It's hard for me to believe
that it's already our 10th week of school.
It's October.
How did that happen?
Wow...
We are doing our quarterly testing this week.
That isn't required by the state of North Carolina.
I do that simply because
we cover a lot of ground in nine weeks time.
If we review, I know as a teacher
just how much has stuck in their heads,
and if there's anything we need to go over again.
So far, so good.
Both kids have attended two book club meetings
since the beginning of school.
Maya is working on Dragon Rider
by Cornelia Funke right now,
and Scott is reading The Line
by Teri Hall.
Their next meetings are both in the last week of October,
so they have some time to finish up.
Scott and I studied insects and birds
in science this last quarter.
He made a feeder and a bird house last week.
Wheat bread, peanut butter and bird seed. Yum.
Making a bird house.
A little bird apartment.
A squirrel actually made a fine snack
out of the bread and peanut butter,
but we assumed that would happen.
We have a lot of those bushy tailed critters
around here, and we enjoyed
watching him first balance on the deck rail,
then leap and hang by a branch
as he ate the treat upside down.
So far, no bird has entered
or moved into Scotty's fine domain,
but it is in the tree right outside of our dining room window
where we sit and do school each day.
If a bird chooses to nest there,
we'll be sure to see him.
Steven found an enormous caterpillar
in early September.
Within about two days, the big guy made himself a cocoon
and we have been watching him,
waiting patiently to see his transformation.
He was a huge caterpillar...
we can't wait to see the butterfly we hope he becomes.
If all goes well and he emerges,
we will be sure to blog about it here.
Scott entered his paper about butterflies and moths,
and Maya entered hers about the planet Venus
in the Creative Communications Essay Contest.
(You can read both of them by clicking each of their tabs above.)
The deadline was October 19th,
so I can happily say that we are ahead of schedule.
I will bask in that glow for only a short time.
I'm not one with a talent for being early for much. :)
Maya and I are working on her lists for the spelling bee.
There are a lot of words, but Maya has eliminated many of them.
This will be a challenge, but one I think she is up for.
Scott is going to attend a three day workshop in Apex called
Multiplication Madness.
(Sounds fun to me!)
He'll go for an hour each day and,
although he's already pretty good at multiplication,
he will hopefully pick up some fun tips
on how to remember the times tables.
We are also going to take five days this month
and study about the history of Halloween.
I received the fall issue of
The Idea Book for Educators
from the A& E Television Network.
An article there gave me some great ideas for teaching this study unit.
If you're interested in learning more,
please check out
More to come soon. :)
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