Saturday was a busy day with Cricket for the boys at 8.30am and the girls had a fancy dress party to get to after lunch. The boys and I were invited to join the party for dinner.
Josh did well again at cricket with 6 runs, and 2 wickets for 5 runs on the bowling side of things, and one catch! Daniels catching has improved almost instantly and he was much more alert throughout the session this week. Before the session we discussed the whole idea of staying on your feet and being ready for whatever happens even if nothing is happening at the moment.
Meanwhile back at the ranch . The girls had finished tidying up the house, finished preparing their costumes, gift cards made and then they settled in to watch Narnia again. (They watched Narnia Friday, Saturday and Sunday so they are full bottle!)
The girls party was for Mad Scientists. It was interesting to see their personalities come out in this scientist stereotype. Jess just couldnt bring herself to tousle up her hair as if an electric current had hit her she wanted smooth, serious, maybe absent-minded mad scientist. Nomi on the other hand, wanted everything out there! We moused her hair, we gelled it, we waxed it, we sprayed it! It was messy, gunky, out there hair! She loved it. I bought them both a pair of glasses, Jess wore hers neatly parked on the end of her nose, Nomi kept crossing her eyes which were magnified under the glass! Nomi and I made a little excursion down to the incinerator and rubbed soot on Nomis face and clothes. We wished we had waved her jacket in some smoke for that fresh explosion smell but we didnt think of that till we were in the car. Nomi carried around a history book (only made sense to her for it to be a history book not a science book??), notebook and pens. Jessica carried around several test tubes (I have a vase that consists of a wrought metal frame holding several test tubes). Each tube had coloured vinegar to which she added bi-carb when she had an audience. It fizzed and bubbled nicely for her!
I am always thrilled to see the kids learn at party times so from an educational perspective their day included:
- Art drama stereotyping, costumes, role-playing
- Science as they discussed various science words and experiments
- Health as they talked about stereotypes, healthy and not so healthy
- LOTE they tried to find some Latin words that would fit the situation
The boys and I had a lovely afternoon, me scrapping, Josh reading, Daniel on the computer and watching a Space video. I spent some time watching the video with Daniel, as you never know if it is going to come from an Evolutionary perspective. It didnt so Daniel was taking it all in. The main thing he talked about was the huge-ness of the universe. He tried to make up a scale himself as he was telling me all about it. He was really excited to be going to the Conleys as they have a telescope and it was a full moon but unfortunately frogs were found in the telescope and though they were able to be got out, they left their smell behind and the lens were a bit yucky! So we will have to do that another time.
How adorable!!! Sounds like a lot of fun was had by all!
You asked me about the star chart we use at our homeschool. I began using it when I brought my dd home from private school. She was very bright and always got good grades but the teachers had come to depend upon her past performance of intelligence as an indicator of her future grades. They let her slide on a lot of things and she was used to doing the minimum just to get an A. Whatever would qualify for that was good enough even if it wasn’t much!
So the star chart was born. I gave her a star for doing her best, not for a letter grade, but for doing her best. In one subject it could have been a B and in another a C. She usually got all “A”s after that and got used to giving each subject her best.
It worked so well I adapted it for my son who has Sensory Integration Dysfunction and ADD type symptoms. I give him a star for doing the work without whining. A star for each subject and an extra star for reading a whole chapter instead of telling me he can’t do it. He is only 6 but reads on a 5th grade level. However he used to get intimidated by seeing allt he words on the page and therefore just refused to do the work. Now he loves to get his stars.
I allow him to save up his stars for big toys or events or spend them on little toys. Each dollar amount of a toy is worth so many stars. Works great for us!
JoJo