Today Keith read to the kids from the Street Law book. The discussion was on what happens to a person who is arrested, and what the best proceedures to follow are for the people involved. After that Aaron read to Keith for a while, and Cimeron did some keyboarding practice on the computer in her bedroom. Physical education was bike riding. The kids left after school to go play with Shane and Amanda. Cimeron is doing well today. Aaron was even more mellow than usual when I told him to change his shirt before going out to play. I like for them to make an effort to look their best before going out to play in town. Cimeron came home and said she saw Shasta walking around town. I hope she was wrong. This is the person whose dogs I've been trying to find homes for. When he and his girlfriend left town at the beginning of October, they made no provisions for the care of their pets. There are also two black cats over there that rely on us for food, though we're still feeding them at the mobile home so they won't think of our house as their home.

  ¶ 5:35 PM  

  Today Cimeron and I played a math game. We wrote down the numerals 0 through 9 on two sets of index cards, then we each would choose a card from our piles. She multiplied the two numbers and gave the answers. Right answers mean she gets to keep the cards in a discard pile and wrong answers mean the cards are recycled into the draw piles. Well, she got them all right. I am surprised she can do well at simple multiplication then make mistakes in long-multiplication calculations. I'll be using these cards with Aaron soon. He was doing some multiplication problems I had written into his math notebook.

Keith worked with Aaron on reading. It led to a bit of frustration. I wonder how long it will be before Aaron can sit down and actually read one of those Goosebump books. I think they are written on a second or third grade level. I think if he was interested in the subject matter he'd be more likely to work his way through a book... so I'm choosing Goosebumps, for now. He has about twenty of those that he collected in the Bay Area a few years back. I'm going to suggest that he try to read through one at bedtime each night. He can sound out the words he doesn't know, or ask his sister for help.

They also watched a show on the Discovery civilization channel about a dam that was built in Australia... it was good for both social studies and science.

I'm gearing up to write a novel in November!! If you have ever wanted to write a novel, check out NaNoWriMo! where over 1500 of us are signed up to do a November writing marathon. Anyone who writes a novel of 50,000 words during that month will be a winner.

  ¶ 3:25 PM  

  Today was a fun homeschool day. I put more math problems into their notebooks. Aaron's are just multiplication and addition. I'm going to have him looking for number patterns. Cimeron is doing some money calculations, and I'm looking at Fibonacci Numbers and Nature to see how I can adapt it to her math studies. I think she would love the rabbit project there, since she is raising mini-lops.

Keith read a chapter out of Dear Mad'am, a biography of local interest. The kids enjoy that book quite a lot. It was written by a lady who used to live at Ferry Point, just a few miles downriver from here.

I made a poster about the two dogs we're trying to find homes for. Cimeron went to the computer center and printed it out, and got copies to put on all the local bulletin boards. I hope we find homes for them soon. I'm in touch with the Northern CA Border Collie Rescue Foundation and the Medford branch of the Siberian Husky Rescue Foundation about these two dogs too.

  ¶ 3:57 PM  

  Today I had the kids doing some math projects in their notebooks. Cimeron couldn't get her's right because of simple calculation errors. Aaron is still mystified by multiplication at times... but he's willing to work on it. They both worked on their reading and grammar too. Cimeron did a creative writing assignment, focusing on verbs. The science lesson, which was about waterways and bridges in the Los Angeles area, was on the Discovery science channel. For social studies they have been watching CNN news.

After school their friends, Shane and Amanda, came over here. Our landlord brought dirt for the garden and they worked on sifting the dirt to get rocks out, so we've got great garden soil now! Aaron also transplanted a few plants into the new soil. He loves to work in the garden -- he has a real talent for it.

  ¶ 8:37 PM  

  The Earth At Night Photo

I'm putting that link here to remind myself to show the picture to the kids!!

Today is Sunday - so no formal homeschool for us today. Aaron played with his friend, Shane, most of the day. Cimeron stayed home and played with her dogs again. She is working on training them.

  ¶ 10:16 PM