Tuesday Perry Pterodactyl

10a    - dentist
11a    - library
11.30    - break

12.30    - video: "Your Inner Fish"
1.30    - break

 There was some major bravery at the dentist this morning, 

including a birthday tomorrow, so some giant dinosaurs were gifted :)

2.30    - minecraft : work on a new house
3.45    - multiplication worksheet, Khan math
---3 times table worksheet, perimeter and two mastery challenges on Khan
4.00  -IXL English, plural and single possessives
4.15  -We talked about : what is a chemistry mole? // We are downloading a chemistry version of Minecraft and looking for more resources on DNA for her age group.
done


//Last night when I was getting her to finish washing her hair she asked me what 'four carried away by two' was...you know, 4x4 is sixteen is 4 carried away by two?  //ok!  Yes. It's sixteen - we call that 'four to the second', because it is (two) fours, four times four.  That's what the two means.  If there were three fours, four times four times four, it would be 4 to the third, and have a little 3 on top.

I was reading the last of my book while she was shooting math problems at me. I hope that was more coherent than it looks like in text... it seemed to be because she discussed it with Daddy today when he was asking me the square root of 149... which I deduced had to be more than 12 but much less than 13. 

//I've put 'Cracking the Code of Life' and 'What Darwin Never Knew' on her DVD queue for the next few weeks.  We've also got some more early history of the world coming.  The Romans series was a little 'deep' for her (Daddy said, and I agree), but she really got quite a bit out of it.  We'll continue with more American History later in the year, too.

Monday is Ladybug day

8.15a    - puppy training, bathing Lucy
8.30    - reading aloud: Droon book #1 (done)
8.45    - reading aloud: "Misty of Chincoteague" by Maguerite Henry (start)
9.15    - spelling #15,16,17 in second grade
9.30    - break

10:00   - khan math and worksheets : 2 times tables, 2 digit addition, perimeter
10:45   - Minecraft island and ciphers
//In Droon the princess writes backwards notes to the children as secret messages.  We wrote backwards Minecraft books that told where the next clue would be found, and made a chain of items to be found in places in the EsmeExplores world.  We also made an 'Assateague Island' with horses like the Misty book to come back to later.

12:45   - break

//walk to mailbox - our seed order came, and they sent us a free pack of Love-in-a-Mist, too.  Esme checked the order and said it was all right.

1p    - reading: "Misty of Chincoteague" to chapter 4.
1.30    - ladybug experiments : reflected light or heat?  Which are they attracted to?
//We had a ladybug swarm at our mailbox..and they seemed to be congregating on light colored things, which was odd, considering dark colored things are warmer.  Daddy came up with a test - tape black and white paper to a pole they were already on and see which they moved towards.  They went to the white paper and away from the black paper. 
1.45 -  done

 warm sunshiney day

 You just gotta jump for joy :)

Apparently, dogs can 'fly'...or just be silly.

Daphne (top) and Minerva (bottom)

 

vicious puppy attack

actually, they began smelling leaves and grass immediately after this.

Freckles (left) and Lucy (right)

 

Lucy and her grandmother, Nova

Wednesday Dinosaur Vendor

9a     - English worksheet, types of sentences +IXL practice
--------We practiced the sentence types again on IXL
9:15   - Balancing equations worksheet + MATIFIC
---------We did work on fractions and also on weighing unknown items and using them to solve questions
9:40   - Vending machine project
10.45  - break

This is the Jurassic World vending machine, by Dinosaur Miracle Inc.  It costs 1 cent to get a dinosaur from the shelves inside.


11.15a - geography review
---We've started studying the Near East, Middle East and Balkans area

11.30a - free reading: alice in wonderland -- She got to the part about the caterpillar and the pig baby.
12.15  - .5mi walk
12.30  - PE, 150x jumping jacks, walking w/ 12lb weight
12.45  - art: drawing the outside world
1p     - break

2p     - tablet: weather app, google earth exploration
2.45p  - done

Cosmos and Vampire Dragon Monday

speckled three, all in a pile 

from top clockwise, Freckles, Lucy and Hunter

8    - dragon city
8.45    - break

9    - Cosmos (1980) ep 1 and discussions
---She said that the man spoke in poetry.  She was very interested in much of it.  We also talked about the gaining and loss of scientific knowledge throughout time (Library of Alexandria).  She said she would go to the place where they didn't know or care about science and math and use boxes and balls to prove to them that 3 x 3 is 9.   Then, when they saw it for themselves, they would want to learn more.

We discussed the 'big idea' of calculating the circumference of the Earth so long ago - 2200 years - and how the math worked when he was showing the props of the obelisks in Egypt.  //note- need to cover 'degrees' soon..she kind of got my hand gestures to show what they meant.. but it would be good to go over it in reality -and even maybe measure a sundial outside.
10:15   - break

10.30    - dino digger app.  Really cool, and after you find all the bones it puts them together in video for you from bones to an articulated skeleton, covers it with muscles and skin, and lets you see the creature walk with a pronunciation of the name and more.

11.15    - writing assignment and dictionary use: vampire dragon.  She added lots of details and made a picture.  We went over the capitalization before I let be entirely done.  But, she is writing - dragons are a good topic for her creativity.

12.30    - break - shopping at grocery store and at Lowes (we found clearance pulleys to make a clothesline with!)  Daddy just couldn't wait to get it put together and working!

We still have some Khan math (at least a half hour) to do for the day, Spaghetti Pie to help make for dinner and a new Percy Jackson movie to watch tonight.  I was going to point out on the map where the Library of Alexandria used to be so she identified with it a little bit more. I'd like her to read some more How to Train your Dragon with me tonight.  We made a list of 'to do' today instead of just counting four hours (because she loves to linger over the writing and take up more than an hour doing just that).. and those are the only two things we haven't done yet.

4:45-5:15 - Practiced about eight skills on Khan 3rd grade math.  Perimeter, area, fractions and rounding.She is 10,000 points away from unlocking her 100,000 point avatars.

Mom notes:  I finished reading the Maze Runner, and the Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own Making.  I've downloaded Palimpest (online library card rocks still...awesome) to read next as everything else is out (don't like the waiting, but hey it is free and emails me when it comes back available).  // Have went through Netflix's history documentaries and added things on Japan, Rome, Egypt, the Mayans, Dark Ages Europe and Knights to Esme's history lineup.  We have more of the 'Life in Cold Blood' series coming, and a docu about the brain as well.   We do need to do a timeline soon - and we will have so much to relate finally on it that I think it will be a good thing now versus before.  She has been asking me when 'the year 1' was, what BC and AD mean and comparing the dates she is hearing in the Universe documentaries trying to do math on them.  

Peering into the Future : She asked me what the word 'geek' meant, and I told her it was a name that people called smart people to mean it wasn't good to be smart.  I said it originally meant someone who was really good at something odd .. and that sometimes people were scared of them for being that good at an odd thing.  She said we shouldn't be scared of the smart people, we should ask them questions so we can learn from them.  And then, when we grow up, we won't be dumb and live in a dump because we don't know things and can't do anything.  I related that to why we were homeschooling her- because we wanted to make sure she knew things they wouldn't or couldn't teach in public school right now.  And that she would have to keep working to know the important things, her entire life.  She said she would, definitely...  I said I would have to remind her of that when she was a teenager and she found everything hard and didn't want to work just play all day long.  She said I would need to remind her of that when she was 11, and every two years after that, because she might forget otherwise.

Thursday

7.30a    - attempting to run new game on tablet
8a    - break

9a    - History Review of Episode 1
    - frisbee (some review while playing,as well)
9.30    - America : Story of Us, ep 2
10.45    - break

11.30    - khan math - 3rd grade to 19%
12:00      - Riding bikes - observing right side of road rules
    - cooking: waffle with nectarine and ice cream
12.30    - break

1    - writing: "Son of ultimate dragon"
1.30    - history review of Episode 2
2p    - done



She helped Daddy cut up the steak pieces for steak and cheese sandwiches for dinner.

Tuesday

9.45a    - cardboard dinosaur cont'd

----PVC pipe dinosaur, will be covered with cardboard boxes and painted.  Yesterday she helped measure, cut and find the pieces.  Today we added a tail and Daddy helped us use the tools to drill pieces for caster wheels.  We tied all the square pieces together with string using a pipe cleaner to thread the string through.

11a    - Kahn math- we got to 95% K-2
--There was a point she thought it would be silly and cute to answer a question wrong because she was having a fit...not sure what started it... she didn't like the problem.  It backfired on her, she got five more of that kind of problem the program served her up to reaffirm she knew how to do it.  She had another short fit about that and I explained this was exactly why I had warned her against answering '8777' instead of 87 on that problem (and she had clicked through anyway)... She straightened up a bit and was much better attitude after that lesson.

11.30    - how to play chess, pieces, moves and setup, half of a game
12    - documentary: Popped Secret; the Origins of Corn
12.30p    - break

2p    - minecraft
3.30    - break

5p    - Tree trimming; use of wood saw.
    - Discussion of earthmoving
5.30p    - break

8p    - kitten gender and inventory
8.15    - done

Tomorrow we are going to the dentist.  She is a little scared, naturally...

Friday week 5

Where is all the time going?  Wasn't it Friday just a few days ago?
We started early this morning.. she had grabbed the Imagineering app and was doing actual hard thinking work on it as soon as she came up the stairs and before she was fully awake.

7:00    - Imagineering app
7:45     - Geography (Africa) and writing worksheets (3)
---Her handwriting is getting a little smaller.  She is trying to work on some things I've asked her to - the dark line on her 'a' and the way she makes a 'y'.  On the handwriting worksheet (not shown) she was trying hard to write small and pay attention to punctuation.  On the freewriting, she asked for help spelling with the hard words - but she wanted to use the hard words which is a big point towards making interesting writing.

8:15     - break

8:30     - Smithsonion TTJ News Article: FOPO and Quiz

----This had a lot of hard words in it for her, but she stayed with it and got the three quiz questions correct.  Then we looked up what calamansi was, and saw where on the map it was grown

9:00     - puppet theatre additions
9:15     - Imagineering
9.30    - break

11a    - tests: spelling, capitalization & punctuation
11.30    - Reading: Pedro and the Coyote
12p    - dragon city
12.30    - Imagineers
1.30p    - done

Her drawing from today  - a dog and his reflection in a lake by moonlight

Wednesday is slow cooked

We went slower today, since I had the day off.  She has already done her report for the week, so no pressure now.  We still have a writing prompt, Social Studies and Spanish to get in for the week...did the Social Studies, spent some time on English.  She did the math very well both times...we're edging up to two and three digit addition and subtraction again, then onto the next step.  We also cooked, which was really 'the main event' of the day, although I saved it for last.

 NOM

 cherry marshmallow pie in a graham cracker crust (which  she helped with) and enchiladas (she cut cheese and filled soaked tortillas while I folded and placed in the pan)

 The final layer on top

8:20 - reading aloud: "If I Were the President"
8:45 - worksheets: suffixes (3)
9:15 - prefix and suffix games online
9:30 - math worksheet and handwriting practice
9:45 - clothes washing
10 -   break
10:15 - Reading "Sammy the Seal"
10:30 - break

11 - review Nova: "America's Stone Age Explorers"
//She was calling out the discoveries to me before they told them since she saw it earlier in the week with Daddy.  She said she had 'too many memories' to tell me exactly what happened until she saw the things that made her remember.

12 - break
1p - Reading aloud: 'Pete's Chicken"
1:10p - People Together Social Studies: Natural Resources
1:25p - 30 problems missing # in subtraction equations
1:30p - Potion Maker app
2:30p - Recipes: enchiladas and cherry marshmallow pie
3:30p - done

We've eaten some enchiladas, and put some away for tomorrow.  We are heading outside now for a while... then come back in and cut the pie and try some.  It is our science experiment - epidermis (Graham crackers), dermis (cherry pie filling) and subcutaneous layer (marshmallows).

We have library again tomorrow, too... we went on Friday and have read all of our books again (except for the Grimms...getting to the end of the first book now!)

Friday week 4

7.15    - math; addition pg 69. Progress in Mathematics
---She had to copy (writing) the problems out on another page of paper and write the answers.  We spent almost half this time talking about the 'Critical Thinking' part where it compared baseball scores and innings.

8:15    - School of Dragons
---showing me what she had learned yesterday and talking about what she still needed to  do

9:15    - break - Get ready for library

10a    - library - she played with the instrument program while I picked out half of her books, then she picked out the other half.
11a    - park play with kids, P.E.
12p    - break

1.15p    - Reading / Social Studies: Geography/Geology and Land forms in People Together book
---canyons, rivers, volcanoes, lakes, oceans, islands, peninsulas, plains, hills and mountains
---We looked through the Natural Wonders of the World book and identified some things.
1.30    - Spanish practice lessons
2p - done

We watched part of the Inside Planet Earth geology video tonight at dinner.
It answered some of her questions about volcanoes, earthquakes and more.
She's outside playing mountain climber now.

So, this week we have done math and numeracy, writing (report, and prompt), lots and lots of reading,  Biology (animal studies), History (Helen Keller) and Geography, Geology, Spanish, P.E. and Technology.   I have been asking her lots of vocabulary words in the Grimm sisters books - some of them might be sticking.    That hits on all of our goals and yet being a full work week it could have been terribly stressful and it wasn't.    

I was telling her this week that second graders write a whole lot more than she had been doing - and we met our goal to do two writing activities and to also work on our writing in math (number names) more.  Considering expressive writing is her most challenging subject and she hates to spell - we are coming along much better there.  I've heard changes in her speech again this past month - she has made more ground there and has been picking up new words from her reading.

Our goals are still to do the following each week:

Reading,Writing and Math (some element of each of these every day) 
It is a goal to have Social Studies in some form twice a week..(Geography/History) 
Sciences (Biology and Geology) once each per week.
Spanish once a week
P.E, Art and Music as it comes

Thursday Dragon Day

8.30a    - writing numbers as words
9.15a    - writing prompt - If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why?
----"I would live in Japan.  I like the soup.  I like the way the roofs are shaped on the houses."

9.30    - online game: School of Dragons
----She made a lot of ground after begging me to allow her to play this.  I previewed it last night and it looked involved and complicated enough to count as some school time. She read instructions, followed quests, and learned new controls and interfaces.  This is an important part of our goals for 'engineering primary school', that she discover new things, really get into the workings of them and make and achieve her own goals.  Of course, the game or interface has to have things that really teach, too- not a pony dress-up game, but something with strategy, quests and lessons.

12p    - reading aloud: "Crawdad Creek" by Scott Russell Sanders
12.15p    - half mile walk
12.30p    - done

Tomorrow is a library day, and my day off- so we can get some more done.  This has been my 'six days on, one day off (Sunday) and four more on' week and it can be tough even without incorporating school goals into it.  I am very proud of the amount of writing she has done this week.  'Writing and writing to the end of time etc..' as she said it was this morning as she despaired over the two worksheets on her desk.  She has really shown she has the ability - we just have to get in the practice.

I am hoping to cover another section in our Social Studies book 'People Together' tomorrow morning before we leave for the library.  She has things to show me in the dragon game that she is proud of - she begged tonight to spend some time tomorrow showing me the new things she has discovered and what her dragon has accomplished 'in only one day - I was so amazed' in her words.

+20 pages in Grimm Sisters before bed

Infinity Wednesday

8:45a - writing numbers as words practice
--this is something that I want to make sure she can do from memory, and not needing to copy the words... so we will do it several times this week with the word list and next week she doesn't get a list of the words to look at.  At least, that is the goal.

9:15a - reading aloud: "Infinity and Me" library book (to puppies)
9:30a - discussion about Infinity
---She compared infinity to a tree, a fire that never stops burning, and a phoenix's life cycle of dying and being born again.  About the tree - she said she was the root, and the bark and wood were her parents, and the branches and leaves were her grandparents going back all through time to the tiniest little branches and leaves forever being 'infinity'.  Then she backed up and said she was the seed, just beginning to break, that the root would grow from..because she isn't grown up yet.
9:45a - break

10:00a - Codebreakers activity alphanumeric code translation
10:15a - Writing chicken report into book format
       - learning to use word processor
11a    - minecraft - Freeway world 'mouse village' survival mode
11.45a - break

12p    - puppy grooming
12.15p - ball track building
1p     - cutting and cooking pork loin
1.15p  - ball track
2p     - done

Homeschool and Summer Activities

We went in to the School Board today to fill out the papers for second grade homeschool, and to turn in our attendance record from this year.  We had talked to Esme about maybe trying to get into third grade - but she said she would rather do the things we had planned for at home than have to work that much harder on her writing (and what we said about older kids worried her some).  So, we put in our order for the Astronomy and Geology books.

I also cleaned up the school and craft areas a bit today and sorted things out.  We played several hours in our shared Minecraft world, just for the fun of it. I started on her summer clothes - as she has torn holes in a lot of her other playclothes.  I finished a pair of shorts that she will try on  later. We had a good lunch, and Harry Potter is on the TV again.

We have kept the Summer Journal for three days in a row - reluctantly a little, but hers has to be at least one full sentence with punctuation.  Then I share something as well for her to read.  Her spelling has noticeably improved since last year.  It gives me hope that we can start on writing prompts a few days a week when we start 'class' again in August.

I am really glad to see her using her skills she has learned.  That makes all the difference.

Not a flea market Tuesday

8.30a    - spelling worksheet
8.45a    - dictionary reading- sadly puffin and femur were not in her new dictionary (which arrived a few days ago, but partridge and potato were)
9a    - Minecraft
10.30a    - break

10.45a    - drawing
11a    - disassembling printers with screwdrivers under Daddy's supervision, one was a daisy wheel printer from 1984, they discussed how the motors moved things in the printers, and lefty-loosey righty-tighty with the screws holding the parts in place
1p    - break

2.45    - chores; helping with pork spice recipie
3.30p    - done

I came home at 4:30 - and we went to town for grocery shopping, allowance spending and to look at robotics kits in the Radio Shack closing sale.  Mark bought several clearance items which we will introduce Esme to for her school electronics projects.

I have scheduled a dentist appointment.  I am almost all the way through Son of Tarzan.
Corn, okra and asparagus beans are starting to peek up in the garden.  Also, some morning glory and marigolds.  I planted a handful of Whipporwill speckled cowpeas and a row of the White climber beans tonight.  

Monday again

9.30    - math test pg 3
9.45    - bike riding (no training wheels)
//Mark notes that the rollerskating has helped her develop both a better sense of balance and also a good attitude towards try try again - she has been consistently gaining skills and getting braver about what she wants to do.  She was coasting down the hill and using our dog gate to catch herself on to test her balance yesterday - and continued to do so today with more and more attempts to use the pedals without the training wheels.
10a    - science experiment: salt crystals setup
10.30a    - lego engineering
//she built a second dollhouse that fits inside the first dollhouse she had built a few weeks ago...
11.30a    - break

12.30p    - dragon city
3p    - done


//When I got home from work at 7 she showed me her Lego, the salt crystals and bopped around asking lots of things.  She told me about her bike adventure, and said it was learned now, so she knew it... I compared it to the rollerskating she can do now vs. last year... and she finally begrudgingly agreed she would keep 'practicing' the thing she knew how to do...which to her was like saying two opposites.  We read the first two sections of Stink and the Guinea Pig express before bed.

Friday Rat Cage and Math Test

 Mark and Esme have been working on this all week - Daddy helped with a lot of the really hard stuff today - and I did the wire reinforcement on the side of the platform inside.  Esme helped clear out the table to put the cage on and place the bedding (not shown) inside.

Esme says Rubles will live like a rat queen in a palace, now.

 

8.45a    - reading aloud Freddie Found a Frog in Pets and Promises primer book

---exclamation point, vocab word 'compete'
9a    - sims - the family has a new baby to take care of!
10.30a    - break

11a    - cage building and set up
12.30p    - break

1p - practicing dialing the phone, town errands, she asked for onion sets at the co op, said they smelled nice.  We plan to share some of them and the lettuce seed with Grandma.  She bought a toy at the store with her Easter money, a guinea pig - and she wants to learn more about them, now.
3p - break
3:30 - North Dakota standard math test 1st grade, first two pages.  Lots of handwriting - the hard 'math' comes a bit later in the test - up to question 60 she will have without true problems - after that she needs to read carefully on the word problems and understand what is actually being asked, which is hard for her sometimes.  I told her we would do the rest over next week.

4p - done, time to put the rat in her new home, play outside and work in the garden

//After planting some sprouting onions in the garden and her continued claims of 'I love the smell of onions so much - they give me energy!', we decided to make pizza with onion as a topping (and pepperoni and cheese) for dinner.  She ate most of a personal size one herself.  The rat is settling very comfortably in her cage - even sleeping out in the bed area in the open instead of hiding most of the time.  Considering it is a new environment and the other animals are here to look at her, that is a pretty good sign.

I planted the marigolds, a cucumber plant from the co-op and those onions yesterday.  I noticed a lima bean we had found in the ground when we dug for planting the green peas had sprouted all the rest of the way with the peas.. Esme and I had decided to put it back in the ground and give it a chance since it had been there all winter.  It took that chance!

Tuesday Building

9    - dragon city
9.30    - lego presentation and engineering, arches and supports
 --She really thought the 'arch' was just the shape of a bridge.  I told her how important that really was to history - making open spaces with fewer materials and making STRONG spaces and bridges.  We found several LEGO pieces that were already arch shaped, some wooden blocks from her room, and we built an arch going over the swimming pool and practice items she had made the night previous for her puppy character.  We then built (and rebuilt) a slide for the pool and the arch bridge to show how to make something stronger.
10.30    - break

11:15am - LAN Minecraft to discuss the arch, setting time with commands, etc..  When asked she made an arch all by herself over a porch we had made another day.  She did it quickly and showed understanding very well.  I made a little building in my area with double arches ... she thought it was OK, but was already on to other ideas.
1.15p     - break

A shot of the LAN world,she added the treehouses, the arch over the porch stairs and the stable post for the horse today.. among other things, I am sure.  The blue 'Moon Castle' is the building I added today.

1.30p    - minecraft on her own world, building
2.30p    - break

 
9:30 - revisiting Lego, invention labs, spaceships and egg nests, reading new book from library
10:00 - bedtime


//I really hope we don't get this snowstorm they are predicting.

Wednesday zen

I promised if she did hard math with me for an hours time she could 'present' Goat Simulator for time in school today.  She said that would be her 'perfect day'... it turned out more like a course in anger management and finding our zen balance.

11.30a    - Kahn academy math - practiced all early math!
----She has yet to do the mastery on a lot of them, has earned her Aqualine of more than 20 skills mastered.  She is now at 65% done K through 2nd grade - since October - and has at least practiced every activity in the K through 2nd grade set.  Although she got snippy at me and sarcastic several times, she demonstrated she does understand borrowing and carrying (which she can 'forget' often when she feels like it) but is still having trouble telling time on analog clocks.  That makes her very frustrated...and we had to take a break

12p    - break
12:30 - Kahn and Matific math
-----I promised some 'easier' picture math after she did one more mastery exercise in Kahn.

1:30 - Goat Simulator controls presentation
--She showed me what each control does, what the powers of different goats are, and her favorite places - also where some of the powers are got and what the process is to get them.

2p   - spelling test and reading passage
---Spelling mastery article #5, 16 words spelling - 'were' and 'said' made her mad because they don't follow rules the other sounds do... that was my problem as a young reader, too.

2:15 - 'teaching' 2nd player to use controls from presentation
---I played and she gave me pointers, then we did a quest in MMO simulator

3 - Snap Circuits # 16
3:45 - anger manageent - there were lots of other things going on and she wanted us to do the project for her... we talked through and completed the circuit.
4 - break
4:45 - put away snap circuits
5 pm - done

We tried to get to town, leaving Esme at Grandma's house.  The county road is still too slick on the hills and we can't get over.  Getting over is half the battle - you have to get back.  There is another snowstorm predicted tonight... we'll see how this all goes.

Wednesday New Year's Eve

10a    - PE(30x 15lb bench, 30x sit ups, 100 jumping jacks,
      30x 10lb deadlift, 30x 10lb bicurls)
10.30a    - calendar making
11.30a    - Liberty's Kids (ep 18, 19, 20)
12.30p    - calendars
1p    - pbskids.org (didn't load)
1.15p    - Tynker app
2p    - done

Mark did PE, as she was in such an active mood all week she just needed to get energy out.
The calendars were very cool - I could tell what almost every picture was she drew.

She did all the Tynker app... 10 levels... and Mark tried to find something similar for her next week.

I had a flat tire and had to wait an hour at the place to make sure it was fixed before driving home on it.

Esme is at Grandma's for a New Year's Eve sleepover.. and I have to work tomorrow.
We intend to give her the rest of the week off now until next Monday.

Geo Friday

10a - turn signals and hazard lights, why we use them, what makes them happen..
     cutting and marking of trees for utitlity work, discussion of 'trees are of nature - why are we hurting them' vs replanting, shredding material for recycling by the earth etc.  When she gets her teeth in a subject she really thinks on it.

We did the post office and chose a package size that was appropriate for our item, addressed it, and sent it out.  She discussed how many people must live in our town for all the post office boxes, and how she was older than one girl in line but younger than another girl in line...

11a  - library, books, shells, meerkat colony conditions vs. hibernation?
       World Geography Explorer and globe
        discussed Asia, Russia, Japan and the Phillippines - Marianas Trench,
        discussed distance to South America from Asia, Pacific Ocean
        discussed Arctic Ocean, North Pole (all points lead south) and she showed understanding by telling me then that the South Pole would be all points from there would head North.  YES, you're getting it kid.
       Was very interested in the 'distance to walk/drive/fly' comparisons the program made.
       Showed her the globe showed the same things, but 'in the round'.. and the map was flat but the items were still 'congruous'.. you can go east and end up in the other side of the map etc.  She understood that easily and was bored by it... *sheepish*, but I had to know she understood.
        She was amazed to hear the African 'rainforest' called such when she compared it to the South American rainforest.
        She loved the 'sticker book' thing and had just discovered the 'find this place on the map with these clues' game when we had to leave.
12:3a - break for lunch
1p    - P.E. running, climbing etc.

2p    - buying school supplies for crafts, science projects
2:3p  - break to drive home... quiet during this trip, was worn out!
3:p   - Marianas Trench, Sea Urchins, Hydraulic Welding Robots
     We talked about earthquakes and volcanoes with the video online How the Planet Was Made.
     She saw people eat sea urchins, and learned random facts about them.
     She saw a video online of hydraulic welding robots like her grandpa is working on today (she had sent him a message to ask what he was working on today, and he had answered).. and talked about what 'writing the code' for one means - it is like a map and a recipe all in one, to tell the robot what to do to make the thing and have all the pieces work together.
4p    - done  (now she is downstairs running her robot bird toy all around in the air)

Friday ornaments and science

9.30a    - painting christmas ornaments
10a    - math test, word problems using subtraction and multiplication
         - frustration and arguing on last problem of printed test....borrowing issue led to mini meltdown
          - lots of math word problems written in word processor 'on the fly'
        -- when asked if there were only three seats left on the bus and four people wanted to get on, what would happen?  She asked how big the seats were and if the people could squeeze in together or not... if the seats were big and the people were small...  // there is our divergent thinker.

11a    - Science experiment "Walking Water"
       - siphoning with tube and buckets
      - capillary action with bread and foodcoloring
     - walking water setup with jars, food coloring and towels
      - talking about straws and gravity, air vs. water

12p    - reading aloud (skeletons book - chapter2)
12.30p    - break

2:30   - modeling and molding with Crazy Sand 'clay'
2:45p - spelling primer through pg 34
      - writing lots of common words, correcting mistakes, writing a few sentences
3:15p - using needles and ribbon to finish ornaments
     She said she knew how to use the needle - I said show it, she said prove it,
      just like a scientist proves his experiments and chemicals mix together.  Hmm..yes!
       writing date on and hanging ornaments
3:30p - done

There were pillow fights and  varnishing ornaments when they dried, a trip to a bakery in town when we went shopping for project materials, and we kept checking on the Walking Water experiment all day, because it took that long.  I drew out the principles behind the siphoning experiment and the bread experiment as Mark said my words were kind of vague (and they were).. and Esme understood the concept quite well when we asked her to explain it to us on the way to town later.

 Crazy sand
This was one of the project materials she bought at the store

Finished ornaments hung up.. also some ribbons, other ornaments from 

other years and a little felt puppy toy she stuck in there the other day.