Sunday, July 12, 2015

Mostly notes and babble

The healing from the oral surgery is coming along nicely.  And now I have two days off starting tomorrow and that will be nice.

I'm still prepping a bit for Esme's school.  We looked up the details of a trip to a gem and mineral museum for the upcoming year.  I've copied out and put some 'worksheet' like activities into her 'to do' folder - some travel stickers etc..  I put our printed copy of the edited poems in that folder, too.  I've still got my eye on a couple of books to order, but may decide to keep a list of them and have them as 'end of first quarter' refresh supplies.   In all, I think we've spent about a hundred dollars on her school supplies to kickstart... that is with using last year's supplies as well.  I know other things will come up and want to not feel like 'whoa, but I already spent all this...'  I'm definitely not into 700 dollar curriculums and ongoing subscriptions etc...  We are definitely taking the 'eclectic' approach, picking things here and there that we think will work for our situation.

Maybe list so far: Reading comprehension workbook (language arts/spelling/interpreting content will be her hardest subject with her language development), Reading and math for gifted students (actually threw that in the cart because it had 6 good reviews and a deal on a used copy), TumbleHome Learning press dinosaur fossil kit and Galactic Academy of Science books (for later in the year maybe now), Little House on the Prairie used copy.  Geoworld excavation kit for fossil.

National Geographic copies: April 2013 Reviving Extinct Species, should we? (ordered, as it directly deals with her questions in science) , also want to look into January 2012 Twins copy because she has interest there, February 2012 is Dogs, maybe, June 1989 is also about extinction of dinosaurs with a pullout supplement.

I would like to get her reading a kid's news site several times a week. I found one at Scholastic that seems like a good match for her.

There are some graphic novels on a nearby library's website we can access and I think she'd like to read some of those....would have that time dedicated for her to explore their free library.
Maps, landmarks, monuments, highway systems, sewer systems, water and electricity systems... we touched on that the other day just in conversation ... might have her make a pretend 'city' and add these things to it one by one, like SimCity.....we had a copy of that, but it doesn't run on my computer anymore.   There were some good photo essays I saw out there about the Statue of Liberty and National Parks, for days when it is hard to get into much else.

Spelling is tough for her - as if it doesn't stick- but I think it would be good for her to know how to spell color names and major parts of the body (like eyes, teeth) by the time the school year ends.  So, there will have to be weekly spelling tests and activities that center around spelling common words.  I might use Grandma's Silly Situations game some for making sentences and stories.

For my own reading:
I'm enjoying The Martian.  I copied down the title of 'In the Unlikely Event' by Judy Blume as something I might want to read myself, but too old for Esme.  Also, interested slightly in the Harper Lee 'sequel' Go Set a Watchman, but I'll wait a while and finish the books I have before I get anything else.  I was most of the way through the Black Fawn by Kjelgaard before I switched over to The Martian.  I read a lot of Kjelgaard in middle school and found that as a free Kindle book online.  I also downloaded a highly reviewed ebook called The Green Ember by S.D.Smith

In other news:  I've repaired our quilt in several places.. doesn't mean much to anyone but me.  I like it...and want it to last longer.  We made it several years ago and Esme watched me baste the edging on it during one Christmas season.  I've also got an idea for a kid's book  - based on some things Esme was saying about her painting the other week... am making sketches for it and may make a few paintings for it.

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