First Day

Today was the first day of our new junior high co-op, Rivendell. I was up late last night making sure I had everything, and I worried about how I was going to forget something important, since I feel like my brain is so mushy these days. As it turned out, we did forget Nathan's Spanish book and his vocab book, but since Faith took her Bear (what she sleeps with) out of the laundry basket I had everything packed in for the day, I ended up having to run back to the house during the first hour. I got Bear, and the 2 books, so it was just fine! And I didn't forget anything else!

We left the house at 8:45 to get to the church at 9:00. Normally the older boys will start literature/writing at 9:20. Those of us with younger kids will drop the older ones off first, then run the younger ones a mile down the road to the church where our other co-op meets, the one we've done all these years. But the other co-op doesn't start until the day after Labor Day, so all the younger kids were with us the whole day. They played outside in the morning, but it was roasting hot, so they eventually came in and played board games until lunch.

After literature/writing, I start teaching life science at 10:30. We go until 12:30, with the last hour being lab time. This week we covered the first chapter, which everyone had already read and answered questions about, so they were ready for discussion. It was an introduction to science, the scientific method (I got to trot out my old 8th grade science fair project for an example!), worldviews, presuppositions, and how they all relate to life science. We had good discussion! Then we did 2 short labs, one on the potential for inaccuracy of measuring (each boy had to measure my hieght with a yard stick, weigh 5 T of sand, count tree rings in a tree cross-section which I had thanks to Ed L., and measure a piece of yarn with a ruler). All the numbers were different, of course. The second one involved demonstrating the scientific method, and we used 3 different colors of popcorn (which I was able to find, thanks to Amy P.!). The boys made hypotheses about whether the corn color related to the popped corn color, and then popped individual kernals of different colors. The red and purple corn popped up white, but the yellow corn was actually more yellow. Still, if you had a big bowl of yellow popcorn, you would probably think of it was white. Anyhow, kernal color only partially related to popped color. Another interesting thing is that the yellow popcorn popped MUCH fluffier! Now we know why most stores only sell it! No taste difference that we could tell.

We all ate lunch after science, which was a nice break. Normally we would be picking up the younger kids at 12:30, and they would have a little bit of time to run around. At 1:30, the jr. high boys do Spanish, the 5th/6th graders do writing with the same mom who taught the older boys in the morning, and the 3rd/4th graders do writing with Christine. The kids who are little will be with me, and I'll read aloud to them for half an hour or so, so they can have some downtime after the busy morning at co-op. Then at 2:30 the jr. high boys do history with Christine, and all the other kids do memory work with me. That was really fun today, and I think they enjoyed it too! We did some geography, Heb. 11:1-2, the first point of our timeline ("Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Pharaoh Menes, 3100 BC"), the 6 steps of the scientific method, and the first stanza of "The Owl and the Pussycat", complete with motions and much drama. We were done at 4:00, and we cleaned up until 4:30. Then we rushed home so Nathan could grab a protein shake and change into his football gear for practice! he left at 5:30. Whew! We all ate, and now I am so tired--I don't want to get up again tonight!

Everyone had really positive things to say about the day in the car on the way home, so I am encouraged! I think the boys, esp. the jr. high boys, are really going to enjoy discussing things, esp. in history. Today they talked about such things as how the plagues were direct attacks against the Egyptian gods, what things countries need to be stable, like Egypt was for thousands of years, and . . . other things I can't remember, LOL. Too bad Nathan is at practice, or I could ask him! So it was a successful first day, and I am so excited about working with these ladies for a year! We are all definitely on the same page academically, and in other areas as well. And I found the preparation was less stresssful than it was last year for Classical Conversations because I am just more comfortable with and excited about the science material!