Homeschool day 1
We started with Breakfast and Books and read Three Cheers for Tacky (Tacky's a penguin), and Living in the Wild: Emperor Penguins with Reading Bear. Then we did our morning day, date, weather, calendar stuff after hanging up the whiteboard in the hallway. That led to an interesting conversation about how we count the years and A.D. and B.C. Then the termite guy came and Bri wrote in her journal and then wrote a page for me about what she already knew about penguins. Reading her page let us work on lower case t and review some of the spelling/phonics concepts. I was pleased with how well she self-corrected when I asked prompting questions. Then she did a math ws/coloring page. We made a blue Jello Antarctica with marshmallow icebergs. Then we had fish sticks and grapes for lunch. Then Micah and Kiara arrived and we went with them and Barbara to see "March of the Penguins," which we highly recommend. Back at our house, we had Micah and Kiara with us until dinner/prayer time so we had our Antarctic snack and then they decorated their penguin folders. While they were doing that, we got to talk about camouflage. Then we weighed and measured all the kids and compared their size to the size of an average Emperor penguin. (Bri is the height of a tall Emperor penguin, but about half its weight.) I went into the kitchen to pitch in a tiny bit with dinner prep and enjoyed overhearing their living room playtime from there. Clearly, they could handle review on their own: "Hurry--get on the ice (the futon on the floor)! A leopard seal is coming. . . . It's okay, he can't get you on the ice." "I'll be the dad and take care of the egg--Brianna, you're the mom--go to the sea and eat a LOT of fish, okay?" By then, some neighborhood kids had arrived. When it got a little crazy, I read a couple more books they chose from the book basket while Paul and Barbara handled the veggies and hot dogs on the grill. Others showed up and prayed and played and eventually went home. Brianna just told Paul a lot about Antarctica and emperor penguins. Then they read one last Tacky book for the night. Now we are headed for bed, where Brianna is listening to a library audiobook --This week she's been listening to the Felicity books of the American Girls series, which we are using as our American history springboard. I know this is way too much information for the rest of the world--it's mostly something for Bri and I to be able to look back at and remember what that very first day was like.