A Day in the Life...

Sadly, this will be a pictureless day in the life, not because there's anything wrong with my camera, but because I couldn't find it. DOH!

Our official school day got off to a late start, not because we slept in (OK, Daniel and Nicholas slept in until 9, but the rest of us were up by 7) but because Michael and Katie Grace were engaged in a game of Monopoly. They were busy "learning" math and, more importantly, social skills. While they did that, I puttered around the kitchen a bit and made our family Advent/Christmas/Epiphany calendar.

At 9:15, everyone was awake, dressed, fed, and changed, so we had morning prayer. We've put aside our morning devotions to follow the stories and readings in Winter Saints (see previous posts). Their format for morning prayer is just lovely.

Afterwards, Michael got to work on his daily stuff (spelling, geography, math, and reading The Maiden of Northland: A Hero Tale of Finland) while I worked on Katie Grace's main lesson. She is doing an Advent saints unit. Today she drew a picture of Rosa Parks, who we learned about yesterday. She said to me, "Mama, they can lock up a body, but they can't lock up a person's thoughts." Smart girl.

We also worked a little on measuring with inches and half-inches. It was a short main lesson, as I hadn't really finished planning yet. I worked on that today.

We broke for oranges and then did copywork that went around with our saints' story: "Whatever you did for the least of mine, you did for me."

Next it was time for Michael's main lesson--Norse Mythology. Not exactly Adventy, I know. We defined some vocab terms and reviewed some basic Viking facts, including some map work. He did a creative writing exercise from the point of view of a Norseman leaving his homeland. Then he started reading "The Children of Odin." He was really put out by the unfairness of the Norse gods, too. I mean it. He was ticked. It was kind of funny.

Due to the late start, poor Nick didn't get his time with me today. Which he was fine with, really. He's in some sort of hunter-gatherer phase where he likes to hide up in his room and make piles of stuff under his sheets. Who knows? He's cute, but odd.

Lunch--potato soup topped with bacon and cheese, YUM!--followed by a 10-minute tidy, and then Catherine, Called Birdie.

Then we read about the Vikings invading England--we have Vikings coming out of our ears--and then moved on to Latin. The saying of the week: Homo est animal rationale. I don't know how to do accent marks, sorry. "Man is a rational animal." We looked at vocabulary words that come from the Latin root word rationale. Then we looked at the genitive/possessive case. The Michael read a little Cicero and we discussed the idea that animals live solely in the moment, but people can make decisions based on the past and present. And this is why I love homeschooling-- my fourth grader is reading freaking CICERO! Too cool.

We were going to do science but again, no planning. So we cleaned up and called it an afternoon. Everyone had screen time while I did my planning and put the baby to bed.

I hope you had a productive day as well!