Wednesday

It's lunchtime, so I thought I'd post an update for the morning...

This is an early week for me as the father of my babysitting kids is out of town. Their mom goes into work much earlier than he does, so I have both kids rather than just one. I decided today though that I was falling into the trap of too much TV for the little one, and even though his parents don't mind I most certainly do. He went kicking and screaming into our routine today. I did manage to get him to build pyramids while we read a chapter in Digging into Yesterday that has to do with the Ancient Mayan civilization.

I'm trying to find a good routine for C so that she's not finishing the bulk of her work in the afternoon after E leaves. We tried some table work followed by some read aloud time, though we didn't manage to get anything else done before lunch. We're not good at being on a schedule. We typically get up, eat, and ease into lessons getting them checked off in any random order that sounds good. That's not really possible with E, so we're looking for a balance. It's hard for her to have time alone in her room during the morning without her losing her train of thought, so lessons there won't work. I might do more table work, a little read aloud, a little more table work, and another read aloud again after that. Hmm.... still working out the details.

We did introduce E to Magic Tree House books today. I really miss reading first chapter books! I feel for this kid as he said several times that no one read to him at his house. Hopefully this can be something that we have fun with during the day.

C was able to take dictation on her copy work selection today! I was surprised when she wanted to try, and even more surprised that she had it just about memorized. She's really grasping the idea of more complex punctuation as well. It does a mom good to see some improvement when you think that you're stalling out!

Lunch: homemade mini pizzas (homemade sauce, cheese - feta or mozzarella, veggie pepperoni since I ran out of beef.) The kids loved making them, and we taught E how to use measuring spoons. I definitely need to find more "kid friendly" recipes for him to help out with.

The bus picks up in about 10 minutes, and then we're working on grammar, math, and some history reading before heading to the library and grocery. I'm out of washing soda and we need to make laundry detergent in a SERIOUS way! ;)