My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies

We spent about an hour doing sit down school time this morning. An hour seems so short, but we got a lot done. They practiced their spelling. Luke has the planets so I taught them the "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies (or pizzas)" you know, for the planets in order from the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Okay okay, so technically Pluto got demoted. I briefly mentioned that to them. Maybe we will look it up for part of school tomorrow. Isabel then drew and wrote about "Super Isabel's" weaknesses. Since Luke had already done that part for his superhero, he drew and described some setting ideas. We also read Martin Luther King Jr: The Life of a Civil Rights Leader by Gary Jeffrey illustrated by Chris Forsey. What's great about this MLK book is that it is in comic book format, word bubbles and all!

Alright, so the reason why we only spent one hour doing sit down school was because it was a beautiful day outside. After school we got ourselves some Costco hot dogs and headed for the park. They (we) played for a couple hours there and then I let them ride their scooters in the front yard when we got home. When they came inside they played Webkinz while I rested and read my book for a half hour. They are now doing their Math.

Christmas Comics and Funny Magazine People

This morning I had Luke and Isabel make Christmas comics. I used a piece of poster board and marker to make sections. They then had to draw and write a consecutive Christmas story. By the way, I am just adding the picture to show you how I did it. Obviously I am not a perfectionist and this was a last minute idea. You can have your children use a comic strip format for... -Retelling what they read (book reports)

-A story board for any story ideas they have

-Making up jokes

-For younger children you can illustrate a simple consecutive story, cut it up and have them place it in the correct order.

Luke's had to do with "Super Luke" an abominable snowman and Rudolf. Isabel's was Santa coming down the Chimney and a girl getting a doll for Christmas.

Luke then had to write his spelling words in sentences and Isabel has the colors for her words this week so she had to copy them down in their own color. Did that make sense? Isabel then studied seven more words in sign language and Luke read an article from his Ranger Rick magazine. Luke then had to tell us about what he learned and Isabel taught us her new words.

I then cut out heads and bodies from old magazines and let them glue them together to make funny pictures. I don't really know what that project taught them, but they sure thought it was fun.

We then finished up our coloring of the Twelve Days of Christmas and taped them to the wall. We practiced singing and Isabel and I even made up hand motions for each day. Luke was not so into that and thought we were annoying. They then watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy on Amphibians. Tonight they will do Math with Joey.