I got this idea from Jessica at Trivium Academy, and she’s taking sign up links in her Mister Linky for those who choose to participate. Go to Trivium Academy for more information and links to other homeschool reporters.
Our homeschooling is at “low tide” this month as Melissa Wiley would say. We’re trying to do math every day, but not much else is scheduled, school-wise. On Wednesday, Eldest Daughter, who was home sick from work, told Karate Kid (10) that instead of doing his math lesson, he could read Hamlet, the entire play. I went along with it, and it ended up with Karate Kid and Brown Bear Daughter (12) on the couch reading the play aloud while Betsty-Bee listened desultorily. They seemed to enjoy the experience, but only made it through about half of the play on Wednesday. Hamlet is a long play. I showed them this rather memorable clip from Gilligan’s island. Warning: It sticks in the memory just like those bad Chirstmas songs. I always find myself humming, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” to the tune of ? whenever I think of Polonius the advice giver.
After they read about half of Hamlet aloud, KK and Brown Bear got tired of Hamlet’s shilly-shallying around, and they decided to memorize and act a scene from Comedy of Errors. We call it the “My Gold, Quoth He” scene.
Books read to Z-baby (6) this week:
Sometimes I’m Really Happy, God by Elspeth Campbell Murphy.
Rumpelstiltskin.
Karate Kid’s been reading Elllie McDoodle and Harry Potter. (Sounds like an intriguing couple, doesn’t it?)
Brown Bear Daughter was deliriously jubilant to receive a copy of Kiki Strike: The Empress’s Tomb by Kirsten Miller in the mail on Thursday. So, she’ll spend Thursday evening and Friday reading that sequel to the first Kiki Strike book, one of her favorites from last year.
We’re reading David Copperfield aloud in the evenings. It’s going slowly, but O.K. Brown Bear Daughter and Karate Kid are following along fairly well, and the little girls are listening because it’s either that or go to bed. And no one in my house ever wants to go to bed. Family aversion to beds. (Except for me, so the bed-hostility gene must be in Engineer Husband’s gene pool.)
Organizer Daughter (age 16) is still having math class this week and next, so she still has math lessons to do. And she and a friend are studying 20th century history with me, so they’re supposed to be reading about and studying the 1920’s in preparation for a test next week. I handed Organizer Daughter a picture book about Charles Lindbergh on Thursday, and she looked at me as if I were crazy. I happen to think picture books are perfectly acceptable for 16 year olds as well as preschoolers and adults.
Z-baby also spent much of the week trying to get someone to play card games with her: War, Alligator, and Match. I figure that’s mildy educational.
On Thursday, Karate Kid, Betsy-Bee, and Z-baby went with their father to the canoeing Christmas party. They all got to ride in a canoe and explore the flora of the local creek environment.