God is laughing

God is laughing at me and my schedule - I'm sure of it. Things went pretty well Monday and Tuesday, but they fell apart starting on Wednesday. Wednesday and Thursday, I had a bad migraine (although, is there ever a good migraine!). The kids did some work those days, but we did lots of "unschooling". Before the headache got real bad on Wednesday, we walked to the coffee shop downtown. We did some schoolwork there, but we had to leave because my headache was getting worse.

The gas company came by on Wednesday to deliver our fuel oil. Of course, since being homeschooler, Wild Man and I asked the guy who was delivering the oil all kinds of questions. Today, Wild Man and I checked out the web to learn how they get fuel oil and gasoline from crude oil.

Today, the kids watched "Antz" because we're studying ants - I'm sure it's educational somehow! Then, we discussed metric vs. English measurements and put together little conversion pyramids that I printed off a website. I wanted to do a really cool hands-on activity with colored water, etc., but my head still hurts today. Instead, they are making cookies to work on their measurement skills. Actually, this could be very good because they can't find the one cup measure, so Ga'Hoole Girl said they will measure without that measuring cup. I also gave them a writing assignment with measurements: they need to each write a short story that uses volume, length, and mass measurement. Ga'Hoole Girl will use metrics and Wild Man will use English measurements. Yes, it's a sneaky way to get them to write, but I think it will work.

I think we're on track with our Core studies, as long as I get them to do one or two notebook pages before Monday. This week, we learned about ancient North and South American Civilizations and started our study of Rome. I ordered "Spartacus" from Netflix. It's rather violent, but I think it gives a good view of some aspects of Roman life.

We are not on track in science, but that is OK because we have been reading up on Whooping Cranes and ants. The kids are going to do short presentations for me and Mr. Math Teacher and each other about ants. Wild Man is going to talk about ant anatomy. Ga'Hoole Girl was going to talk about the gel used in Antworks, but she couldn't find much information. I'm not sure what she's going to choose now as her topic, but she's got till 5pm.

We had an interesting science discussion at the dinner table the other night. Ga'Hoole Girl asked whether one could make a solid into a liquid by grinding it into incredibly tiny particles. This led to a discussion of phase change and energy requirements. Then, we talked about boing point and pressure changes (Boyle's law, basically). She wants to be able create non-heat energy so that she can make a solid into a liquid without heat. Although, she may have abandoned this idea when we told her that she needs to study more physics!

I got a new math book for Wild Man. He finished Singapore 2B, but still has some trouble with word problems and measurement. I got the 2B Intensive Practice book for him. It looks like I'll probably have him do most of this book - it looks really good. Ga'Hoole girl is still working on fractions, but is just about done with her book. She'll go back to Singapore next week. I really want her to get to decimals soon because her life with metric measurement will be much easier once she knows how to manage decimals.

So, my schedule is completely shot. I think I'll have to think about my schedule the way the pirates in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies think about the pirate code: they're more like guidelines, really.