Sunday, November 12, 2006

A Sunday Morning Babble

I get a long weekend this weekend. My bil and sil (niece's parents) have tomorrow off, the two oldest's mom has tomorrow off so I've given them the day off and made plans with a friend for in the a.m. and park day in the p.m., and the 10yo still isn't done moving (afaik) so I don't have her yet. Unless I get a call later today about her coming tomorrow, I just have my kids tomorrow.

I have my vampire lapbook to finish today. I had hoped to work on a faux-quilt multiplication checkerboard (mine doesn't look like that, but I can't find a quilted version online) the 15yo and I had started a year or so ago, but I can't for the life of me find it. WAH!!!! The bulk of it had been finished. :(((( My thread is also missing, but I think I may have lent it to my mother when she borrowed my machine several months ago. But I'm not sure. I want my checkerboard back! And with my thread missing, I can't hem a pair of pants I bought a couple of months ago and still haven't worn because they're about 4 inches too long. *sigh*

I'm trying to think of 'inspirational' things for the kids to work on this week. Dd will probably still keep going with "Around the World", with me adding some, too, and maybe seeing if ds or the 12yo would like to start one--it'd be good to have an English model, too. The 12yo's science unit at the moment is ecosystems, which seems to interest him a bit, so I'd like to incorporate something 'more' than just going through the textbook. We can't do the 'create an ecosystem' activity described in the book because you're supposed to get critters from outside. We could modify it, however. I need to brainstorm ideas that tie in with what he's working on. I guess that means reading through the unit today! A lapbook is always a good idea... He could have a section for 'biotic' and another for 'abiotic' and different sections for the different parts of the unit. I wonder if he'd go for it? He'd definitely do a first one if I said we'll try it out and he gets to decide afterwards if he wants to do other work in the same manner or something similar. This is sounding good!

I need to work out what the 15yo has left to do for coursework she wanted to have done by the end of January and give her a rough idea of the work she has left to do and a general timeline that different sections should be finished by. She was so motivated and excited last year about working hard this year to finish a semester early, but it's just not happening. There have been definite illness issues and just plain tiredness. And I'm probably giving in too much to letting our work times slide a bit. I'm not sure she realizes what exactly is left to be done and how far behind she's getting, which means I need to show her. Her full-year subjects are okay (except maybe math)--it's the ones she said she'd have done for the end of Jan. that aren't. She has other subjects to take on after January!

Ok, done my babble. Moving on to work now.

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