Friday, Saturday & today...

Friday: We actually did get the lesson out of the way in the morning! C.O. worked on math - the problems are increasing in complexity, but he still seems to enjoy it. More word problems, which involve drawing (always a plus), some coloring (to determine most & least), and counting to sixth place. Then he read "The Dump Truck" out loud, with very little sounding out. A couple of pages in HWOT rounded off the morning's work. In the meantime, C.J. practiced writing her name, and drew & colored in some polka dots. After all that, we headed off to the Super Playground in Sebastopol - totally cool place! It's all made of wood, some tires, etc., and looks like a castle. What's really nice is that there are built-in benches everywhere, so I could be close to the kids the majority of the time. The elflings got to play with lots of other kids too. C.J. played with Cassia, and we discovered both are left-handed (they are so similar in so many ways that it is kind of freaky). C.O. loved playing Civil War boat with C.J., B, J, and B & J's dad, R. All in all, it was a good afternoon, and we didn't leave the park until it just got too cold. I met a couple of the other homeschooling parents too. What I like is that (once the other hs'ing parents know kind of what you and your kids look like) the kids can spread out and there's always a parent keeping an eye on them.
When we got home, I cooked dinner while the kids played with their Magna-Doodles. C.O. spelled out Daddy, Mommy, his own name, and C.J.'s name just by sounding them out! He did struggle a little with C.J.'s name, but got 5 of the 6 letters! C.J. traced her hand about sixty times.
 
Saturday: Did some lessons in the morning - math and reading, then we read Green Eggs & Ham to see how much of it C.O. could sound out. He got a fair bit, but naturally words like "couldn't" and "wouldn't" threw him off. Then, we went off to the tire shop, and C.O. watched in absolute fascination as they raised the SUV up, took off the old tires (which were getting waaaay too bald for comfort) and put on new ones. We're going to fill out a field trip form for that, so it'll really count as school. Then at home, C.O. described the whole thing to M, while C.J. helped me make a big pot of turkey chili.
 
Today: If it wasn't for the fact that we are nearly out of milk, I wouldn't leave the house today. We're going to clean a lot today! C.O. has already asked if he could do school, so I think this evening we'll finally finish the Family Tree. I'm going to sort through (or at least try to) the clothes in my closet. There are these great drop-off bins in Petaluma for old clothing, shoes, etc., so I'll be donating a bunch of stuff. I like these bins because you just driop the bagged stuff off, without having to deal with snotty people sorting through it and not wanting half of it (had this experience at Goodwill a few times.. "well, we have too many x so we're not taking these right now"). The kids are going to start sorting out toys soon too, to get rid of half (I hope) before Christmas comes.
Tomorrow we're off to the symphony - they're doing a special shorter show for school-age kids, and C.O.'s charter school got free tickets! There were just enough tickets that the whole family gets to go.
 
Edited to add: I'm reading "The Well-Trained Mind" (got it at the library on Friday) and love it! This is so much the education I wish I had had - it makes sense. I'm taking copius notes so that I can use the basic ideas though I will be tweaking them a bit. If you haven't read this, I do recommend it, but as recommended to me, get the older version (apparently the newer one is more about the author's products than a variety of resources). I love the way they tie history segments to science segments, and it all seems to flow very sequentially.