Smrt Lernins

All this weather is not conducive to high quality homeschooling. Days and days of rain and gloom have left Captain Science fidgety and unfocused. It’s bad enough that the broken arm limits his ability to partake in the physical activities that help keep him on track, but not even being able to go outside or see so much as a ray of sunshine leaves me with twitchy, bouncy, scatterbrained children. Eyes are rolling around in the head like marbles. It’s not pretty.

Captain Science keeps snapping his glasses. They’re semi-glued until the new pairs arrive. The kid (and his brother, who has broken half of the Captain’s broken pairs) is rough on glasses. He’s twitchy, fidgety, glasses-falling-apart unhinged. The sound of his cast scraping against the desk is making my skin crawl and he keeps whispering to himself. Send help before I invoke The Slappening*.

Seriously, though, it’s hard to give too much of a damn about Ancient Greece or the parts of speech when you’re expecting an ark to go sailing by any moment now.

Ark-related question (from me, not Captain Science, who doesn’t give a hoot): Did Noah supposedly save two cockroaches on the ark? Or did the cockroaches just hold their breath and walk along the bottom? What about two mosquitoes? If so, why? This is one reason why it’s so good that we’re secular homeschoolers, because I have no answers to questions like these! See, even my mind is wandering.

*My friend Heather’s term for that moment when you’re just going to lose it and start grabbing anyone within arms’ reach and start slappin’ ‘em.

Like my friend Patchfire, I feel like this week was a big less…rigorous, I guess, than last week.

In history, this week, Captain Science covered the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt. He finally finished The Golden Goblet, but barely got started on Mara, Daughter of the Nile. I, however, did pick up this book and am rather enjoying it. He’ll have to read it by the end of next week. I wrote about his history lesson in greater detail on Wednesday, so not much need to say more here.

In grammar, he did a review of Growing With Grammar chapter 3 and a quiz on the materials covered (mainly capitalization). He did chapters 4.1-4.3, covering action verbs, direct objects, and linking verbs, with sentence diagramming for the direct objects.

We started a new writing curriculum, Writing Strands, which, while not the most intense or rigorous curriculum, is certainly more enjoyable. The Captain didn’t balk at doing the work for Day 1 and Day 2 in a single sitting. We’ll be doing more than a day’s worth of work a day, because the lessons are a bit light. If this encourages him to write, though, I’m all about it. It’s more light-hearted, to be sure.

Math didn’t get off to a great start. Due to complete lack of reading directions, Captain Science couldn’t pass the bridge in Life of Fred: Fractions after chapters 6-10 the first four times he tried it. He knew the material, but didn’t write the answers as requested, or didn’t give the part of the answer required, or didn’t reduce all the way. Maybe it was because it was Dawdlin Day Thursday, but kid could NOT focus. Today (Friday), he did chapter 11 with no problem. Distracted Boy is distracted.

In science, Captain Science and Eclectic Girl started magnetism. I had to run off to a dentist appointment, so I left the Captain at Patchfire’s house while he did his science lesson. When I returned, I found that he had not actually written down the answers on two of the five sheets of work, which did not please me. He had to finish them at home, but I can’t vouch for their accuracy. I think Patchfire is going to have to knock some heads together.

We listened to one music lesson this week, on Leonard Bernstein. I can’t say if the Captain was impressed or not, though he did seem a little more interested in Bernstein then he was in Bach or Beethoven.

Co-op is going well, though he might end up being booted from Officer Daddyman’s martial arts class if he doesn’t behave. He’s alternating between wild and apathetic. I don’t know if this is a “my dad is my teacher” thing or he just doesn’t want to do it and won’t speak up. He’d better figure that out, though, because he’s about one more bad lesson away from spending that class period in study hall working on his writing.

The Tank continues to love preschool. He got kicked in his face (accidentally) by another boy on Thursday, but is otherwise pleased with the whole thing. He’s brought home painted pictures of apples, pictures of apples with real seeds pasted to them, painted pictures made by using half an apple as a stamp, and a note about his favorite color of apple. I’m sensing a theme here.

Babypie is still working on her crawling, but has mainly mastered crawling in place, which is hilarious for me, but frustrating for her. She crawls and crawls, but never makes it anywhere! I am kind of feeling the same way this week.

Worst homeschooling day yet and proof-positive that any vigorous curriculum day must be fronted by a run with Officer Daddyman. We were all dragging this morning when we woke up, so I encourage Daddyman to stay in bed with sleeping Babypie while I took Tank to preschool. Officer Daddyman and the Captain skipped their morning run as a result.

Captain Science decided to test our new “if you don’t get it done during the pre-established time frame, it’ll be tacked on at the end of the day in lieu of fun stuff” policy. It’s 6 o’clock and he is still working on his writing assignment and has a few more history things to do. He dawdled over his history and only got half of it done, so I had him put it away.

We moved on to grammar (possessive nouns). He didn’t follow the simple instruction to read the chapter first, so he plowed right through all the work and did it completely incorrectly. I had him read the chapter again and redo just the first section. He did it incorrectly again. I had him read the chapter aloud and he finally got it right. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, and he has actually demonstrated in the past that he can use possessive nouns correctly in sentences, but he just would not pay attention to what he was supposed to do.

We finally finished grammar and started writing a little after lunch, and he’s been working on that ever since. It’s not hard — making a simple outline from a paragraph, making short lists of active verbs, adjectives, and -ly words, and then using those to write a short paragraph. It shouldn’t have taken him longer than an hour to do all of it, but he’s fought tooth and nail.

Because he wouldn’t do his work in a timely manner, he missed out on a trip to Nana’s house and on going to the McDonald’s playground. He was upset about that, so hopefully it inspires him to stay motivated in the future. This has been terribly frustrating.

Last week, Officer Daddyman got Captain Science up for a run nearly every morning. This week, however, Officer Daddyman has annual police training and is leaving at 7 every morning. While I can send the Captain on a run up and down the hill, I can’t accompany him on a run around the neighborhood, because I’ve got The Tank and Babypie. Less running = less concentration!

After spending an hour staring at history work this morning, Captain Science managed to write one whole line…and it had to be rewritten later for accuracy. He’s currently muddling through his chapter summary, which had to be rewritten as well, due to gems like “ainchent Sumeria” and “they fell to Babylon though.” This draft is focusing on spelling the vocabulary words correctly and on expanding ideas for more complex sentences. He’s doing well so far, just going sloooooowly.

The Tank had his Tea With Teacher event at the local preschool. While the teachers are nice and I’m sure Tank will do well there, I’m already regretting the decision to send him away for preschool. I know it’s the right choice for this year, but it just creates a hustle and bustle that isn’t conducive to an easy morning. I think we’ll be fine on every day but Wednesday, when Officer Daddyman is working his part time and it’ll be just me with the kids. Getting Tank to school while keeping the Captain on task is easier said than done.

I need two of me. Sure, I essentially cloned myself three times through my children, but I need a full-sized, capable clone to take over at least one of the tasks I have to do. She can nurse Babypie, drive The Tank to preschool, or help Captain Science with grammar, while I manage the other two.

I guess complaint at this point isn’t fair, though. We’re still trying to get into a routine, and we’ll find a new one that works for everyone. On the whole, I’m much more relaxed than I thought I would be. Even if it takes Captain Science two or three hours to get through history, his day is still shorter, more efficient, and more educational than the alternative.

Maybe some pushups or jumping jacks will get his head out of the clouds and back to Sumer and Akkad.