School Time...

We've been having a great time with school the last two weeks. I determined to be a little more organized so I actually get anything done...and I'm actually doing ok. We're still very loosey-goosey around here, but that's the way I roll:)

We got a great book from the library--Skyscrapers by Carol A. Johmann--that is full of fun little projects. We've been reading half a chapter a day and doing a project. Today was the first time we reached a project, which was to write a plan for cleaning up a city park(the chapter is on all the planning that goes into a skyscraper long before the building begins). This included lists of jobs, tools needed, and friends who would help. We didn't do a terribly detailed write-up but the boys had fun listing the jobs in the order they needed to be done and they each spontaneously decided to draw a picture of their imagined park.

Tomorrow we'll be building a model city and testing how a skyscraper would affect the sun reaching the streets and other buildings. Later projects include testing the ground to see what kind of foundation you need, wind tests--how much does your building move in the wind, laying a "concrete" (sand and cornstarch:) floor, and other fun stuff.

The boys are very interested in building and science and hands-on projects and this book is striking their fancy just right. We did a science experiment this afternoon, making super-saturated solutions with sugar and with baking soda--hopefully in a few days we'll have some crystals to examine. I suggested to Brannon that he practice writing today since we'll be writing observations on all our science experiments and he brought me his little dry-erase board with this on it $46+$4=$50=lago set (lego set--he's been saving his money for one, doing extra chores and such). I love how he'll write without pressure when he can pick what he writes. It's so much nicer than fighting over school. He wrote a number of words for the park planning project and to document our science experiment too (I helped him by writing anything that needed more than a couple words to describe, he gets overwhelmed so easily even though he likes writing down "scientific observations" and I want to keep it fun for him).

We've been doing some phonics games ( Happy Phonics I purchased from lovetolearn.net last year) too. It's funny how they'll read words they would fuss over being difficult if it was in a book, but because it's a game...

So, we've been having fun. Establishing a little routine in our day, enough to get school in, but not enough to make me crazy :P