Oct. 17, 2005 - Library Fines... Pet Learning... Greek and New Spelling Routine

Okay ~ long day. 

We're still working on a looong memory Verse ~ its our first long one, so we're trying new things.  Sprite is writing the verse on some of our magnetic sheeting, then cutting apart groups of letters so we can take turns putting them together on the fridge.  Paris is writing the verse with a lot of symbols/pictures in place of words where she can for a good visual learning exercise.  Sprite is also typing it up, then I'll print it out in a large font and make a puzzle with it.  The boys are using it for copywork. Other than that, we're doing our typical stuff.

We had to go to the library today and pick up "on hold" books.  I had to pay for a tape from a book and tape set that the girls lost the tape to.  Grr.  I can't find the stupid thing anywhere.  I'm VERY annoyed.  I don't spend $20 on books I really WANT!  Anyway, the kids practiced using hte dewey decimal system, and Sprite used the card catalog.  We renewed the stuff we still wanted, go tnew stuff, etc.

Then we came home and I printed out some spelling exercises from Better Spelling in Five Minutes a Day by Mark Pennington.  It was one of five books I borrwed from the library last week that seems to fit our lifestyle the best.  Its quick, well organized and has good ideas.  I had the boys and Paris learning "i" before "e" rule today ~ and we had some spelling words, which I wrote on index cards (with the "ie" or "ei" in a different color from the rest of the word) and had them look at, then spell forwards and backwards.  We also looked up words in magazines that follwed the "ie" rule and glued them on a chart.

I'm reading Right Brained Child in a Left Brain World for help with my "different" children... hoping that gives me some new ideas.  I certainly recognized the child described in the intro!

We reviewed Greek words ~ Abyni remembers the words, what they mean AND how to spell many of them!  Wow.  Her brain is such a sponge. 

We did the other basic stuff... and the kids all have an extraafter school assignment of learning about their pets.  I'm hoping this will help with their responsibilities with their pets!

That's all for now, I want to go read!!