For Monday

Today was a pretty good day for getting some stuff done.

By about 9 am Catherine was out at the table colouring some pictures of the Canadian provinces and territories from Crayola colouring pages. Catherine had done a few while she was up at my parents a few days ago but had neglected to read the labels and so I played the offended and outraged teacher as I pointed out her White Trillium (Ontario's offical flower) or Purple Violet (New Brunswick's) were red and blue. The horror! Lots of giggles from Catherine.

She didn't finish them but likely will tommorrow when we'll label a map I got here with the names of all the territories and provinces, find a printable Canadian flag to colour and then staple the whole mess together to make a book.

While at the table she also did a couple of pages of very simple addition. Nothing that would stretch her but it's what she wanted to do and sometimes it's reassuring to go back to familiar stuff. Especially since we're expecting the arrival of the Singapore Math 3A workbook any day now.

Luck was with us in the afternoon as Animal Planet had a two hour special on insects on. It was 'Life in the Underbrush' with David Attenborough and it was fantastic. One of the first shots was the scene of a snail's eye folding out of it's stalk and it's the first thing I've seen on our old floor model TV that made me ache for a huge plasma or LCD TV.

The evenings are often very productive for us and tonight was no different. As my husband took Harry (his day was all about Thomas. Enough said) out with him to get groceries, Catherine and I sat down with 'Mythology' by Edith Hamilton (a used book store find), and read about the 12 great Olympians. Let's see...Zeus, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Hephestus, Hesta, Athena (my fav), Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares and Hermes. Remembered them all!

I had earlier printed off this worksheet and stuffed it in a file folder on our 'Ancient Greece' poster so I simply pulled it out and we filled it out as we read. The worksheet simply wants three facts on each god or goddesses (Well, pictures too but we'll have to wait until I buy more ink for the printer). But if anyone prints it out, be warned! Hestia isn't on it, we had to pencil her in at the end. As one of the 12, she certainly deserves a spot. It was about an hour of reading and filling in the sheet and lots of fun.

After that it was Catherine's quiet time (an hour or so before bedtime she goes to her room to have some time for herself). I have a real problem with staying committed to reading chapter books to her so thanks to the wonderful world of P2P filesharing (legal, in certain respects, here in Canada for the meantime) I've been getting audio books for Catherine to listen to. It's come in handy with our 'Ancient Greece' month as she's already listened to a retelling of the Illiad and some Greek myths but tonight it's disk 2 (of 3) of Charlotte's Web. We'd started it last fall and, true to form, never finished it but now she can play in her room and listen as E.B. White himself narrates. I DO so love the internet.