What I Did On My Winter Vacation

The schools have all been closed this week (not to mention part of last week). With Presidents' Day on Monday, that will make a total of three full days of school over an eleven-weekday period. Now, I realize that there's no school during the summer and I have to deal with it and create schedules and such, but it's a whole different animal when we have to check the website each night to see what tomorrow will bring. Planning and expectations become difficult.

Finally, after the first storm was over and we'd gotten out of the neighborhood for a few hours, I felt like I could take control of the situation. And I did; I present my first (and possibly only) foray into homeschool. I made it all up using the resources suggested on the super Arlington County Snow Learning page.

Day 1

9:20 am: Morning meeting. The three-year-old chose "On Top of Spaghetti" for our morning song. We sang all three verses. He was then given a huge pile of coloring pages to work through at his leisure.

9:25: Science. I printed out two items for each girl from the Library of Congress's Everyday Mysteries page. The first-grader read about and presented a report on "How The Grapefruit Got Its Name" and "Fun Facts About Squash". The fifth-grader read about and reported on "Is a Coconut a Nut, a Fruit, or a Seed?" and "How Does Sunscreen Work?" Everyone learned something new. Next they were given the first half of a standardized science test for grades 3 and 5 respectively. (And they did very respectably.)

10:15: Art. The three older kids were given floam and the older two were asked to create a gallery of sculpted animals native to Australia and New Zealand. The three-year-old spent a long time making a perfect sphere.

10:50: Silent reading

11:30: snack

11:45: Music. The fifth-grader practiced her clarinet in one room while the first-grader was supposed to be doing one of two assignments on the keyboard. I was putting the one-year-old down for a nap and came back to a pouty and uncooperative young girl. Hmm. More musical guidance and instruction needed there, I guess. Half a concert followed.

12:20 pm: Physical Education: Yoga with Denise Austin. Lots of participation, even by the three-year-old. He does a funky tree-pose.

1:00: Writing. The girls were given the same writing prompt with 20 minutes to write and a recitation following. Today's prompt came from the 2006 Virginia Department of Education Standards of Learning Test for 5th graders. It read: "Imagine that you are suddenly able to fly whenever you want. Where would you go? What would you do? Write to explain your new talent and how you would use it." Interesting answers- too involved to go into here.

1:45: lunch, followed by recess

2:15: Math: I printed several first-grade worksheets and also half of the 2006 VA. D.O.E. S.O.L. math test for 6th graders. Just about right.

3:00: dismissal

They were very excited about the whole thing (or we wouldn't have tried to do so much!) and gave their reports to Dad that evening.

Day 2 was slightly different. Most of the first hour was spent on geography. The first-grader did a map study worksheet and some state shape-matching (from the same website as her math worksheets) and the fifth-grader did some online research and a report on Yemen. (Her conclusion was that she didn't think it was a very interesting place and didn't want to go there. Hilarious.) Next was Art and we spent a very long time making Valentine's Day cards for family and friends since I was pretty sure they wouldn't be having any class parties. I had them finish the rest of their science tests and more above-level math.

Finally, there was writing. The older one was assigned the first 2 sections of the 2006 VA. D.O.E. S.O.L "End of Course" writing test and she did pretty well. The younger one was assigned the 8th grade writing prompt: "Imagine you have a time machine and you are able to transport one person from the past to the present for one day. Whom would you choose? Write about why you chose this person and your visit with this person." She wrote about Betsy Ross (whom she mistakenly called "Betty Crocker" in her first draft) and how she wanted learn how to sew as well as Betsy did. This came complete with a drawing of a time machine. Now, it just so happened that Dad was watching the 1960's film adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" last night, so she had some idea what one might look like. (The kids didn't watch the whole film, just enough to get their imaginations going without scaring them.) Good times.

Overall, this was a very productive experiment. The kids appreciated having structure, brain food, and fun. Yes, flying by the seat of my pants was a lot of work- maybe more than real homeschooling is since normally one would make up lesson plans way ahead and could order helpful kits, etc. Tomorrow will be a light afternoon version since we're spending the morning with Grandma. But Monday will not be a "school holiday" here at our house... three day weekends may never be the same again (cue evil laugh).

Enjoy the pictures of snow and school.

My path for the garbage bins and other backyard access.

We both did a fair amount of upper-body/lower-back strengthening exercise over the last week.

One kid even helped!

Highlighted in blue is the path I shoveled for the little guys. Two feet is too deep to be fun when you're 3.

Monday was "Indoor Fort Day" and it was used as a Native American tent- mostly.