Call me a copycat, but when the info is available in the blogosphere (and free), I'll probably use it. Today Dawn left a link to her ideas from last year. I jumped at the chance to put together a day's worth of fun. Ironically, we are reading Gary Paulsen's, Hatchet, so we started the day with a chapter read aloud and then I read the Cherry Tree Legend. Lee enjoyed the story, being that he is a boy with a hatchet. It was his 8th birthday present (now he's 9). Everyone colored the hatchet and cherry tree picture. Grace and Lee traced Washington's head from a dollar bill onto their picture as well and Lou wrote George Washington across the top of her picture. We examined the dollar bill and talked about the symbols and words. Later in the day I made Cherry Oatmeal cookies with Ray's help.
So, Thank You to Dawn for helping to make an otherwise ordinary February Friday into something a bit special. Since the beginning of this pregnancy school has been very schoolish and I'm not liking it a bit. I'm appreciating it because Grace and Lee can tool along lesson after lesson without extreme input from me, but at the same time that's not why we homeschool. We homeschool to spend time together discussing, exploring, learning without the schedule of a real school day. Now that I'm almost 14 weeks along I can tell the "sickness" will be walking out the door soon. I feel like getting up in the morning again, I haven't thrown up for real in a few days, just the gagging, nauseous feeling remains. I feel ready to write up some new plans for school, something that involves fun and not just lessons.
