Life in General

These are the days of our lives...in January. The daily minutiae of our lives is what sets us apart from the other families with 2.5 kids (the dog is the .5, not the half-pint with red hair) and also gives us something to talk about when people ask "what's new with you?" So let's see...
We are reading the BFG by Roald Dahl. My HC remembered this book from his childhood and since I can count the number of books he admits to having read on one hand, we immediately checked it out and started reading it with the kids. This is a bit disturbing to Ian, who is apprehensive abou the idea of giants reaching hands through windows and munching people like popcorn, but the pictures are cute and the part about the BFG tooting is so funny, it eclipses all the yucky parts. I have had immense fun doing the voice of the Queen of England (and the whispering butler). Erin tends to fall asleep during bedtime reading (praise the Lord), but she also enjoys the pictures until she does. When we were finished with this one, we're going back to the Magic Treehouse just in time to correlate "Revolutionary War on Wednesday" with the same topic in History. Yay. So definite school points there.

Erin is going to be ready for pre-k next year. She is very interested in what Ian is doing and loves our one on one time when we work on Cubbies (Awana). I am hoping that she will actually say her verse this week during check-in time, though even the 4 year olds get all bashful and hug a leg when put on the spot. ;)

Ian is about to finish one of his reading books next week, the Robinson Crusoe reader with all the neat craft/drawing ideas that go with it. So far we've made a popsicle stick boat(that's what it's supposed to look like), a tiny island, some rocks, a tent and cave out of various materials, a playdoh goat and a big stack of illustrations. Mr Cheaterpants has been insisting for a couple of weeks that Robinson Crusoe will be finding a strange man on the island with him. I have been denying this, since we haven't read anything about that yet, thank you. Today, we got to the part where Friday is delivered to the island by savages and escapes, where Robinson Crusoe welcomes him and feeds him bread and raisins. Ian was elated and gloated like mad. "See, Mommy?! I TOLD you there was another man. I was right!" Add the victory booty dance to that. And a giant Mommy eyeroll. I will be sorry to finish this book. And a couple of weeks after that, we'll be finishing his other reading book. And by the end of February, he'll be finishing the dreaded, hated Phonics. I gave him the option of just doing one page per day instead of two. He was excited about this until I told him that it would extend Phonics until May, or we could continue and finish by the end of next month. He chose next month. :) It looks like math and spelling will be our long running subjects for this year. Those are two things that have more to do with understanding and less with grunt work. (Like the phonics rules, word-writing and language story-writing.)
We'll be starting a new chapter in Science next week and we'll be spending a lot more time on these than we have the rest. It has to do with sea creatures, with one animal per lesson. We're making an animal notebook with our drawings and colorings. I am very excited. The chapter after that is land animals with more of the same. I hope we can go to the zoo for this chapter! Ian will be happy to be finished with history, but I think he'll enjoy the next chapter on Pioneers. We will attempt to make a covered wagon. haha.
And we're only to the Capital H's in cursive, another hated subject. I'm not being too strict there. He traces a lot and just has to try to write it on his own. I am more concerned with him learning how to form them correctly than doing a bunch of wrong ones on his own. There's plenty of time for cursive in the future, right? Says the 98% of people who still don't form letters correctly...
So there, boring minutiae, yet the kind that occupy my days and thoughts. And it's Friday evening finally. So I'm out.