This was rather an "off" week for us, as far as productivity goes. Starting last Friday, Kathryn had a fever and was just exhausted. No other symptoms other than a headache. Sunday she was diagnosed with pink eye, so we've been doing eye drops all week since then, and washing sheets and her favorite sleeping buddy, Gaspar the beluga whale. Ken brought a new set of Legos home from the huge Lego store in the Mall of America from his business trip last week, so Kathryn has been playing with Legos like crazy all week. With her not feeling great, it's been a wonderful diversion to entertain her without getting her over-tired.
We had a field trip planned on Thursday, to go to a working farm and have a barn tour and nature walk, but it has been raining for three days straight, so the field trip was cancelled. It will be rescheduled for next month. I was actually rather glad about that because I didn't want to stomp around through the mud after Kathryn was just beginning to feel well again.
We had a field trip planned on Thursday, to go to a working farm and have a barn tour and nature walk, but it has been raining for three days straight, so the field trip was cancelled. It will be rescheduled for next month. I was actually rather glad about that because I didn't want to stomp around through the mud after Kathryn was just beginning to feel well again.We didn't break out a single workbook this week, but we did do all our history readings, and began Robin Hood this week. Kathryn laughed at the jokes the merry men played on Little John (who wasn't little at all!), and I think we'll really enjoy this story. It's a little harder to read aloud than the books with more modern language, but we do like that old-fashioned language and I'm having to explain far fewer words now that she's familiar with The Blue Fairy Book and some of Shakespeare's stories. I can't imagine having that kind of familiarity with such literature at only eight years old! It still amazes me the vocabulary she has, too, and we've never done one bit of formal spelling or vocabulary words. One day this week, for instance, she used the word "indignantly" correctly in a conversation we were having!
Kathryn read another Dear America book; this one was about a girl from 1776. She finished up The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, which went right along with what we've been reading in Holling C Holling's Seabird, about life on a whaling ship.
Another day this week, we were talking at lunch, and a conversation about a dog I had years ago ended up leading into a discussion about brains and the fact that your inner ear is what helps you have balance, and how many ribs humans have, and what bone marrow is, and so on. We used the computer to look up a few things I wasn't sure of, and then she got out one of her favorite science books, What's Inside Me, and read more about the human body, like about the smallest bone (the stirrup) and how small it was, and then she wanted me to show her exactly how small 3mm is, and was amazed when I did. That sort of thing continued on for a while, and I realized that although we hadn't "done school" that day, we actually had learned quite a lot!
Since she wasn't feeling well last Friday, she didn't do her nature journal entry about our nature walk last Thursday. This week she went ahead and did that, and she's updated her blog. She was disappointed about not having our field trip this week, but we "redecorated" her blog, and that perked her up a bit. (Sounds like me!) I still like her using the blog as another sort of narration. She can blog about whatever she wants, but I do require her to write something about any field trips we do.
OH! Don't forget: I'll be hosting the next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival right here next Tuesday, so if you haven't sent in your entries yet, there is still time to do so! (Just use the submission form here.)
Kathryn read another Dear America book; this one was about a girl from 1776. She finished up The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed, which went right along with what we've been reading in Holling C Holling's Seabird, about life on a whaling ship.
Another day this week, we were talking at lunch, and a conversation about a dog I had years ago ended up leading into a discussion about brains and the fact that your inner ear is what helps you have balance, and how many ribs humans have, and what bone marrow is, and so on. We used the computer to look up a few things I wasn't sure of, and then she got out one of her favorite science books, What's Inside Me, and read more about the human body, like about the smallest bone (the stirrup) and how small it was, and then she wanted me to show her exactly how small 3mm is, and was amazed when I did. That sort of thing continued on for a while, and I realized that although we hadn't "done school" that day, we actually had learned quite a lot!
Since she wasn't feeling well last Friday, she didn't do her nature journal entry about our nature walk last Thursday. This week she went ahead and did that, and she's updated her blog. She was disappointed about not having our field trip this week, but we "redecorated" her blog, and that perked her up a bit. (Sounds like me!) I still like her using the blog as another sort of narration. She can blog about whatever she wants, but I do require her to write something about any field trips we do.
OH! Don't forget: I'll be hosting the next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival right here next Tuesday, so if you haven't sent in your entries yet, there is still time to do so! (Just use the submission form here.)
