Quarter 1 Week 8

The cat was in charge of the blog this week. As the responsible teacher type I did my best to protest this but was met with such vehment opposition I decided to just let it go. The cat, who has not yet developed the ability to type, put together a video blog instead, highlighting the things she most enjoyed over the course of the week. (video blog would not load...maybe next week?)

The rationale, to which I could not object, was that the cat spends her whole day every day with us in the school room. She has become a mascot of sorts, although don't tell the kids I said that. They insist that she is a dedicated scholar.

So for the five of you who foolishly **cough cough** faithfully follow this blog, I am sorry about this. Please don't stop following us. We need all the followers we can get.

8:20 a.m. The Morning Round Up.

video will eventually be here, inshallah

Once the entire student body has reported to school, it is time for morning stretches to get our brains cranking. The cat must, as always be present for the event.

And then we get on with the day. This week was especially low key as we all recovered from various colds, cramps, and exhaustion. There were no field trips or outings as we were simply trying to drag our sorry behinds through each day. And the cat, of course, was right there with us.

Lapbooking

A nice thing to do during a low energy week is to work on the lapbooks and Tehva enjoys having control of the camera, so she was sent to chronicle her latest additions to her lapbook on New England (this green strip is her Massachusetts mini-book). Seems lapbooking is the newest hottest thing for homeschoolers and I have to admit, it does have a huge appeal. After all, it is lots of cutting and pasting--great for Tehva, plus loads of little folding things and books--a winner for Tian. Silas likes nothing at all, so he hates this as much as he hates anything else we do, although he admits to hating it slightly less than normal. And Cady is learning a good bit about the use of space, and that rulers CAN be her friends. The cat especially enjoys lapbooking as it gives her lots of little scraps of paper to chew on, which is disgusting and, therefore, cool.

Language

If you keep up with this blog, you will have noted that Tian consistently hates anything that attempts to organize her thinking into any creature that resembles logic. Language, therefore, is at the top of her hate list, right next to math. However, when the cat is around, Tian will sit and complain just a bit louder than quietly because, it she complains too loudly, the cat gets up and leaves her station. And simply giving a child a reason to stay put does incredible things to that child's ability to tolerate learning for extremely long periods.

Science

Silas was enthralled this week by Jebel's sudden awareness of the window being a view of the world and it all started with the greennhouse gas experiment we did this week. The kids placed identical water-filled jars on the sill outside the school room window, slipping one jar into a plastic bag and letting the other ride free. After an hour they measured the temperature of the water inside the jars to discover that the one wrapped in plastic had retained more heat.

soon to come...a photo of the cat drooling on the window

I read a homeschool mom's blog last weekend in which she pontificated upon her children's enthusiasm for science and how they learn so much and just love school and blah blah blah. I tried for that this week with this experiment. Unfortunately the kids thought it was cooler that the cat had suddenly found the window.

Bridge Building

We continue on with the bridge building which is astonishing to me considering they have been plugging along with the bridges for two weeks now. The cat does not enjoy bridge building at all, especially since she stabbed herself with a toothpick in the top of her mouth during the first days of bridge building. Instead, she hides in Tehva's lap while everyone else is busy building.

Reading

Tehva is busy at school. She wants to do everything, including picking up the cat, helping her

walk across the room, feeding her food to her, wiping her behind, and reading to her. In this picture she is reading to the cat which you would be able to hear if only I could get the videos to download!

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I will have to post the rest of the cat's blog later. She is really very little help, and the internet is not terribly cooperative either. Tune in next week to see if I managed to win this battle.