Well, to start with, we started late. (That was totally my fault.) We started with the Pledge and Bible. The Bible lesson was short. We're reading from Rabbit's NIrV. The passages were good, and she seemed to get the point of each passage. Then we read about Hinduism from Window on the World. It was interesting how similar it is to Buddhism. Sure, there are differences - Hinduism sounds like more fun with all the excuses to have festivals, but the idea of reincarnation and having to work extra hard to be extra good to keep from being reincarnated is similar.
Geography went quickly. Basically, we read about the difference between a political map and a physical map, and then looked at a couple of those. Easy things. Then we reviewed the continents and oceans. She's got North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica fine. I think she messes up Africa and Asia, but she won't for long.
We finished up our science experiment from yesterday. One of the things I thought that was interesting was that the xylem seemed to not only transport water, but it actually seemed to provide support for the celery stalks. We had one intact celery stalk in red-colored water; one intact celery stalk in no water; and one celery stick with the xylem removed, in water. The one with the xylem removed really curled up and wilted. The one in no water, but that had xylem, was getting softer, but it did not curl up. The one in water with it's xylem still in place felt really firm. Here's our photo of the celery after 24 hours. The one on the left is xylem intact with water, the one in the center is xylem intact with no water, and the one on the right is the has no xylem, but is in water:
It was pretty neat to cut the celery and see the red dots where the red water went up the xylem. Here's a photo of that:
Today was also nature walk day. We took about a 1/2 hour walk. Rabbit gathered up some leaves, but we forgot to take any bark rubbings. Someone along the path we took has a peach tree! So, I let the kids all feel the peaches and see what they looked like on the tree. I did let Rabbit take one leaf from the peach tree, but no peaches.
When we got back, Rabbit made rubbings of her leaves for her nature notebook, and worked on her handwriting while I did preschool with the boys. I tried doing bulletin board time with them, but that was a flop. I really had to insist they participate. They may not be ready yet. Or, maybe every day is too much. They really like me reading stories to them, and then playing with one of the toys from the My Father's World preschool kit. I'll have to see if I can work what I'm doing for bulletin board time into those.
While I made lunch, Rabbit did book basket time as usual. She was really into whatever book she was looking at, so she spent about a 1/2 an hour on it.
I put the boys down for quiet time, while she started on her math page. She got to a question that had her stumped. I talked it out with her, and she figured out on her own how to solve it, but it frustrated her, because she hadn't seen a question like that one yet. (I can relate to that from my college math classes.) We reviewed our poem really quick, and then I got out Primary Language Lessons. She ran and hid then. That got me frustrated, because we had done everything orally up until then. (She did return when I called her.) I looked at the lesson, and it was to practice writing addresses out the way you would for an envelope. I thought it was important enough to try to do it. We only did two addresses, but she acted like it was the hardest thing in the world. I managed to hold my tongue during the lesson and sit by her and help her through it. Then, we looked at some real mail to compare. We finished with doing addition math windows for the day.
After school, I asked her if she had liked today. She shrugged her shoulders, kind of rolled her eyes, and said, "I don't know." I lost my cool then. I talked, or rather lectured, to her about her attitude just then and during writing and how that made me feel. I shouldn't have gotten on her case. I need some verses for attitude - besides the "Do everything without complaining or grumbling" one. I probably need some verses for myself, too. I'm trying really hard to just work with her and help her as much as I can and not yell or get upset with her, and then to have her throw attitude in my face at the end of the day... well, I'm sure you can relate.
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