generosity, which flows nicely from the previous two weeks.
After devotions, I got Michael set up with his independent work-- working a few math problems, reading some of Boy by Raold Dahl, Daily Geography, Handwriting, Calculadder, practicing spelling words, and working on this "Map in a Month" thing we're doing. It looks like a lot, but really, each thing there probably takes less than 5 minutes.
Nicholas meanwhile was playing with some farm animal manipulatives, and then moved on to the gnomes.
Katie Grace and I had her main lesson. We're doing a "time and money" block with a little accountant gnome we made. I'll share that later this week. Today, we practiced counting by ones (pennies), fives (nickels), and tens (dimes). Then the accountant gnome paid the other gnomes, and we had to decide if he was paying them the correct amount. We played a game with dice. We made a chart in her main lesson book:
PENNIES NICKELS DIMES TOTAL
She rolled the die, and put the correct amount of coins in each column, and then she added up the total. She's doing really well!
After Katie Grace's main lesson, we all went to the kitchen. I told the story of St. Martin while we made Martinmas horseshoe cookies. Yum!
Katie Grace went outside to practice her spelling words--she chose to bounce a ball while spelling her words. And Nicholas was cracking nuts. He's a very serious nutcracker.
It's actually pretty funny. Nicholas and Katie Grace both like to crack nuts, but not eat them. Michael likes to eat them, but not crack them. Everyone wins!
Meanwhile, Michael had his main lesson on long division. I will say it was interrupted by a very fussy baby, so there were little breaks and gaps where Michael went off and read while I nursed the baby. But that's life in a family, and one of the good parts of homeschooling, in my opinion. We are all learning together how to wait, how to be patient, how to bear one another's burdens in love.
We reviewed long division, both with and without remainders. Up until now, we had only done problems like 4 into 35, 8 into 66. Today we moved on to 2 in 45, etc. Divide, multiply, subtract, bring down... it's amazing how quickly it comes back. We worked some problems on the board and then on the dry erase. In his math journal--he doesn't like "main lesson books" so much anymore; big boys of nine apparently have journals-- he explained the concept of a remainder, and write a few real-life examples of when you would have a remainder. This was a jumping-off point for a writing idea, and he wrote a story about how the inventor of football used math to work out the logistics of planning the first game.
Throughout this, Katie Grace came in and did her handwriting and geography.
When Michael was done, we had a little art mini-lesson and drew fall trees. Art Projects for Kids is a great blog for these little projects!
Michael was done for the morning, and so was Katie Grace, and now it was time for Nicholas (and Daniel!). First we had circle time. We're doing the Gnome Circle from Autumn Seasons of Joy. It's so sweet to see Daniel starting to participate. He especially loves blowing out the candle! We said our nursery rhyme together (see sidebar) and acted it out.
At the table, Nicholas did a page in his math book. Not Waldorf or even Waldorf-inspired, I know, but he wants to be like his big brother and sister! Then we warmed some beeswax while we read a story--The Apple Cake. We modeled beeswax gnomes for the nature table, and then played Dwarves and Dice, and then it was noon.
My mornings are crazy packed. Sometimes I feel like a ball in a pinball machine, bouncing from kid to kid. It seems to be working though.
Lunch, and then I had some Mothering stuff to take care of. Then we read a chapter of The Indian in the Cupboard, and followed this up with Latin. I drew a picture, and they told me the noun and adjective that described it. We also sang "Mica, Mica"-- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
We read the beginning of the next chapter of Story of the World, and I decided the world wouldn't end if we skipped science for the day. Daddy came home and Katie Grace and Nicholas had screen time (Webkinz for Kate, Little Bill for Nick) and I took Michael to orchestra.
In the afternoon we made cookies for the church ladies to pack up and send to college students, tieing in nicely with Martinmas and our study of generosity. We also changed the nature table and made a lantern.
All in all, a lovely day. I hope yours was lovely as well!
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