Monday, Febuary 25

Instead of using this blog to schedule Catherine's work I'll now be using it to record what she's done after the fact.

Today, we started verbs in Winston Grammar and did some work on the Greek letter Omicron. In math Catherine did some multiplication practice and some venn diagram activities. We've been reading about set theory so I thought it would be a good time to introduce the Venn Diagrams. She immediately recognized them from colour-blending diagrams.

I've also printed out some nice logic puzzles from this link that she want to do later.

Tuesday, Febuary 19

Yikes! First no internet and then the flu...This poor blog has suffered in the last week. I'm not sure how you will be feeling today so let's take it easy.

- Greek
- Grammar
- A couple of sheets of multiplication.
- Reading. I'll read Prince Caspian and Mathematical Ideas.

If you have any extra energy we'll bake cookies for your Girl Guides meeting and read and research some stuff from I-Science (your choice).

Tuesday, February 12

It's Darwin Day today! Hopefully we'll be starting to watch a PBS Nova series on evolution but until then we'll celebrate by reading a small biography of Darwin and an article on cat evolution.

Of course, we'll also be doing the normal stuff:

- Greek

- Grammar

- Multiplication. You'll be doing a worksheet but we'll also be going over a worksheet on the factorization of integers. Don't worry, they're big words but easy ideas.

- Valentine's Day stuff! We've got to make cookies for your Guides troop and you've got to do up the cards you'll be giving out.

A lolcat in honour of Darwin Day:

Monday, February 11

Let's take today a little easy. Daddy is leaving today for a couple of weeks so I don't imagine you'll be too focused. Still, let's get some stuff done.

- Greek

- Grammar

- Multiplication quizes and crosswords.

- I-Science. Let's read the rest of the first chapter and then explore the internet, Brainpop and our bookshelves to find what else we can learn about that chapter.

- We've got those two new card games, Sherlock and Eye of Horus plus the old one, Quiddler that we haven't played so why not try them out today at some point.

- Find something new for me to read. Read Owls in the Family. Yes, you have to. You keep putting it off but it's time to put some work into it Missy.

Friday, February 8

Remember what I said yesterday about having a math day today? I was serious. No Greek. No Grammar. Just math.

- Multiplication quizes

- Decimals. Let's see how far we get.

- Islamic patterns.

- Finish the Math Cats grids.

- Square numbers. I want you to draw them on graph paper and also find them on your times table.

- Do the riddles I printed out yesterday.

- Help me do some math activities with the little ones.

Thursday, February 7

The work:

- Grammar

- Greek

- Your carrots and parsnips have either shoots or roots. It might be time to try them in wet soil. Transplant them from the dish with water and we'll see how they do.

- You had questions about Lent so we'll read some information about it from this page.

- We need to do some reading. Pick a couple of books to read to Harry, read some of Owls in the Family and I'll read The horse and His Boy.

- Listen to Story of the World and work on your painting.

- Have some quiet time at some point and do this activity. I've printed out a copy for you and you'll need some colours.

Wednesday, February 6

There was no work yesterday because you were at your grandmother's but we do have stuff to do today.

Here goes:

- Greek
- Grammar
- Multiplication quizes
- Decimals- work on them for 30 minutes
- Story of the World
- Art project

One change we're going to make is that after this post I'll make another at the end of the day to show some of what you worked on. This will let Nanny and others see what your work looks like and also give me a way to record it.

Now on to your lolcat picture.

Monday, February 4

So you're going to your grandother's house today. That means we'll have to get your work done early. As per our discussion yesterday, spelling is off the list. It's one of the things we can sacrifice to loosen up our day.

The work:

- Greek
- Grammar
- Multiplication quiz
- Decimals: See how much you can get done in 30 minutes.
- Science: We'll look at your textbook and see where that takes us. It's about the moon so howsabout we check out Brainpop and see what they have? Also, let's do the related activity in your I-Science workbook. It's going to take us about a month to finish and involves observation. Think you can guess what it might be?

Special treat: What is today's lolcat reffering to?

Fiday, February 1

Clean up day! Yes, I do mean your room but I also mean the stuff we were supposed t do yesterday that didn't get done.

Let's see:

- Spelling. Quick, what were the three patterns we covered this week?
- Grammar. Time to write something of your choice as long as it contains 4 proper nouns.
- Greek.
- Decimals, pages 19-20 at least. More if you'd like.
- Geography. Remember the pages that we forgot to do yesterday? Do them today!
- I-Science. We're going to look at your textbook and read about the earth and go from there. Maybe look at Brainpop, maybe see what books we have that would be helpful and certainly take a look at the first activity in your workbook. I think it relates to something you already understand but we can still do it if you'd like!

Last night we watched the Nature of Things episode on sight and you were interested in the software that let a blind woman see by sound. I found a link to the site where we can download the software and see if we can learn to use it a bit. Also, to see if we can translate a different sense into something like sight let's take that wooden shape game we have, close our eyes and see if we can build an image in our minds of what each shape is. No peeking!

Psst! Notice anything about the bolded words in the last paragraph?

On to the silliness:

What do you call a pig who knows karate?


A Pork-Chop!

What looks exactly like a hippo but weighs nothing?


Its shadow!

Thursday, January 31

Okay, I think that scheduling Story of the World or any activities that require a large slot of time in the afternoon is a bad idea when Madi is up for the day. I won't do that again.

Today's work:

- Spelling. Please, please do better than yesterday. I don't know where you left your brain yesterday morning but if you could just check and make sure it's installed and running before today's spelling test, I'd sure sppreciate it!
- Grammar
- Greek
- Multiplication drill. You took another minute off yesterday. You're aiming for 3 minutes. Can you do it today?
- Multiplication. I've printed out a multiplication table for you. Go over it with a highlighter and highlight what you know. Once you've got that done figure out what you still need to learn and pick a way to tackle that. I'll help you with this.
- Word problems. Do 3 word problems from Challenging Word Problems.
- Geography. Do pages 5 and 6 from Let's Explore Canada.
- Story of the World and painting.

Wednesday, January 30

I am amazed that you got most of your work done yesterday. With both cousins up I thought for sure the day was a wash but you really committed to getting your work done before and after their visit. Thank you Catherine! The only thing that didn't get done was the Girl Guides thing. Maybe you could tackle that first thing this morning?

On to today's work:
- Spelling.
- Grammar.
- Key to Decimals, pages 16 and 17.
- Multiplication quiz. You knocked a whole minute off your time yesterday!
- Story of the World. I think we're still with the Romans?
- Painting. Might as well work at that while you're listening to SOTW, eh?
- Greek
- Play with you geoboard. I have some challenges for you (from this site) so copy and paste the following list to Wordpad and then print tit out, grab your geoboard and show me what you can do!
Try making the following:

a) triangle with a right angle

b) triangle with no right angle

c) a house containing right, acute, and obtuse angles.

d) a sailboat with no right angles

e) a Christmas tree using at least three triangles

f) a rocket ship made of rectangles and squares

g) a five sided figure

h) a parallelogram that is not a rhombus, square, or rectangle.

Lolcat time:

Tuesday, January 29

Well done yesterday! I can't believe how much we got done and how quickly we got through it!

For today:

- Spelling. I want you to number your sheet today but instead of numbering it from one to 25, use skip counting with 4's.
- Grammar.
- Math. Pages 37 and 38 from Math Mammoth Multiplication and 3 problems from your new Primary Mathematics Challenging Word Problems book.
- Multiplication quiz. Same one as yesterday. Can you beat yesterday's time?
- Greek.
- Let's Explore Canada, pages 2 and 3.
- Music Ace, lesson one. We already did it on the demo but I'd like you to try it again now that I've shilled out money for the full version.
- Reading. Me reading The Horse and His Boy and you reading Owls in the Family and a book or two to Harry. Our reading evaporated over our week off so we need to get back to it.

For your Girl Guides Plants and Animals Badge:

- Choose and use a plant part to propagate a plant. Find something around the house you could use. I'm sure we have roots or seeds at least.

Monday, January 28th

Yea! Back to school! You had a good week off and Daddy's back from his trip and all is right with the world now so let's get some work done.

- Spelling.
- Grammar. Lesson 2: The nouns are back but are they common or proper?
- Key to Decimals p 15-16.
- Multiplication quiz.
- I-Science. We'll read up to page 5 in your text and watch a Brainpop short on the Sun.
- Greek.
- Geeart lesson.

We may end up going to go see a movie. If so we'll put of the Geeart lesson but everything else has to be done.

Okay, time for a silly lolcat picture:

Nothing New Until January 28

Since this week is so crazy and we had a break coming up next week anyway we'll push our break up a week. Be back on the 28th.

Monday, January 21

Somehow we've got to get your work done today in between trips for car parts and a visit to Uncle Peter's house. Anything that needs to be printed out will have to be now so we can take it with us.

- Spelling.

- Grammar. I want you to write a paragraph on the subject of your choice but with the awareness that I want to see articles and nouns, between 6 and 8 of each.

- Greek.

- Math. I've got 3 quizzes for you today. Don't panic. They're not difficult, just meant to keep you sharp. I also want you to work on your Key to Decimals book for half an hour.

- Science. We're doing the Sun. We'll read pages 4 and 5 in the text and then have a big discussion about it. I've got interview questions and I want to know what you know! Later on at home I've got a documentary to watch called, Secrets of the Sun.

Somewhere in there we'll fit some time with Uncle Peter's XBox 360 and Guitar Hero III.

Time for a lolcat!

Sunday, January 20

Now I know it's Sunday today but we didn't do anything on Friday due to your cousins' visit so we'll do a bit of science today. Also, we'll be starting your new science curriculum Monday and I wanted to review one thing before we begin.

- The water cycle. We'll do a quick review. I have a book to read and we'll put our own book together using the worksheets on this site. I picked worksheets with big pictures because I thought Harry would enjoy doing this with us. We'll also be doing a demonstration mentioned in the worksheets.

That's all!

Thursday, January 17

Today is going to be busy. You're going to preschool with Harry to work as an aide and I've got to get the car to the shop for some work. Then we have to go see the Most Adorable Buffy, Nanny and Papa's new puppy. Somewhere in all that madness we should fit in spelling, grammar and a multiplication quiz. Any ideas? Also, how about you listen to Story of the World this afternoon while you work on your painting? That will be all we do.

Oh! Before I forget, there are some new links in your sidebar under 'Japanese'. Those links have resources you can use to learn some Japanese!

Wednesday, January 16

- Spelling.

- Grammar.

- Greek.

- Page 43-46 from your Singapore Math textbook and exercise 19 in your workbook.

- Instead of playing Webkinz play the Grid game and spend some time with Timez Attack.

- Since we learned a bit about Artemisia of Halicarnassus why not learn a bit about another Artemisia as well? This one was a post-renaissance painter and you can view some of her paintings here.

- Reading. Let's spend a solid hour with The Horse and His Boy and I want you to set aside some time for Owls in the Family as well.

That's all I have. Do you have any suggestions?

Oh, and since you protested the lack of cute cat pictures yesterday, here you go:


moar funny pictures

Tuesday, January 15

We got almost everything done yesterday that was supposed to be done which is pretty good. The two things we didn't do were the create-an-alien activity I linked to or any reading. We'll catch up today.

- Spelling

- Grammar

- Do the create-an-alien activity. the link is in the last blog post.

- 30 minutes of Key to Decimals.

- Try out Let's Explore Canada. You didn't seem too hot on Our Home and Native Land so since we have the LEC book kicking around then why not give it a try?

- Greek. You've done Alpha and Beta. What's the next letter?

- Reading!!! Spend some time reading to Harry. Also, pick out a book for yourself because you're going to start having a quiet reading time. Oh, and we still haven't made any progress with The Horse and His Boy so let's get back to that.

- Your pick. Either more episodes of Cosmos or Rome: Engineering an Empire. You can make the popcorn and serve the drinks tonight!

Q. How many books can you put in an empty backpack?




A. One! After that its not empty!

Monday, January 14

Hi there kid. There's lots to do today so let's get to it:

- Spelling. First, do you remember the patterns in our last test? The two ways to make the long a sound?

- Greek. Speaking of long a sounds why don't we try a few more sentences from your 'Alpha' worksheet. I know it can be frustrating to try and figure out which is the long alpha sound and which is the short one but let's take a few minutes to see if we can do it today.

- Grammar. We'll try our first lesson in Winston Grammar.

- Math. Key to Decimals. How many pages do you think you can get done in 30 minutes?

- GeeArt lesson.

- Science. We haven't got your new curriculum yet but I do have a neat series called Cosmos I'd like to see and you can watch with me. It looks like a fun series and it explores everything from how the universe was made to whether we're alone in the universe. We'll watch the first episode at least and if you'd like there's a related activity here. Don't try to submit your work though as the link is old.

- Sometime during the day you need to find a couple of things to read to Harry and search for something you can read on your own. We also have to read some of the Horse and His Boy.

- Some cleaning. Your room needs attention. Get Harry's help but be patient with him. Keep the following picture in mind when he's in there with you;

moar funny pictures

Friday, January 11th

Some of your new curriculum arrived yesterday! Whoo hoo! There's Winston Grammar, the Greek Hupogrammon and Let's Explore Canada, a geography book I forgot I ordered. We'll start the grammar today but I want you to look over the geography one and see if you want to switch to it or if you want to stick with your current book. I also want you to take a look at your greek workbook as well. You choose a really important and interesting language to learn but, of course, it's going to take a lot of work that may not be so fun. The book I got will help you write, know and pronounce the letters of the alphabet so commit to working through that book.

Here we go:

- Spelling

- Grammar

- Singapore Math, pages 39, 40 and Exercise 18 in the workbook.

- Greek

- Nature walk. The sun is out and the snow is gone so why don't we all take a walk outside and see what's going on with the local plants and animals. Take along a spare notebook and a pencil in case you want to write or draw any of what you've observed.

That's it.

moar funny pictures

Thursday, January 10th

We got so little done yesterday but we'll catch up today.

- Spelling

- Get a start on Key to Decimals book 2, your choice for what we do next.

- Write that letter to your penpal.

- Finish the geography work from yesterday. You left half the country unlabeled and we just can't have that.

- Do some work on your paint-by-numbers picture.

- Look over the Scholastic book order form and see if there's anything you want.

- Plan how you're going to work towards the Guides badge you want.

- Solve the cryptogram I made here to find out what I'd like to do with you this afternoon. I printed out a copy and stuck it on your desk.

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a wolf?




Frostbite!

Wednesday, January 9th

moar funny pictures

There, so you start the day with a smile!

- Spelling

- Math. You're doing more work on your 3 times tables just to make sure it's in your head forever! The pages are in the Math Mammoth Multicplication section of your Math Mammoth binder - The first 3 pages in fact.
- Write a letter to your penpal!

- Music! Go to Music Theory and try the first lesson on the Staff, Cleff and ledger lines. I'll be there with you as I'm going to do the lessons as well.

- Geography. You'll do two pages and two maps from Our Home and Native Land.

- Guides. You have Girl Guides tonight so you need to get all the stuff you'll need together before about 4 pm.

Tuesday, January 8th

Okay, so spelling and math quizzes are not a good idea when you've been out all morning. That's okay. I am glad you got your GeeArt lesson done though and don't think I didn't notice how you had Harry and Madi following along and learning about lines!

Today we'll start with what you didn't do yesterday and just carry on from there:

- Spelling

- Multiplication quiz. It's the four times table that we didn't do yesterday of course.

- Key to Geometry. You've only got 10 pages of book 1 left so we'll just zoom through it and see what you know and what you need to do. Let's aim for finishing it today and then we'll move on to the Key to or Math Mammoth book of your choice. You can pick from Measurement, Geometry book 2, Decimals book 2, Fractions book 2, Algebra or Percents.

- History. We'll get back to Story of the World. We can pick up with the Peloponnesian wars and then Alexander. SOTW then takes a bit of a side trip and teases you with a bit about the Nazca and Olmec. We'll stop after the tracks about them and you can come back here to explore some sites on those cultures.

Olmec:
Olmec Heads
Figures of Olmec Mythology
The Olmec

Nazca:
Hot Science/Alien Evidence? (The skeptic in you will like this page!)
The Unmuseum - The Lines of Nazca. The bottom of the page has a link to our activity for the day, showing how the Nazca lines may have been created. It involves going outside but we'll do it on even a smaller scale inside. Oh! Doesn't this all relate nicely to your art lesson yesterday?

Finish up your day with a logic puzzle at Learning Games. That's it!

January 7th

Welcome to Monday morning! Still no Greek, grammar or science curriculum. I wish that stuff would arrive soon!

Planner out? Good. Here we go:

- Spelling

- Multiplication quiz. Print out the 4 times tables today and we'll see how you do.

- GeeArt16 Lesson.

That's it for today. You'll be coming home a little late from your overnighter at Aunt Sandra's so we'll keep it light today. The one very important thing to remember is that Robotech, a classic anime show, is starting on Space (channel 97) tonight at 6 pm. For you to attain the proper measure of geekness you MUST watch this show.

Love,
Great Geek Mother

January 5th and 6th

Just a note about what's going on this weekend.

- Your brother's party

- Sunday School

- My choir concert

That's it!

January 4th

Take out your planner. Remember how you wrote down what you had to do and planned when you would do it yesterday? That's what you will do every school day from now on. Here we go:

- Spelling

- Multiplication Quiz. When you click on that link, go to 3 Times Tables (PDF), print it and that's the quiz we'll do. Easy, I know, but good practice.

- Check out Key to Geometry, book 1. Go over it with me and we'll find out what you know and see how much of that book we really need to do.

- Construct a paper dodecahedron. You now have the five platonic solids! There's lots you can do now:

Vist Studying Polyhedra. Answer the questions using either the animation or your own models.

Sit down with me so we can go over the Childcraft Mathemagic sections on the solids.

We skipped the term polyhedron in all this. Can you find out what that means? How it's related to the solids?

Do up a sheet of facts on the solids. You can write it yourself or copy and paste or even find a good fact sheet on the internet and print it out. But make sure you have the following info - vertices, edges, faces (what are other words we've been using for those terms?). You could even add a breakdown of the names of each solid. What does tri mean? How about poly? Does hedron have a meaning? What language do those terms come from?

Get your protractor out! Measure the angles on the solids. Do you notice something about the angles on each solid?

You've got 5 freakin' solids now! What are you going to do with them? Mount them on paper? Make a mobile? Glue them together to make some sort of sculpture? Toss them out? Make individual ornaments? Something I didn't think of?

- Read to your brother.

- read some more of Julie of the Wolves

That's it!

Except for some jokes. :)

Q: What's another name for a clever duck?
A: A wise quacker!

Q: Which bird is always out of breath?
A: A puffin!

Q: What's got six legs and can fly long distances?
A: Three swallows!

January 3rd

First, congratulations on your spelling test yesterday! 22 out of 25 is awesome! Now, on to business:

- Take out your Student Planner book and write in the following things and a time when you'll tackle them.

- Spelling

- Multiplication quiz. Just a really easy one to see how your memory held up over the Christmas break.

- 4 pages from Our Home and Native Land: Canadian Geography. They're printed out and on your desk! How good of me, eh?

- Construct an icosahedron! You can either photocopy the pattern out of our Childcraft Mathemagic book or you can use these printables, 1 and 2.

- Um, perhaps you should do that reading of Julie of the Wolves you didn't do yesterday? You know, the one I kept reminding you about?

- Make desert! Your mission is to make Magic Cookie Bars. They're the delicious squares you had the other night. Make sure to print out the recipe and stick it in your binder...Which reminds me, you forgot to write out the french toast recipe! But, if you can tell me what goes into our french toast mix from memory then who needs a hard copy? There were 4 things...What were they?

If you need any help just call because kid, in this family we're all about...


moar funny pictures

January 2nd

First a joke:

What do you get when you cross an automobile with a household animal?




A carpet! :D

Okay, on to the stuff.

- AVKO Spelling.

- Construct a paper octahedron. You can find an example to print here. Once you've got it printed, cut oout and constructed figure out what other geometric solid you get if you split the octahedron in half.

- Make us some French Toast for lunch! Either use the family recipe or one from AllRecipes.com but either way make sure you have a hard copy of the recipe that you can stick in your blue binder when your finished.

- Catch up on your blue binder. Check what stuff you need to stick in their for memory's sake (your Christmas church reading?) and also reconcile your money page.

- Read some of Julie of the Wolves.

- Read to your brother.

- Play Animal Crossing. Seriously. I think you have something neat in the mail. Not something I mailed to you but a surprise from the game.

Good luck!

PS: I made a few ridiculous spelling mistakes in this post, find them if you can!