Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
Virtual school went very well this week. After a bit of a difficult morning waking up, Dragon rallied nicely and focussed very well on school.
The morning routine was back to normal, with Oh Canada, the bonjour song (she was asked to sing after and did very well), the petit prince song (she was asked to sing the lundi verse and did well), the jours de la semaine song, the mois de l’annee song, and then she was asked the names of the seasons.
They learned about the letter ‘j’ and she wrote several words that started with ‘j’. She was very excited to practice her printing with other kids.
The story was cute, about a fly that went to space. Then they watched a video about the way they bring food to space with Chris Hadfield. She was excited because she has his kid’s book The Darkest Dark. She loves it.
Math was about locations (far, near, in front, behind) and they played a game where the teacher told them where they had to go. Dragon got used to the words eventually. We’ll practice them. Then they did coding again, which she LOVES. She got to do 5 sets with the teacher, and then she did 5 more by herself. She had to tell the teacher the direction (haut, bas, droit, gauche). We’ll practice that more.
The last thing they did was dance, which she always enjoys doing.
She did ballet 2 times this week, and practiced doing the spilts. She also danced with her Yoshi.
Music
Piano: There was no full lesson this week. She practiced her finger movements for the five notes and her triads.
We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
She did several stitches this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week. She had some issues with the letters on her own, but I think she just wasn’t concentrating.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 50 out loud (four days in a row she has remembered 16 without prompting!). On Friday, she counted to 70!
Math – the math went very well. She has been completing the worksheets with very little assistance.
We did coding through the computer program that the teacher gave us. I had Dragon say the direction before she clicked on it. She LOVES this game.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Experiment Blue Eyes – I had her group the shapes by colour, and then by shape. Then I told her to put all the ones with angles in one group, and the circles in another. I told her that the angled ones were better. “Why?” she asked. “Why do you think?” I replied. “Maybe because there’s more of them?” she answered after a great deal of thought. “Is that a good reason?” I asked. “No!” immediate response from her. Then she added “the circles would feel sad.” So I told her, “oh, you’re right, the circles must be better, because there’s less of them.” And she vehemently shook her head. “Why not?” I asked. “Because they’re all shapes. They’re all the same thing.” she replied. I told her that she was correct, and we should never make someone feel bad about being who they are.
Thank you, Dragon. I didn’t even need to teach you the lesson today.
She’s disagreeing with me saying that one pile is better than the other
Shapes Activity – we used the book she made in Week 16 to identify the shapes
Using her book to find the names
Elephant rescues in Africa – we watched the video and Dragon was very sad that mother elephants had been killed or were dying. I got lots of cuddles. She was happy that the babies were taken care of and she liked watching them hold the bottle.
Jen and I have been writing, a lot, lately and we’re at the 2/3’s mark of The Untitled Mystery Book Project. It’s been a lot of fun working on it with her and I hope we can keep pace with the rest of the book.
“The Untitled Mystery Book Project” is a cool name but since the book doesn’t involve mystery, projects, or books; we thought we should probably pick a better name.
Without further ado the name is:
Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers
The Gates of Westmeath book 1
Hope you’ll enjoy reading this half as much as we enjoyed writing it.
This felt like a trippy 80’s plotline, however it was much more coherent and actually had some good messages. It’s scientifically ridiculous, but a great parable. I appreciate that they didn’t go into wish fulfilment with the father storyline. I also liked the emotional twist with the stepdad.
Score: 0.5
Character
The main female lead is smart and capable, the male lead isn’t an idiot, the majority of the other characters feel pretty well fleshed out. They’re all a little cartoony, but acted in a believable way.
There’s a huge lack of diversity and I’m not very comfortable with the “Wise Mentor” trope being a black disabled person.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The movie is worth it just for the dialogue and the way the actors deliver it. Jane Levy and Lucas Till are brilliant as are the rest of the cast.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
To balance off the heavy use of special effects, the film makers gave us beautiful nature shots and vistas. Every shot is thought out in advance and works really well.
The music is used perfectly, as a movie where the monster isn’t supposed to be scary, the use of music makes all the difference in the early scenes. Had they used more dramatic music it would have been terrifying, had they used lighter it would have been ridiculous.
Score: 1
Fun
This movie was designed to be fun and slip in some environmental and emotional messages. It succeeds and has more than one awesome moment. Both kids were glued to the screen and my wife and I laughed a lot.
Score: 1
Overall
This movie is much better than it has any right to be considering the premise. It’s an exciting and wholesome movie with great comedic moments and awesome action sequences. The moral and environmental questions are subtle, but present and the movie values intelligent characters. Plus the monsters are really cute.
I’m having a hard week. Winter feels interminable, we’re at the start of the third wave, vaccines are being distributed by a disorganized Flash (from Zootopia, not DC), and people are starting to discuss the possibility that maybe under 10 years of age kids don’t need a vaccine. Thankfully the medical community is pushing for it, but without public and government pushing, how long will it be?
Quarantine has its ups and downs; I’m currently experiencing a down. It’s been a hard week preceded by a hard weekend. Right now I want to curl into a ball and binge-watch Stargate SG1.
With time and patience it’ll get better, but right now I’m angry, frustrated, and just tired. I look forward to watching this thing (gestures around wildly at everything) from the future and being glad it’s over.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make myself another coffee and hope it wakes me up and de-grumps me.
Enjoy this adorable picture of Pegasus stuck inside a chair.
Picture of the almost 20 month Pegasus stuck in a patio chair and giving me an annoyed look. The chair is a metaphor…
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano
Crochet
The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)
Basic Information
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Printing words
In download materials
Counting objects/math-type activities
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials
I let Dragon have a bit more independence during virtual school this week, to try to get her to ask her questions to the teachers instead of to me. I’m not sure it worked very well.
They had a guest speaker again, with a puppet, that taught them about organizing their space to be able to focus. It was cute, but Dragon wasn’t able to tell me what they were saying. She did enjoy the drawing that they asked her to do.
A tree with 2 yellow apples and 3 red apples, and a purple worm in a hole in the trunk. At the base of the tree are 4 orange pumpkins and Pegasus before he was born. At the top, to the left of the tree is a blue bird. The stack of people is our family standing on each other’s heads so that we can reach the apples to pick them.
Math was working on subtraction. Dragon used crayons to demonstrate the answer to the question that was asked of her.
She presented her doll of Valkyrie that was given to her for Christmas by a friend.
We had parent-teacher interviews on Wednesday, and they told us that she’s doing very well in math and she’s very polite and friendly, but that she needs to work on her French, which we’re fully aware of. How do you get someone stubborn to speak something she doesn’t want to speak? We’re working on it.
Homeschool was interesting this week. A lot of thinking about stuff and how we feel.
Dance
She did ballet 2 times this week, and practiced doing the spilts.
Music
Piano: First we reviewed her homework, which she did very well, so she obviously had practiced. And then she did it on the piano, right hand, and then left hand, and then both hands together. So she has new homework for this week; triads (1, 3, 5) on each hand. Then they did the clapping and counting (after the first note; the first one always seems to give her problems). They skipped lesson 1 and started at lesson 2, which she did perfectly without needing to repeat anything. They worked up to adding the fifth note on each hand, and that’s when it all fell apart a bit, so they ended the lesson. Chopsticks went very well.
We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.
Crochet
She did several stitches this week.
Basic Information
We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.
The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.
When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.
Printing words
Printing went very well this week. I’m quite impressed with her letters, tbh.
Counting objects/math-type activities
She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 40 out loud (three days in a row she has remembered 16 without prompting!)
Math – after a meltdown because she couldn’t draw a star, both math worksheets were completed very quickly. We also played a math game that the teacher sent along last week with subtractions, and she had absolutely zero trouble playing it. It was a lot of fun to play it with her.
Storytime
We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.
We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!
Activity
Music blues and jazz – I put on Youtube videos for each of blues and jazz, and then talked about their sound and influences (blues, jazz) while we listened to them. Dragon danced to the jazz.
Learn to meditate – She sat cross-legged on the floor, back straight, hands relaxed. I had her breathe slowly and imagine an object in her mind. I had her flip it around and look at it from every angle, keeping her breathing even and body relaxed.
Make a personality mood board – We looked at the five main personality traits, and decided which fit her best. Then she cut out images that she felt represented each word.
Open – creative, details, people, cares, and relaxed
Taking time off while in lockdown is odd. I took two days off cause I was feeling a little frayed and poor work paid for it. Came back to 50+ emails. Poor boss that had to cover for me.
My days consist of watching Pegasus while working and doing house stuff. On breaks, I’ll try to write or edit. It’s exhausting.
My two days off were pretty much a writing marathon trying to get chapter 15 of The Untitled Mystery Book Project finished. It was in my head and I needed to get it out.
Unfortunately, I also crashed physically. Full migraine, nausea, aches, and weakness. It’s like I just needed to get that chapter out and then my body said, “You’re not going to rest unless I force you.” So the weekend was painful. I hate migraines, I lost all peripheral vision on my left side for two days and every time the kids shrieked, I just saw red-ish static.
I’m feeling better today and the time off was restful, but taking time off with the kids home and lockdown going on is hard. At least I didn’t have a full social calendar.
It’s also why I forgot to prepare a post for today until just now.
All said and done, what you should take from this is that with me finishing chapter 15 and Jen finishing 16 we’re at 16/26, which is 2 chapters away from the end of the second act and that means we’re 2/3’s done. YAY.
Writing with Jen has been awesome, but that’s another post.
