Monday

Because of all the holiday hoopla I decided to just put the hardcore school stuff on the back burner. I am so glad to get back to our usual routine. Its a new year  and with that I feel inspired to shake things up a bit and try some new tactics in regards to our lesson time.
Goal One  - I want to find myself saying no to her as little as possible. Often times I am so committed to a specific schedule or getting a certain amount of  schoolwork done for the day that I find myself saying no to her harmless requests for change. I am choosing to be  more mindful of this and less rigid in general. I have to remind myself that part of why I do this is cause  I want her to enjoy the process of learning & also feel empowered at every turn.
Goal Two  - to be even more experimental & open - starting with the switcheroo of doing
reading comprehension first, her favorite thing.  Instead of math which is far from a favorite.
We began with a bit of conversation breaking down the root of the word comprehension, comprehend etc & also the connection between comprehend and the Spanish word comprende, to understand. Which in essence is basically what it means. of course mom, duh! lol

I let her know its not just enough to be a voracious reader but to actually understand what you have read and be able to talk to someone else about it, give details & share the main idea this is what matters. We read some essays together and  then she had to write a few sentences on each one sharing the main idea and also give a short verbal explanation of each . The parable  I gave her  was that she was sharing information on each essay with someone that could not read but they needed to know the points made in each passage. Of course she enjoyed this because she felt like she was teaching me something each time. We did four passages and then transitioned into animal classification & how to use a  dictionary.
In regards to our animal studies sometimes we choose one specific animal to focus on, we research everything & anything there is to know about the chosen animal (her choice), visit zoos and/or museums with relevant exhibits, (btw AMNH is a great spot for this type of research work or any for that matter), we check out videos & articles on line, watch documentaries, ask questions of folks that have first hand experience with the animal & also of course read tons of books. We have done bats, frogs, dogs, dolphins and more. And sometimes we choose a specific class of animals, to focus on such as amphibians, reptiles etc. Today she chose to focus on mammals. The assignment  was to read all about mammals & then choose five words from the chapter read and look up their definitions in the dictionary. Write them out neatly on a piece of paper. She chose words like hair, cub, and mother which by the way had some very interesting definitions that encouraged more worthwhile dialogue. This was a great way for her to develop an understanding of how the dictionary works, in terms of looking at the top of the page for the first & last word & deciphering if your words would be on that page or the next or the next. It also helped  to develop a higher knowledge of what differentiates mammals from other classes of animals. She loved the dictionary and I was reminded once again that I have a child that loves words most of all.
While she wrote her definitions up I made us a lunch of roasted quinoa & purple kale, prepping her for whats to come after  I said okay after we eat we will do some math and then a science experiment, she interjected and asked can I do some art first.  My first instinct was to say no, remembering my promise to myself  I said yes. She took advantage of the makeshift blackboard that I had created with black board paint and extra wall in the hallway to do some fun stencil drawing and sweet character doodling. She drew people from different parts of the world in clothes that were particular to their culture. What came up then was the different between a country and a continent,. Something we had discussed before but like every other subject geography is never ending

  I feel if  I left things up to her  she would draw all day long. I gave her the space to get busy and have fun with the different color chalks and then noticed her transition to her note pad and more and more drawing was taking place. I did not want to miss my window of opportunity for math time so  in my most gentlest voice i said - Okay lets practice some mathematics now and if you want to continue drawing when we are done you can, to my surprise she did not protest or sulk. This is her usual reaction but instead I got a vibe of cooperation & respect. I was quite surprised and also so thankful. We started out with word problems, again this is where knowing your child learning styles comes in, back in the day I hated word problems but she loves them and I feel this is tied to the fact that she is a linguistic learner. She loves a story whether it be mathematical, scientific or pure comedy. She was able to solve them with little difficulty and even boasted at certain points about how easy it all was after the words problems, we did multiplication problems which led her to have to count in multiples of 6, 7,  8, and also multiplying double digits with some major regrouping. This was relatively pain free. huge hooray :)

Our plan for science was to make cheese from yogurt but we need coffee filters which I did not have so we had to table that till tomorrow. She got on the computer and had some graphic design fun. Day transitioned into evening and although we didn't get everything done  I feel satisfied.

 I am so grateful for this day and have learned that it is often a good idea to take chances and try something completely brand new. every day.