Another boring "What We Did Today" post ...

People either love these or hate these.

I'm mostly writing it because I always feel like I never accomplish anything and maybe it will help me feel more accomplished if I write it down.

Hopefully not too many of you will hate it. :)

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I have been getting a late start in the morning a lot lately and I hate it. Robert has been working late (I mean, hours late) just about every night for a couple weeks, so maybe I can partly blame it on that. It's hard for me to get up and going in the mornings.

I have a routine that every Thursday morning I strip our sheets the minute my feet hit the floor, so I started with that, and then got in the shower. Thursday is also trash day, but this was one of those weeks when I was on top of things enough to get the trash out on Wednesday. Yay for me!

I think it was about 9:40 am when everybody was dressed, beds made, breakfast eaten and table cleared, teeth brushed. Oh wait, Benjamin is using the potty this week, so he didn't get dressed. :)

We started "schoolwork" today with a Math-U-See video lesson. These are about 5-8 minutes long. If you're familiar with the program, we are in Alpha, Lesson 24, which is subtracting from 10. Rachael did the lesson worksheet, then went back and did some review pages from earlier lessons, which was her own idea. She also likes the timed tests, so I used the worksheet generator to make them for her and Rebecca.

Next I gave Rachael 4 new library books and told her to take them to the couch for "DEAR." (In school-speak, this is "Drop and Everything and Read." Rachael knows this term from books and from visiting school last year.) I set the timer for twelve minutes, and Rebecca and I did some Explode the Code phonics pages together on the couch.

After that, Rebecca got interested in something in her room, so I did some "All About Spelling" with Rachael. We just got this a couple weeks ago, and she seems to really like it. We sat on the couch to do stuff with the magnetic letter tiles, then to the kitchen table to write some of the words.

Everyone was getting hungry, so we had a snack of cheese cubes.

Then Rachael did her Explode the Code by herself -- only one page today (she is in Book 5), and then wrote in her journal, which is really copywork of something she dictated to me on an earlier day.

Then we did our Five in a Row unit. Today was an Art lesson, which is always a favorite. The book this week is Miss Rhumphias.



We talked about two things today -- how to show wind in a picture, and how to use multiple mediums. Rebecca used paint and mosaic stickers to show a windy picture. Rachael used paint to make a background, and when it dries, she'll draw in something with marker.

By then it is about one thirty in the afternoon. Gosh, I'm not very time-efficient, am I? None of this was as smooth as it reads. In-between all this I'm helping Benjamin use the potty, breaking up fights, putting the clean sheets back on the bed, getting the mail, and throwing in another load of laundry.

Now it's time for a late lunch, which we have in the backyard. At about three, I bring Benjamin in for a nap. (First we read Mother Goose, then Goodnight Moon, as always.) Then the girls and I read a chapter in one of the "Kit Kittredge" books, and then we all have we call "Room Time."

Actually, it doesn't sound like very much, but I feel worn out.