Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Tuesday

Esme's Minecraft school - we began building this a few weeks ago, and it was a shell outline then - today, she finished it all using the undefined space I had made - a classroom, cafeteria and bathroom (not shown). I added only the pictureson the wall- the rest is hers based on my shell (1 block on the ground with door openings) from weeks ago.



8.45a    - dragon city
9.15a    - outside exploration
9.30a    - break

10a    - klondike- I see she completed several quests, which requires reading,comprehension and logic.
11a    - PE, 10x 500ft laps
11.30a    - outside discovery, newt hunting
12.30p    - Planet Earth: Jungles
1.30p    - done


We watched the movie Interstellar.  She watched some of it,but got a little bored halfway through and went to work more on her Minecraft school (above)-and grumble that she had to do it alone with only Minecraft animals for friends. *sigh*...  Then after that was done to her satisfaction, she came and watched the rest of the movie with us.  We talked a bit about it, and about stars - and she tried to see some before she went to bed with her flashlight and Pokemon manual.  Rubles seems to be doing fine -Mark and Esme bought some more of the materials they need to build her a bigger cage.

I'm still avoiding coffee - but have three varieties of green tea to switch off from... drinking a little almond milk in it sometimes, thought to try that and see if it had any benefits.  So far, so good...  Really great avocado, mozzarella, black bean and red curry paste tacos for dinner tonight (Mark and Esme ate other things - so I could experiment).  Esme had pointed out to Mark in the grocery store that Mom needed one of those green things the other day... heh.

add:  Mark said he took a chair out to read during Esme's outside time yesterday - she was climbing trees for most of that...but for some time she was also bringing him bits of clover and flowers, and if he didn't accept them she was tucking them into his hair behind his hat and running away.  // remember for later *heh*

Monday, March 30, 2015

Monday

8.30a    - dragon city
9.30a    - klondike - she continued to explore all the features in this game, and discovered some new things beyond what we had done before.  When they picked me up from work she said that the new game features were things she had really liked learning today.
10a    - break

11a    - town run, tax prep place, stores, discussions of same
12p    - break

1p    - Planet Earth: Great Plains - episode included a fox trying to steal nestlings from birds, which she told me all about in the truck on the way home.
2p    - PE, 10x 500ft laps -reading her Pokemon book while sitting in the back of the truck
2.30p    -break
[--done--]
4p - gathering of materials for rat cage, talking to people at Lowes
4:30p - break
 5:30 - ran outside with fox toy to play wilderness with him, and feed him plastic leaves.

I want to get her to read the rest of her Stink Moody book as it has to go back to the library...// got from page 47 to 75 before I started to get tired, and I have another early tomorrow.  She is practicing piano keyboard now and soon I'll have to nudge her towards bed....
 a noodle fox pillow she talked Daddy into at the store - she wanted a picture of him...

 Picture by Esme
'Rubles' the rat


 She is a girl, and was adopted from a friend.
They would have fed her to the snake,and Esme has been asking about
having a rat for months - since she saw this one's predecessor at the same house.
She is fairly sweet -a little skittish of loud voices and doesn't like to be handled too much at one time.. have to get used to us and our routines a bit more...

Saturday, March 28, 2015

bits

Our hyacinths survived the freeze the other day - they smell very nice. I just really need it to warm up sometime this year!    Lots of jump rope today, and she was practicing math while doing it at several points, skip counting, adding halves etc...  we made a 'park' in Minecraft...almost could have counted today as school but I was trying to take it easy.  Mark did some woodworking today and fixed two of our doors that were sticking.  I'm on 48 hours minus coffee.. although that doesn't mean no caffeine.  I've picked up some Chai green tea and made that instead..and drinking hot water just to fill in the gap of having something warm.  Last night was a terrible withdrawal headache...but today seems to be going well.  If you have ever met me -and heard I was on purpose not drinking coffee.. you'd wonder what happened...  or what I got replaced with *heh*...  

I'm in the middle of Mad Ship by Robin Hobbs... this is the second to the last book for me (since I read Rain Wilds out of order).   Esme's Puzzle Book copy came today - and she says it is a really cool book. I'm still waiting on my Crystal structure book to come in the mail.


Friday, March 27, 2015

Friday

8a    - Liberty's Kids
9.30a    - break

11a    - Liberty's Kids
12.30p    - minecraft
2.30p    -break

4p - jump rope and discussion about the settling of America, where the immigrants came from and why..
5p - town, helping with groceries, discussion about Kentucky and going there, dinner, more jump rope
6p - done

Quote:  We are going to Kentucky Fried Chicken.  No, we aren't. Mom,tell him why we aren't going there (she had asked to go to the state earlier while shopping- like we did once before -and now we were just pulling her leg about it)  We are - see it up there, the place you like to play with the salt shakers?  Oh, that is not Kentucky, it is K F.....C... And that stands for Kentucky Fried... .. Chicken.  Chicken. 

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Thursday


8.30a    - minecraft - built a water 'ride' that was many levels high.. lots of thought required and she built something very cool!  The goal was to start at the top and not have the player press any keys, but flow down the 'ride' without stopping, hanging up anywhere etc..  She had to work out several things- enough space for the player, containment of the water, and how to keep things flowing.  The second picture shows a flock of chickens riding down - and they were all 'alive' at the bottom.


12.30p    - break

3.30p    - cleaning up
4p    - paper snowflakes
4.30p   - cleaning up her work table that was full of stuff!  Putting things away, reorganizing supplies.
reading The Way things Work (mammoth version) and Pokemon book on her own
5:30p - done, off to play downstairs, bounce around and return to reading now and then, supervise me making a dress for her a few times here and there...  She wanted to go outside and play more baseball but came right back in saying it was too  cold!

McCalls M6594, 'B' version,size 8ish
I made one 2 years ago in a size 6, and put the dress pattern up as it was 'not my favorite' type of construction, lots of casing and tiny elastic.  She is wearing that dress in the snowflake picture. I tried to copy the 'makedo' waist elastic that it has... the way in the instructions just isn't something I could wrap my head around then and not now, either... but this is a technique from a sundress pattern I had back then and it worked again.  She says she loves being a flower made of leaves and twirling and curtseying like a princess. Her requests are another one in purple and one in blue, too - like Cinderella.  I was planning on making a few more now that I've gotten some more practice under my belt.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Wednesday

8.30a    - minecraft
11a    - break

12p    - reading alone, childcraft Poems & rhymes
12.30p    - reading aloud The Ant and the Dove, the Dog and the Bone
1p    - break

4p    - gardening (plating hyacinths)
4.15p    - PE (2 person baseball)
4.30p    - done

//We watched Yours Mine and Ours movie over dinner.  She had a few questions after that.  I made her a pair of new pants and she investigated the rest of the cloth.  She did some time math before bed, some Spotify music listening and more radio tuning.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Tuesday misc

8.30a    - dragon city
9a    - khan math - got to 71% mastered on K-2 math category.
9.30a    - break

10.15a    - reading aloud: Stink the Shrinking Kid,, pages 1-47
11a    - break

12      - Photo processing and post office.  I made her ask the questions and do the procedure at the photo counter, the checkout and the post office.  I did help with change a little.
1       - P.E. at city park and walking track - There were lots of kids, and she played in trees and up and down the slides with some boys.  // Now get this guys, remember, this is Esme, you got that? (one of the boys to the other boys after she 'didn't die' climbing to the top of a cedar tree).  After the crowd dwindled, we did the half mile track there and back (1mile) played on the equipment and in trees, checked out plant stuff, pinecones, wild onions, johnny jump ups and also the new exercise bar equipment they have on the other side of the track.  She did a lot of running, until she was bright pink in the face at points... we stopped to get a drink and look at landscaping plants on the way home.
2:3     - break

3:3     - radio and music, tuning to radio stations, different types of music, talk radio, sports - holding the radio up or to the side to get a better signal.  She really hates the static, like her Dad it drives both of them up the wall somehow - but it is a skill to learn too, everything in life isn't crystal clear DVD sound etc...she thought the radio news was VERY boring and buried her head in her beanbag chair claiming she was NOT UNHAPPY can't you tell that? // short nap and came up with ideas for Minecraft in less than ten minutes.
4:15     - Minecraft
9.30p      - done

//When she was doing math this morning she realized some of it was 'second grade' math again.  She began to balk after she had been complaining it was easy moments before.  We never did second grade math in school!  Well, your teacher didn't even think you could do first grade math.. so no, you never did some of this, but you're actually doing a very good job on it.  Her response:  Oh, well ... she didn't listen to me very much so I didn't do things for her when she asked.  // So after nearly six months of homsechool she can articulate that.  She said it offhandedly, as if she always thought that but never said it until now.  *blink* and on we go... hope to be done with the masteries by 'summer break' in June.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Monday lots


11a    - town errands and store
//we bought supplies to make bread another day - and a new bat and softball for her to play with.  We found some clearance farm animals to add to her farm 'model' that she has been playing with - and she played with them some when we got home.  She helped put away the groceries and even knew where most of it went without asking - the yeast she made a guess at, which was decent, considering we keep flour in that cabinet.
12.30p    - break

1.30p    - gardening, baseball
//We found carrots hidden from last year!  I could really hardly believe my eyes but there they were...we gave one to the chickens because it split all over getting it out - and the rest we chopped up and cooked.  Then we chopped up the dirt, mixed in sand and planted peas and carrots.  I showed her where the mints and lemon balm and oregano were coming up in the garden.
3.30p    - Hidden Kindoms: Secret Forests
4.30p    - HK: Urban Jungles //Snowflake design app
5.30p    - done with school
//We played more baseball, harvested some oregano. and made a pizza.  She asked to put on new toppings - what do we have that can be on a pizza?  After a short discussion we chopped up a fresh tomato and some black olives - and she said it was good.

 This is what it looks like when she flutters like an Esme with wings.


She insisted on writing this on the fridge... hmm...

I wanted her to read me a certain story in her book - will try tonight at bedtime.  I am almost done with her rug for her floor and need to take measurements to turn some new fabric into shorts and pants.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

bits

She worked in Minecraft today (even though it wasn't school) and built a copy of my water fountain that has a switch at the top.  Mine was the white one to the left - the 'arrow' points to her lab, which is that direction.  Mark said she didn't say anything to him while she made it - and it is a pretty close copy of the mechanism but she made it taller (like she said she would) and she had a bit of trouble with the very top ..but it still works perfectly.  There is a 'chicken viewing' tank in her lab where you stand on a platform, move the lever and get risen to look at the chickens - because it takes up less room than stairs.  Mad scientist on our hands, really *heh* She said I could make a lab, too - so I did, with a squid viewing tank...and a whole lab setup with ingredients, a furnace, brewing station and chests... we'll see what she thinks of that.

quotes:  I told her I had ordered the next book in a set for her and it was about puzzles and msyteries.  She finds something in the book of poems and rhymes and says 'this one is a mystery - you never know what happened to the old man!'  // It's raining it's pouring the old man is snoring, he went to bed and bumped his head, and couldn't get up in the morning. //

Mark was telling her jokingly she needed to till the garden - she said that isn't good for girls that are seven.. we have to wait until she is older.   I said maybe we'd start to teach her when she was nine.  She said oh good, that gives me two years!  I said, no - you are almost seven and a half.  She paused, then asked when she would be seven and a half.. then paused again, and said the right month.  She said she counted the twelve months and took one off becauase she was born in November, and then added the rest forward - and that is when it will be.  // starting to get there kid!


note : She sat curled up in her beanbag chair in her room (the one I am making the rug to go under/around) and was reading aloud from her book to me.  She pulled her feet up into the chair because it is cold on the floor...and then we talked about the rug.  It makes my heart leap with joy to see her reading her books - and comic books, on her own volition.  We are writing more books in the Minecraft library as well.  I had written a 'horror' story of We have no bananas today. I might have to find a kiwi'...she matched that with a book saying there were no kiwis.  We then built a Loch Ness monster in the ocean near the sunken pirate ship... and she put a superhero cape and collar on it.

She climbed up the cedar tree in the yard all the way to the top and showed us the 'rooms' she had made all the way to the top.  I stayed out there until she had gotten all the way back down....

Monday or Tuesday we might go to the agricultural museum - got to see what the weather is like and how other things happen.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Friday




8.30a    - minecraft: costume shop
10.30a    - Hidden Kingdoms: "Under Open skies"



Her perspective of the woodlands she saw in the film - it looks like a 'fish eye lens' to me...which is only natural until I think about no one has shown her to draw this way...she draws it how she sees it.  // I think that is a frog in the puddle to the right, and of course a rabbit and a squirrel.

11.15a    - minecraft - Testing Grounds, house building, cat taming
1.30p    - 200x jumping jacks
1.45p    - drawing
2p    - done


 'King goat', which is a giant, because he has to be big enough to wear a saddle.
She also drew fifteen little goats on another piece of paper.

She had built a cow farm out of a box and all of her plastic and figurine cows she could find today.  She added a few farm implements, hay, windmills from a kit she got for Christmas a few years ago.  Then she started 'breeding' the cows and cows popped up at random from here and there.  *giggle*

She says she will have to show me how far up she can climb on the cedar pole.. she found out and marked it - and when I get some time she will show it to me.

//on to the weekend! //


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Thursday Minecraft

drawing of her idea for the treehouse we are planning in the yard.  That is her picture of our goat, trees and the house outside below the treehouse and all of the climbing pegs in the pole.


8a    - minecraft - Survival mining, coal, iron, lapis lazuli and gold, smelting, furnace and tools
9.30    - break
10a    - minecraft - Survival building, castle, sheep dyeing and shearing, carpets and glass
1p    - break
1:3p    - Minecraft - creative mode, party, costume shop, dyeing leather armors
2.30p    - break
3p      - Minecraft reading books and homework in the City Library (in game).
//we made new sections in the library - a whole lower story and an extension on the top story.  I made chests that said  Humor, Horror, Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure and more - wrote a few 'books' that she read (a four page mystery) and then I gave her some 'homework' on signs beside chests - math, rhyming words and to copy a poem from a book into a Minecraft book.  She wrote the answers to my questions on more signs and got the clue to go and find her milk and cookies stashed in a secret place.
4p      - done

She also finished watching Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix movie that we had watched half of yesterday.
She is drawing more pictures  :)
I am crocheting a rug for her room and have it about halfway done.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Wednesday cedar pole stage 2



 Showing off the pole that will be the foundation of a larger summer project - either a crow's nest platform, a treehouse, or some combination of the two.

 
 She said she wanted me to take a picture like this :)

8.30a    - dragon city
9a    - cementing pole
//mixing and pouring cement around the cedar pole as a family project.  She helped with all the bits of the stages but it was all of us together that got the job done.
10a    - break



//hot cocoa with marshmallows and peeling oranges, then she asked what we could watch while we drank our cocoa.  Mark and I have been talking about the philosophical topics brought up in Star Trek, The Next Generation, and wondering if she is ready to take on some of those ideas.
10.15a    - ST:TNG : Elementary Dear Data (and discussion)
//she was fascinated by several things in this - she wants to watch more.  This was an episode that dealt with 'the mystery is half the fun', learning by not knowing the answers and having to figure them out, and also the philosophical question of the computer becoming aware of itself and Data being a self-aware machine.  She had lots of questions about that.


12     - town, supplies, lunch
//putting together her toy from the Wendy's Kids meal by following the instructions.
1:30     - break

2p    - minecraft, survival mode, collecting food and resources, mine exploration
4.30p    - done



'New chicken', the English Game Hen we bought yesterday.
School is 'done' and the weather is too cold to really play outside like she would like to.  She is cutting construction paper, using glue and making some project of her own.

Walking around the  yard with her bow pretending, with Spud at her side.
She said she was being a 'hunting girl' looking for food.

one of her drawings from today

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Tuesday flea market and cedar post stage 1


9a    - flea market & co-op
//wrote the shopping list for us for the co-op
//found and cleaned out her chicken cage to bring to the market
//bought a new chicken - looks like an English game hen,and we looked at lots of other chickens,ducks,a chinchilla, guineapigs...We met a lady we had went to see last year and talked to her about her farm.  Esme found some toys, bought some oranges and helped out a bit at the co op.  She watched us clip the chiciken's wings before we put her into the coop with our other chickens..and checked on her through the day.  It's tough - because we are introducing her into a flock that has been in our coop for a year,and last Mark told me she was sleeping on the roof of the chicken house....we all have to learn more about chickens and this is how to start.
11a    - break

11.30a    - dragon city
12p    - minecraft
//She says she has built a place behind the restaurant by the dumpster for 'people with no gold'... oh boy... I guess I will have to go see what she has built.  We had started to build a school behind the restaurant and when I had left for work she was working on the restrooms and cafeteria in that but was really sad that I was leaving for work and we weren't even close to getting to the playground yet.

12.30    - break
1p    - excavation
//They worked hard to get the hole ready for the cedar post, and to raise it up in the hole when they finished.  I brought home a VERY heavy bag of Portland cement and we will try to mix it and pour it into the hole around the pole tomorrow.
2p    - done

Monday, March 16, 2015

Monday of holes and apple trees


9a    - gardening, outside and tractor work
10a    - dragon city
10.45a    - tree planting
11a    - tractor maintenance, airing tires
11.30a    - break

1p    - minecraft
2p    - garden cleanup
2.45p    - done

Yesterday Esme began digging a 'rabbithole like Alice' in the yard - and somewhere after the first shovelful it became a hole for an apple tree.  So, Daddy called me at work and I brought home a new apple tree to be pair to the one we have.  They planted it today. And she began working on another hole to sink her cilmbing tree into - which will have climbing wall tree spikes.  If they get it deep enough by Wednesday we will sink the cedar post in there with concrete and she will have what she saw in one of my design books that she can climb up and down.  Mark said we might just build her a crow's nest on it...she has been wanting a treehouse for quite a while, but that won't quite do that.  She already made a 'obstacle course' all along the pile of cedar posts on the ground, which she showed me when I got home.  We also planted some elephant ears, gladiolus and tulips in the yard.

She aired the tires on the tractor after being shown the implements and how to do it - she did that well, Daddy said.  They did some more cleanup work in the garden - which I had begun a month or so before all this frost.  She is playing with her mosaic tiles now and making patterns.  She says I can go look at her Minecraft project from today to see what she built :)


This was her build for the day - a wooden house with lots of shutters, a nicely finished inside (fireplace, library, seats, staircases and a bed in the upper story). Mark says there is also a 'terrarium' in the winter room now I should go see -- but didn't get there.

//We went into Minecraft and spent over an hour building a restaurant.  She wants to build a school tomorrow.. and something else - I forget.


I built the lighthouse while she was playing with her mosaic tiles - then she wanted to come build a school because she thought about the school bells ringing when she looked at my tower.  But - the restaurant was a better choice for the time we had.  


Sushi and Chinese restaurant : Happy Cat Cafe.
This is a shot of her prepping octopus in the kitchen - I told her it would be funny as we had been spawning octopi on the countertops by the cash register and then she put one in the sink.  I built a 'real' kitchen in the back of the restaurant telling her what each thing was and making signs.  She has to read the signs and sometimes asks what the words mean.  There is a dumpster out back, with 'spoiled' food in it in the alley way.  In the front she said she was making an 'eating outside place' and it turned out that was on the roof!  I made some stairs up to it.  Mark suggested adding vines - which looked cool.  Esme told me we needed lights.  Then we added flowers.  We took turns ordering things from the signs, adding up the gold and producing the requested order. 




Saturday, March 14, 2015

Projects in Minecraft homeschool stuff

 Esme's 'most beautiful place in the world' and 'book temple' which has lots of books
and enchanting tables inside it.
 This is more my build than hers - but she has helped some with it - especially on the inside.  We are calling it the Moon Palace.  It goes through the mountain and comes out the other side.

She had said I had to post the other side picture, too - while I was at it.

This is her 'summer room', which has a beach, a pool the 'sun' above and a place to rest and be warm.  The 'winter room' next door is the same, except open to the sky and snow all over the ground.  She was making snow golems there, but they kept dying because it was too warm.

We also are building our undersea Atlantis - which is not that picture worthy at the moment, but is becoming so.  We joined for fun tonight (not count as school) and made a sunken ship with sails and a lot of extra rooms on it.

For the record - she was reading her Power Pack comic books (of which I bought her a stack of twenty a few months back) and she was telling me about the story she had been reading on her own, and about the 'hideous' alien guards.  She knows what the word means, can read it - and hasn't been told it by us or helped with pronouncing ..maybe Grandma, but not sure.  She said the character hid behind 'one of the gang', which is like you and me, we are a gang because we are together.  She is breaking out with lots of new info, words and ideas and there is probably a 'spurt' about to occur.

Other comments today:  'I ate a LARGE container of popcorn chicken today!' (Mark let her order for herself, and she took advantage).  Mark: Not all at once (indicating she made more than one meal of it). Esme - from the back seat and matter-of-factly : 'Of course not, I ate them one at a time, with ketchup!'. //we laughed hard, she wondered exactly why...  Also, she didn't like the idea of lettuce at first in her taco - which I had ordered in haste.  Later she told me she liked the taco with the lettuce inside it, instead of the taco with no lettuce inside it, which was not what that was...  Things are forging ahead.

Bits from Friday out to town before I forget : When I said her cat had made a noise, she said no she didn't, she was right here *be-haivey* herself - which turned my head.  We also talked about 'What makes tires stay on the road on hills - why doesn't the car move' and the combination of brakes in the car and tread on the tires.  I had her look at her shoe bottoms, too - and said they were 'tread', and 'tread' also means to step on something with force or grip.  There was a truck transporting a tractor in front of us in the car and I pointed out that tractor had 'mud on the treads of its tire'.  She looked at her shoe again and said she never knew those things and lines were treads.  I used the word 'eaves' on her when we were at the library in the rain - 'Get up under the eaves quick or we'll get wet.'  She said: 'There are no leaves, mom - and we can't get under them/'  She was a bit frustrated when I said that 'eaves' was a word and it meant the bits of the roof that stick out over the wall - just say roof MOM - but some 'rooves' don't have eaves, this one does - and we don't get wet.  She got there and suddenly liked the idea - as she walked all along the building out of the rain.  We talked about climbing and baseball/soccer shoes with points - called 'cleats'.  She asked what the pitcher's name was (the throwing man) and if he needed the shoes.  I explained he needed the shoes too, to grab the pitcher's mound when he throws the ball - as much as the runners did for running in the sand and grass.  We've discussed what 'blood in the water' means as regards to sharks - which she hadn't understood that comment and why one had to do with the other (she had a toy shark she threw in some water and I made a comment).  She was very round-eyed about that -- we might need to get a shark documentary or watch a short Youtube.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Friday

11a - prepare for town, post office, Lowes
12 - library, Math Doodles game
1:30 - break
2 - PE at playplace
3 - spend allowance, helping Grandma with Groceries/unload
3:45 - spelling test first grade sections 11 & 12
--we'll probably start over from the beginning again for review
trouble with 'there' and 'each', but she remembered 'which' very well, and remembered 'rose' and 'pick' which I threw on the end to see if I could stump her.

4 - Minecraft, tour, building Atlantis city (Spelling, thinking, decision making)
---She had built a 'weather room' pair last time with Daddy and showed them to me - Summer and Winter.  they were very cool.  We started building a city under the ocean - just a few rooms to start with, and practicing with taking all the water out of the room after it is built.
5:45 - done

//Her attitude in town was very good, especially considering I wasn't feeling the best.  We got Grandma home and unpacked and then after her school finished she went up for a sleepover.



Thursday, March 12, 2015

Thursday miscellany

We finished the Sound of Music, and stopped several times to discuss what was really happening, and what the historical implications of World War II starting was in reference to the movie.

8a    - Sound of Music, history discussion about the War they are escaping from, what it meant to the world- why the father was willing to walk his children over the mountain rather than fight for the Nazis.  She also talked with me a bit about the seven children in one family, why their mother had died etc...she still wonders why it was so hard for us to have her, and she doesn't have siblings, etc.. it is a tough topic.

about 3/4 of the way through the second half she had a small break where she did an x-ray pretend with her doll, made some 'charts' and a fabric cast for her doll's foot. She used the sewing scissors with care to cut a long lengthways strip of cloth and tied it around the foot in a double-knot - both things she was almost unable and definitely unwilling to do in October.
11a    - dragon city
12p    - done

Mark counted the movie and her math as most of the official school - but she really did a lot of her own learning today, which is a great thing to see.  She had a good day - played with the big dryer box I had gotten her, built more with blocks, drew a picture outside (on her own initiative) with crayons and a tablet, got the mail by herself and brought it to Daddy.  Daddy also had to take care of our dog Sweetie who had torn her ear in the woods early this morning and needed watching over and some first aid once the bleeding had clotted a bit.  She is doing very well, and accompanied them on a walk to the lake this afternoon before I came home from work.  Mark says the grass is tall and golden down there- I want to try to see it tomorrow, as that is one of my favorite things.  It is tough being cooped up inside (at my work) when the weather is finally a bit nice.

We have a town run tomorrow, library, groceries, allowance spending... she also wanted to cut the box and paint it, but now we have duct taped another box to it to make it a shop with a counter - so maybe that is what it will be.  She is watching a Harry Potter movie she requested now, and then it will be bedtime.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Wednesday bits

9a    - Laundry / Washing machine operation
9.15a    - dragon city
9.45a    - Laundry
10a    - break

10.30a    - reading aloud (nursurey rhymes book)
10.45a    - typing practice (ditto)
11.15a    - TedTalk; Apollo Robbins on Misdirection
11.30a    - break

12.30p    - Planet Earth "Pole to Pole"
1.30p    - beseige
1.45p    - break

3.30p    - matific
4.15p    -Ted Talk, Andrew Bird "One Man Orchestra"
4.30p    - done

When I got home she showed me the hotel she built during one of her breaks - out of wooden blocks.  We also watched half of the Sound of Music tonight, which she was a bit hard to begin with (it is stodgy in the beginning) and then she really got into it... hope the second half is as capturing tomorrow. Putting away laundry, Jabberwocky and Elephant poems right before bed.

Last night she had been arguing a lot- Mark said she did some of that today as well, and got in trouble for it.  It's been a stressful last month with the being cold, iced-in and homebound, missing some things she was looking forward to in town during that etc...  now we are leading into a more 'normal' week but it is my week '6 days on' at work...no special trips out etc...which makes us all hope for a bit of actual rest to come in a more normal week with days off coming up.  She argued a lot about losing her library book the other day when she Aquified her tent.  She had been keeping it there as a special place, instead of where I usually have her keep her library book.  She tossed it out while making the 'under the sea' scene and forgot where she put it.  I told her if she didn't find it today, on Friday - she would have to face the librarian and say she had lost it.  She was VERY grumpy about the mention of the idea...sulking etc.  It has been a hard book and less fun than she anticipated it to be by the picture on the front.  That happens... I haven't pressed it because it was her choice last week...but I have pressed the 'loss' of it.  It is on my desk now ready to go back on Friday.  // I'm watching the Ted Talk they watched (they said the first one was good the second one was so-so and they didn't finish all of it) and then headed for bed.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Tuesday

Porkchops for breakfast :)
9.45a    - Planet earth "Fresh Water"
10.45a    - dragon city
11.45a    - break

2.15p    - pbskids
3p    - break

3.30p    - besiege (physics game)
//This is a really cool physics game to build siege engines, bomb delivery devices into castle walls etc etc... it is a much more thinking game than Goat Simulator - which we have now removed.  She just wasn't getting much of actual thinking value out of it anymore...  She is unhappy about it.. but, oh well- on to bigger and better things.
5.15p    - done

Monday, March 09, 2015

Monday apples

 Daddy had school today - and he wasn't feeling the best today, so they did a lot of computer stuff off and on over the day.  Then they peeled, cut and dried a bag of apples.

9a    - dragon city
10a    - minecraft
Mark said they built an apartment complex in Minecraft for the villagers, then made a lava pit to keep the population down...uh huh.
12p    - break
12.30p    - minecraft
1p    - dragon city
1.30p    - break

2p    - apple dissasembly & drying (math, splitting between trays, keeping count, staying 'four apples ahead of Daddy' while peeling (she was proud of that).
3p    - done

When I got home from work there were Mackintosh apples drying in the dehydrator and a very proud little girl.  She showed me the squishy spongy but delicious apples!  They had also saved the seeds - we might scatter them in the woods.  She knows they won't breed 'true' (from the documentary we watched) but that there is a chance, and she really wants to give them that chance.  We are still planning on buying another tree to be a partner to the one we planted last summer... she has been keeping a close eye on it.

She showed me the butterfly dragon she hatched in dragon city, and the dragon book with all the info of its 'habitats', combats and stages of growth.  She also showed me her Aqua Tent (which is her play tent in her room that is now 'pretend water' and has all of her sea creature stuffed animals arranged in it like they are living in the ocean, told me about the Minecraft projects, and begged to read more of the Poems and Rhymes book for bedtime reading.  We also went over the French words from the video we watched yesterday...she will need to go over it again.  I have an early day tomorrow though - so I'll be going to sleep soon. I made my 'signature' dinner of grilled egg (and cheese) sandwiches, which Esme eats and I was feeling in the mood for.  She had already eaten an early supper with Daddy, so I split the two sandwiches unevenly and she had a smaller portion - then came up to show me all the dragon things.

Bits : //we've talked about getting her banty chicks to have grow up, as her chickens are not laying many eggs...and she wants to pet them more.  But, she says she is not ready to take care of them, yet.  We feel the same....we're not ready either!  ha.  She has started to remind me about Easter, and talk about what the 'Easter rabbit - who is a spirit, not a rabbit' might have in mind for this year.. she knows it's kind of me, but that I look up things that are on the computer that were done for Easter, too...   I was so VERY cold last night - the humidity, probably... I've left her to read her Mama Cat Tells Time book in her bed with her light on, will go turn it off for her in a few minutes.

Friday, March 06, 2015

Friday Snowpocalypse snow construction (and more Minecraft)


All the knit things, and time to play in the snow.


Calvin, anyone?
I told her how I grew up in the frozen North and making igloo walls was an essential part of my education - we talked about using snow as 'glue' and also smoothing things out and looking through the snow to see where the weak points are - if you see light, it needs more snow there.

Take aim and fire!

Three snowmen, and she learned how to 
roll a huge snow ball, for the first time in her life.
Other than that, she had just seen it in books.
She was so amazed at how the snow stuck together - and even more so at how heavy it became so quickly!

Trek - or do we have gnomes?

Having a thoughtful moment after her snow wall was falling down.

And before all of this we did a lot more building in Minecraft for school today - as you can see on the map below it is getting quite crowded in our little world!  I've kind of spoiled her this week allowing Minecraft to be most of school for several days - but she is actually getting in and doing things..thinking, planning... and just when I think maybe I should be having her do something more traditional she has a really great idea or does a really good job with something I have asked her to try.  **Mark made a point that if she was in public school she wouldn't have had school at all this week - that we have covered this much ground is something to remark on...  Actually, since October, we have covered so much ground the only things I am worried about she might not be 'on par' with is her English 'parts of grammar' identification..which, considering her language issue, is difficult enough in itself for her in speech, much less in reading yet.  She is probably not getting what passed for history there either, but she does ask lots of questions, like the arch question from the other day, or the phoenix question from today.  **Mark points out we did all of Liberty's Kids this year, and she did learn from it.

We built two marketplaces, a new Indian village and places to harbor up boats today.  She also started doing requests and deliveries and we explored a few deep caverns.  She made 'the most beautiful place in the world' in a valley with a waterfall and flowers - part of what she had picked out of our Natural Wonders book (which was a Crimean peninsula photo full of green and mountains and water).  We made a money system in the marketplaces and did some trading with the villagers.  The money and market information kind of counts as a precursor to history or social studies.  We're laying the groundwork.  She also told me today she was 'an environmental Minecraft, a Steve that is part of Nature.'  She is a little bit worried about all of my tree clearing for making roads...lots to be said and learned there.  She had to clear trees to build her houses, too...but she is thinking on a pretty deep level there.

After doing all that horse riding in Minecraft she has found her old hobby horse I made again and been 'riding' it around the house from place to place.  It's really cute.

9a    - minecraft
12p    - Frozen Planet ep8 - on thin ice
1p    - minecraft
2.30p    - snowman construction
//phoenix discussion
//practicing making larges soap bubbles with bar soap - discussion about how the water swirls in the film of the bubble as it runs down towards the bottom
3.30p    - done

Thursday, March 05, 2015

Thursday treehouses and transportation build

 We built a transportation system in Minecraft today - mostly at my prompting, because she had tamed some horses.  I had also built a library the day before while she was asleep - she put an anvil and tieups for the horses out in front of it.  We are writing books about the world and storing them in chests in the library.

 I could count some of the book writing as spelling practice.  And she read the book about transportation that I had made.  I built a bridge across the river for our horses and she helped me build a railroad called 'all you can hurl' rollercoaster across the world to a new place.

 The glass structure is her 'skydiving station'. There is a little village near there we are building on, but she is up and down whether or not she wants to make decisions there.

Then she built teepees with me, to play Indian.  Her rules for Indian Minecraft are you cannot fly, wear a helmet or destroy any of the 'ancient forest' which are the jungle trees she planted.

Midafternoon we watched some Frozen planet and she also measured pork rub spices with Daddy on the balance scale according to their recipe, making enough for porkchops for dinner and a pork roast later tonight.  She is really getting good at measuring exactly enough and telling that it is correct before she dumps it into the mixing container.

9:15 - dragon city, maintenance, decisions, war, breeding, etc.
9:50 - Minecraft LAN, bridge, rollercoaster, road, skydiving station, library books
12:00 - Frozen planet dvd over lunch
1 pm - more Minecraft LAN, Indian Teepee, treehouses, exploration, watering hole with road
2:30 pm - measuring spices with balance beam scale
3pm - more LAN, discussing village, sheep, more Indian teepee and decorations (she used skulls in hers)
4pm - done with school, but she is still playing...thinking, she says... 15 minutes after that she still  hadn't made any decisions and had a fit over my disagreeing with her how to grow jungle trees (if the grass needed to be removed or not) and went to her room in a tizzy.

Dinner is in an hour... she was playing pretty much straight most of the day so she really needed to take a break but didn't want to.


Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Wednesday

 copywork from her Calvert book



9.45a    - dragon city
10.15a    - PE(200x jumping jacks, 20x 20lb stair laps)
10.30a    - break
11:30a  -  discussion about volcanoes
11.45a    - copywork
12.30p    - reading (3 billy goats, stone soup)
12.45p    - Frozen planet ep 2, 3, 4 (Spring, Summer, Fall)
3p    - done

//She wants to play soccer in the hallway, show me her new LEGO builds and then we might talk more about either seals or volcanoes.  We had done some discussion about volcanoes before I left for work - had promised her a video but didn't have time before I had to go.  She told me that Daddy and her talked about different kinds of seals.  I asked her what they eat, and what eats them - and she was able to tell me good answers.  She still wants me to make a seal toy for her - but wanted it to be 'real'..said that wasn't going to happen and she said oh, yea.  heh

She was reading some in the new HONEY book she had borrowed from the library.  Her complaint is that the books are just so long - but she had trouble only with a few higher level words.  'barrelling', 'honestly', 'forged', 'meant', 'Peterson', 'fostered'.  Her reading is really 'forging' along, but she still gets tired of it quickly.  Daddy and her had an argument today about what day of the week it is...she wanted it to be Thursday so she only had one more day of school left.

//We watched a geography video about volcanoes, and went over some of the vocabulary written down.

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

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.

Monday, March 02, 2015

Monday

9a    - dragon city
9.45a    - PE (running outside)
10a    - Joy of Painting s06e11
10.30a    - PE (100x jumoing jacks, 10x 20lb bench, 100x 10lb bench, 10x 20lb stairwalk)
11a    - break

1p    - GS discovery walk
2p    - break

3p    - library & town run
4p    - break

6.30p    - Frozen Planet ep 1
7.30p    - done