Minute By Minute
The first rule is going to have to be: do not hit snooze more than once.
We started with copywork, as we often do. I usually do this because it doesn’t involve a lot of complex thinking for the first assignment of the day. Today’s copywork: “For Jupiter is king to all alike; the fates will find their way.” Gillian was reading In Search of a Homeland last week and at the beginning of this week, so I tried to find quotes from The Aeneid for copywork. We moved straight into spelling after copywork. Today was the second day of Step 11, and I confess we skipped the tiles today and went straight to writing on paper. I know the tiles are an important part of the program, but when we do the tiles on the first day and she clearly gets it, I find it difficult to justify the time expenditure on subsequent days on the same step. Of significance is that we started dictation today! Phrases, not sentences, but this is a huge transition for her. Rounding out the language arts, she did one lesson of grammar (3.1). We’re still doing two lessons a day this week, but she’ll finish the second lesson after Sam’s gone to work this morning.
From one language to another: Gillian then worked to complete the translating portion of a parsing worksheet for Latin. She’ll finish the remainder after Sam goes to work, but I wanted to be sure she understood what was expected while he was still here and I had time to be right there to explain it to her. Then she practiced her Latin chants and listened to the vocabulary chants from the CD. After that, she went to do her addition drill while I copied her school playlist onto my iPod for tomorrow’s drive to my parents.
Ten minutes later, the addition drill was done. Wince. Meanwhile, I made a list (in TextEdit) of what all we needed to complete this morning, and prepared everything for history. She finished the drill and we did oral skip counting (2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s) before she started her multiplication drill. This brings us to where we are at the current moment. I started typing this entry and waiting for her to finish!
Now we’ve finished the multiplication drill, discussed Encyclopedia Brown (yesterday’s reading assignment), and read a chapter in history. Gillian’s done the mapwork for history and is doing her written skip counting (6’s and 7’s) before coloring (Julius Caesar) for five minutes. Not a bad show, considering it’s not quite 9 am, we didn’t really get started until 7:30 am, and some of what is left to finish wouldn’t be a consideration on a normal week (like the extra grammar lesson).
The rest of the day? Two math pages, both in Miquon, the remaining grammar lesson, the remaining half of hte Latin worksheet, and reading in Marco Polo (today’s reading assignment) and Julius Caesar (history reading). We’re meeting some friends at the park around lunch, and Sam won’t be home until around seven tonight, so my goal is to finish most of the work this morning, perhaps saving a bit for after the park.
