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.

Home Economics

Maggie has been making Christmas presents with me in a joint effort this year. I'm so proud of her and happy that she's taken to sewing. I think after the first of the year, I will teach her how to cut out a pattern. I have been embroidering and she has been sewing. I can't say what we're making (for obvious reasons) but I'm so pleased with her efforts.

Homeschool Friday

Today, Maggie went with me to a client's home to since Christmas Carols and visit the girl. She is 15 and homebound and always says that Maggie is her best friend. It's probably true, since she doesn't get out much. I try to bring Maggie with me whenever I go on Fridays.

Maggie and I have made up a new schedule for us to do her work by. We were getting stuck and not getting enough work done each day because

Beyond the Code is the book we are starting to use for reading and I have ordered book 8 of Explode the Code for her to continue in phonics. Today she also read Little House in the Big Woods and read aloud to my client while I gave her massage. Both Maggie and client really enjoyed this.

When we came home, we set the timer for 30 minutes and Maggie worked on Bible. She wrote a story (which I haven't had time to read yet) about a girl living outside of Jericho in the time of Joshua. Maggie loves to write stories, so I'm looking forward to reading it.

She has been working on math for the last 45 minutes... and it's giving her fits. I actually am finding I understand math a lot better this time around...at least for now.

More later. I have a client to see and she is going to put up the Christmas tree.

The habit of neatness

Today, the first thing we did was clean up Maggie's desk. She had been getting it messier and messier and finally I had had enough. I vacillate between making her be clean (in her room) and just saying "oh well, it's her room, I don't care" I have decided that I am going to have to get in there and clean...everything needs to come out and we will have to start from scratch...but that's not really about homeschool.

Today she cleaned her desk and now we are about to embark on a history lesson. I'm going to do part of it with her to get her started. We have to move along faster. Her work is very thorough, but takes her a very long time to complete.