Maggie is reading even more

Maggie read one book in 3 days and then had me buy the next one. She hasn't wanted to watch TV all week b/c she has been reading these books she likes. I only hope I can find her books she likes as well once she has read all 10 in the series.  I'm not sure what number she is on now.  She is continuing to work well and independently on her school work. I'm very proud of her progress.

Science

Maggie and I are watching Nova: Dogs Decoded about how Dogs communicate with us and each other. It's really interesting. It makes a nice science activity after a busy weekend when we are still in our jammies.  I have been grading her books and she is doing great. 

Fun with Language Arts

Today has been full of language arts.  Maggie has been on a big push to finish her unit of Spelling and English.  She has memorized and passed over 50 words today.  She has been helping me with my sewing projects as well.

Maggie has been working hard to finish these units so that she doesn't get behind. She has recently launched her own business, called Sweet Boy and Gorgeous Horse cookies.  She made $60, and sold out at her last ride. She recently realized she can make them in slice and bake form and let people buy the dough. The horses love her cookies. Even horses who don't like to eat cookies normally.

New School Year

I realized I hadn't posted anything since we quit working last spring. Maggie has hit the ground running and we've been working since the beginning of August. We did just a bit the first few days and then we have gotten more into a routine of working much harder in the days that have followed.  She is almost done with the first unit of language arts and through the first half of her math unit.  I don't know what she's doing in history and science b/c she's supposed to be doing those units at her dad's house. Only, I don't know if they are, so I told her to bring the books home so I could grade them if he didn't do it by the end of this "weekend" with him.  She's really good about doing the work over there, he's not so good about grading it.  They will typically run around one day and then do school work the other day, much like a normal weekend.  She is finding the math tedious. Not because it's at all difficult, but b/c it's a lot of busy work. I told her that's how math is. Lot's of apparently useless busy work that must be done.

Today I was grading her test from unit one of language arts. She didn't do as well as I wanted to her to do, as her score was only a 79%. I discovered that she was supposed to have completed the whole booklet before taking the test. She actually took the test as she went through the book and the test was in the middle of the book.  I hadn't read my directions. So, she actually got at 79% on material she hadn't actually studied yet.  So, she's not finishing up the second and third section and then we'll take the alternative test, which I'm sure she'll pass with flying colors.

Little House on the Prairie

Maggie has just finished reading this book. She has really enjoyed the stories, even though I had to prod her into getting started with them initially. I found her some games and word searches, vocabulary and comprehension tests for her to take tomorrow. Then she will start reading Farmer Boy. It should be fun because there are a bunch of recipes for making natural dyes and I'm sure we will have fun playing with those. We were going to see Little House the musical, but the reviews weren't favorable, so we decided to skip it.

Maggie has been doing a science experiment with her fish.  She was feeding them each day and tapping the sides of the glass. Now when she taps the glass the fish rise to the top, even when there is no food. They have been conditioned, just like Pavlov's dog.

Maggie planted some flowers out front and has been helping me harvest blackberries from our field. We hope to have enough to make one pie. They got ripe this week, but I haven't been able to pick them. I'm afraid they will over ripen and be done before we get them picked. And it's supposed to storm the next couple days. Hopefully tomorrow evening we can get over there and get them picked.

Difficult Day

Maggie doesn't want to work today. I had a hard time getting her up and going. Even though we were only watching a History show, she was still very resistance to learning.  However, we watched the show, she enjoyed it and now I'm having her write a synopsis for her chronology notebook. Since we don't always study things in order, I like the idea that she can flip through and see how events were relevant to one another. She is in better spirits now and as soon as she is finished, we're going to get some lunch and mow for a little while if I have time to get over to the field. They say it's going to rain this afternoon, but right now it looks good.

The donner Party

Today we are having a hard time getting motivated, so we're going to watch one of the American Experience shows I recorded on the DVR.  It's about the Donner party and their supposed cannibalism of each other. I recently read an article that said that the researchers have recently discovered that they ate the family dog, but not each other.

Maggie tends to turn her nose up at my "educational" tv, but in the end she ends up enjoying the shows I present. I figure it's a way to watch TV, but learn something and I always quiz her when it's over. I gave her the choice of The Diary of Anne Frank, Nova or American Experience.

The Pluto Files

We're watching Nova: the Pluto Files. Maggie is not in a good place to work on schoolwork today and our house is in chaos...so, I have hours of educational TV from PBS to watch, so we're watching Pluto. I have Nova and American Experience as well as the most recent film on Anne Frank.

Monday, Monday

This am Maggie worked on Math and did a bunch of housework for me...it was so nice to come home from my clinic and find a clean house. She's getting ready to work on more math and language arts. I'm trying to get her equally caught up on all units. She was ahead in Bible and History b/c they were her favorites.

I found this photo laying on my table and thought I should scan it in. I am not sure how old I was when this was was taken, perhaps my mom can tell me, but I do know this was our house in Tulsa.

Schoolwork on Saturday

Maggie just took a Language arts tests and did really well. She's now on the third unit and we're finally finding a rhythm. Unfortunately we'll be doing school work until the cows come home, but she might get a short break in the summer. all her work is first rate...she's just kind of slow getting it done sometimes.

Since it's snowing and not too pleasant out, we're doing school work this weekend. That way we can ride when the weather is nice.

Snow Day Mentality

We homeschool, therefore snow days should not matter, but they do. We have had such a hard time working today with the snow outside. This am Maggie was hooked on looking for a dachshund to adopt...the fact that she will be unable to have a dachshund for a long time wasn't important, she just was enamoured with pictures of puppies. I watched the news, so that was OK.

Then we had to go feed the horses before the weather got too terrible. we left the house at 11:40, and it snowed at least 2 inches while we were there feeding. Maggie built a snowman.
This afternoon we have been going over the quizzes that we had previously skipped. I had tried to block them out of the program with the promise should wouldn't have to do them if she got a good grade on the tests, but the program malfunctions when I block the quizzes, so we have been doing them together. Mostly, they are just time consuming, but I am now seeing that she needs to do the quizzes.

So, snow day mentality...it's been really hard to do schoolwork today.

Maggie read a whole book

Ok, this sounds like a really silly thing to be excited about but Maggie doesn't usually like to read. Today she got up and I was already reading my book. I was at the point in the murder mystery when you don't want to put it down, so I was reading. Maggie did the same thing with her book, from the series Charmed (also some DVD's that she enjoys watching) She read all day and just now finished the book. I'm so proud of her b/c she saw it through b/c she wanted to, not b/c anyone made her. Guess I'll go to the library and see if there are more charmed books.

Sickness

Maggie was sick yesterday. She is better today, but slept pretty much all day yesterday. I knew she was sick b/c she stayed in her room all day by herself. Today she is better, but still a bit pitiful. It's cold outside and she is happy to stay inside. She was supposed to be in riding class today, but she is sick and it is cold.

Homeschool in front of the fire

Maggie's favorite part of homeschooling is being able to do her schoolwork on a cold day and sit by the fire.

Today we got back to everything. She did some work over the holidays, but today was her first full day back. She says her brain is tired. She is progressing well.