Feeling sunny to partly cloudy

Our colds are lingering… It’s the added burden of allergies in combination, I know, but it doesn’t make us feel any better.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and want to thank you guys for coming over and bringing such delicious food and drinks.  All the leftovers have been duly devoured and I’m glad we won’t have to eat turkey for Christmas!

We’ve been decorating.  The tree is up and dressed, the tinsel festoons the windows and the lights glow in the night air.  Ahhh Christmas!  I love this wintry season.  I had forgotten how many paper crafts we made last year.  We pulled paper chains from the boxes of ornaments, little paper people holding hands, angels who’s wings touch and little paper Christmas trees.  We’ve put large sparkly ornaments on the tree in the yard and full and fat tinsel on the arbor, too.  We put two chocolate kisses in each drawer of the countdown calendar.  Now it begins… every day, upon waking, Fish asks, “How many days until Christmas?” 

“I don’t know, ” I respond, “check the calendar.”

“Mom there are 23 days until Christmas.”

“Oh, only that many?”

“Yes, mom, only 23.”

“Did you give Keek her chocolate.”

“Not yet!!!”  he yells as he runs out of the room to wake his sister.    It’s amazing how pleasant my night owl is when she wakes to chocolate!

Keek has started to make collages.  She loves to go through catalogs and magazines to make artwork.  She made these two, day before yesterday, for the kitchen.  They are titled, Cozy and Cooking, respectively.

Fish has decided he doesn’t want to read anymore.  So we are on pause until further notice.  In the place or daily reading he said he would study spelling words because, “Spelling is easier than reading, anyway.”  These are his words for this week:  cat, can, car, call, ball, he, she, bird and tree.  His bonus word is; said.  On Monday he started writing each word three times and he finished them up today.  Then he spelled each word out loud.    He does seem to be enjoying himself, too.  I just don’t get it.  I really despised spelling… well reading too, for that matter!  Anyway, he’s happy and I’m happy!

We’ve continued with math, too.  Keek is working on multiplication tables (to 12) and Fish is skipping through site subtraction.  i.e.  25-5=20    33-2=31  Ho hum.  I wish I knew how to make math less mundane.  Both kids have been helping in the kitchen and cooking math is great.  But even that gets old quick.  They’ve been practicing with money, counting what they save and what they spend.  They’ve recently become aware of the movie prices.  Now they know the theatre only costs $1.50 a person so they are always volunteering to take us to the movies.  They’ve learned that Wendy’s and McDonalds have Dollar menus and Taco Bell has food for even cheaper!  So requests to go out to eat have doubled, “I’ll pay for my food with my own money!” they chorus!  Dollar Tree is a favorite and every time we drive by they are eager to spend spend spend.  Fish seems to have more money than Keek, day to day but I guess that’s becasue he just started spending.  Keek’s noticed too and is eager to have more money than her brother.  So a saving race has begun!  We’ll see how long it lasts!

Week 2

Another week of school and all is well!

Keek has been reading book 5 in the Spiderwick Chronicles and truly loves the series.  (Just imagine her excitement about the movies!) She is plugging away at math and made the connection between multiplication and division.  Her math book had missing number problems and that helped her on the path to discovery. Instead of 24 / 4 = ?  Some were written 24 / ? = 6.  At first this change in format confused and frustrated her.  We made a skip counting sheet that helped tremendously.  She caught on quickly and solved the remaining problems: no muss, no fuss.

On Thursday Keek was bored with work and she asked if she could do her math in her room.  I am in no way opposed to independent study but something was questionable in the way she asked.  Then it hit me!  Just the other day she had discovered the answer section located in the back of her workbook.  She had been using it to check her own work.  I put two and two together then said it would be fine.  She could finish the math in her room but I needed to see her workbook first.  She brought me the workbook, positively beaming at her cleverness.  I turned to the back of the book and gently tore the perforated answer pages out.  Then handed the workbook back to her.  She was so mad she turned purple.  So not to give herself away she turned and stomped off to her room.  OH I was in so much trouble!!

Fish continued on his reading and math path.  He buzzes through the math but, on Wednesday, voiced his first complaint.  He was finished with his spelling page, math page and about to start his word puzzles page when he heaved a heavy sigh and sat flatly, “I hate word puzzles.”

“You do?”  I asked

“Yeah…”  He responded.  Then he opened the book and did the page without another word.  When he was finished he went about his business and said nothing more.  On Thursday he did his pages and seemed to be enjoying himself… he was rhyming and drumming his fingers and shaking his hair, back and forth, the way a puppy would shake himself dry.

Today Fish “missed” school.  He threw up three times this morning but seems fine tonight… weird!  Keek went on in her books but Fish sat, half dozing on the chaise, hugging a bowl.  Poor baby.  This afternoon, when he felt better, I suggested he do his school pages but he said he didn’t want to.  He suggested doing them tomorrow… so tomorrow it is!

We’ve read the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors a thousand times and this week we watched the Disney version 1000 more times.  It’s a good story but if I have to listen to it agin I’m going to lose my marbles!  The kids also watched a movie based on Anne of Green Gables and loved it, especially Keek.

We watched Mythbusters, Man vs. Wild and a National Geographic special about the Amazon this week.  The Amazonian animals were of much interest to Keek.  She enjoyed the funny dolphins and shiny piranha in the murky water.  She was surprised by the contrast of murky rapid water and clear slow water tributaries that ran into the Amazon. Fish liked the baby alligators and the way they rode in their mother’s mouth.  He also liked the manatees and the dance they did under the water.  We all love Man VS Wild and were most shocked, surprised and grossed out when Bear peed on his cut hand. Bear explained that the ammonia in the urine would prevent infection.  Keek and I were expressing our opinions of general disgust (“EEEWWWWW!”) while Charles and Fish laughed out loud.  The Mythbusters were debunking conspiracy theorists claims that the lunar landing never took place.  The most interesting tidbit of this episode was how topography affected the shadows cast in the photographs.  Pretty cool stuff!

So that’s my summation of the weeks scholarly events.  Hope you enjoyed it!