January catch-up

Emma turned 10.  Its hard to believe she made it to the double digits.  The kids are getting better at basketball. Annie's team is 5-2.  We had cousins over to help get us past a difficult level on Mario and ended up playing basketball with them.  Howard started on making the dining room look snazzy.  The kids have been going out on individual dates with Howard. Today is Laura's turn and I think it may involve a trip to gamestop.  Sarah's involved a new pair of sparkly shoes.   On the 18th we had our 16th wedding anniversary and went to lunch and dinner, alone. 

I switched the kids over to a daily assignment sheet system, which is working much better.  Emma is practicing the piano daily and her progress is accelerated.  Sarah is reading aloud and her reading is improving. Annie has been studying weather and we have all been learning how little we know about it.  We have decided that cumulonimbus is a cool sounding cloud and that lenticular just doesn't fit in with the other cloud types as it isn't a latin-based word. 

This week we have been learning about sharks, rays, lampreys and hagfish.  We made pseudo-hagfish slime and decided they are nasty.   We discovered some cool ocean documentaries on Netflix.  We've also learned about Haiti.  We read a book called Tap tap in beautiful watercolors.  Sarah worked on some watercolors.  She is learning how to measure with centimeters.  Sarah is also close to finishing Sing, Spell, Read and Write.  Emma said she will bake her a cake once it is completed.  Emma is learning about converting time from seconds to centuries and has started geometry terms.  She also started her first Power Point presentation, a biography of Walt Disney. 

Laura is getting pretty good at Mario.  She loves Mariokart and is relentless in asking people to play with her. Adam plays like a little man, with explosions and  yelling.  He was carrying a small plastic Imaginext sword with him everyone but lost it in the bleachers at a basketball game.  He found some army men while looking and was consoled.  He is currently carrying a pirate.  He and I finally made it to a story time at the library and learned about penguins, although I am pretty sure he can't tell you anything about them.

Next week should be more of the same, but without a day off to mess with our schedule.