Sep. 19, 2005 - Skin... Vocab Correlation:) and Shakespeare

We started the day earlier so that we'd be done in time for the baby to be here at noon.  Well, mostly done with hands on stuff anyway.

We did Bible, then I had everyone do their reading (Helen Keller) while I ran to the library really quick to pick up "hold" books and return our stuff so that we wouldn't have to lug the baby later.

I was gone about 15 minutes, and when I came back, I prepared for Science (being skin-focused today)  We LOVE  Janice VanCleave's "The Human Body for Every Kid" as a science book.  She has great experiments and ideas for teaching science.  I would love a library of her books! 

Anyway, while discussing the different receptors in our bodies, one of the kids noticed that all the words (chemoreceptor, nociceptor, photoreceptor, mechanoreceptor, etc.) all had the root CEPT in them... which was our "root" of the week last week!  They figured out that the root that meant "receive" applied because each one meant something that the body "received" ~ pain, touch, light, etc.  It was really cool to see that happen!!

After that we all did math, then I fixed a quick lunch while the kids finished up. 

Noon rolled around, and all the kids were counting down the minutes until Trey came... they were so excited.  Then they don't show.  12:30, 1:00, still no show.  Fantastic.  No call, no nothing... and when Sprite called, she had to just leave a message.  So, needless to say Sprite was really disappointed.

We continued on with school at 12:30, thinking maybe they were just late today... We did some reading on Picasso.... learning about his "blue" and Rose" periods and discussed how he used colors to convey an emotion.  

We did a little spelling and went over some vocab briefly.

Then we started on "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare (Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb).  I'm having Sprite take notes... practice for later:)  And I wrote downt he characters on our white board first to briefly explain their roles.  We only read enough to set up the story and then discussed it a bit.  We always have enjoyed Shakespeare in the past... the only thing the kids were worried about was if it was a comedy or tragedy.

For our final "project" the kids all had to do a brief sketch that would be a self portrait of sorts... representing something specific about them.  Then they needed to choose a color to do their picture in later this week.  We looked at a site that listed colors and the emotions they tend to convey

http://www.online-web-solutions.com/colors-tips.html ~ and the colors that the kids had picked to represent them were right on!:)

Anyway, Sprite feeling stressed over Trey not showing up, the "friend" situtation cropping up yet again, and then trying to draw when (in her opinion) it wasn't working out just had her in tears saying, "I can't draw!"  So I had her quit for the day to calm herself down (she has basketball tonight, so she needs to be a bit untraumatized) by going to have some alone time praying/reading/listening to music/whatever she wanted to help herself feel better. 

We'll start on the drawing tomorrow... and I'll do lessons first.  She hates asking for/accepting help becasue then she feels like "she" didn't do it "herself"...

Throw out a prayer that Trey's mom calls... or at least shows up tomorrow so that isn't a stress all night!!