Daily Report:Law ,Bridges, And Music

They slipped into their work period without missing a beat today. Michelle spent some time painting her office space during our read aloud time. When DJ and Ken were both done reading she came to ask me was it her turn:) I have already started the period of weaning from school to home with Michelle and actually so far she has been comfortable with learning in a relaxed fashion, still she wants testing to be done.  I think I can accommodate this request, hopefully we will by small steps get to the point that she feels O.K to accept her hard work in other ways besides the results on a test determining her success.

 DJ started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today. This was not his first choice. He is waiting on the book The Robot King by Brian Sielznick to arrive. Also today he worked on identifying simple and compound sentences and identifying conjunctions.

 Ken is still reading the Giver and today she worked on applying the" balance of power" and made an outline of who has the power as described in the book. For language arts work she did a worksheet on writing compound sentences and using commas and conjunctions.

 Michelle is really into learning about anything medical related and the Law. So we began reading a cool book that is about 15 real juvenile cases. It includes background information about the case, the judges sentencing and then you decide if you agree with the judge or not. It also gives some updates on the juveniles after they completed their sentences.

 Today we read about Adam.  After our reading Michelle did an activity where she wrote to the judge about her feelings about the case. After our discussion(debate), she kinda got upset with me because I didn't exactly agree with the Judge or her. I based my decision more on the basis of the law and some supreme court cases that were overturned.  Michelle followed up by researching about the first amendment, now she was thinking somewhat like a lawyer more of her decisions were based on facts rather than by emotions.

 All smiles while taking her second Spanish class.

 When we were outside she continued to write the letter to the judge. Michelle is not an reluctant writer. The page of the book in the photo prompted the impromptu research.

In Math Ken worked on word problems using addition and subtraction, using decimals to thousands, and money.

                                         

DJ worked on subtraction exchanging to the millions with a material that I will be reviewing.                                                                  

                                                                                                                    

DJ also worked on building a moving bridge. He couldn't finish it all, the wood has to dry. I am so excited that he actually waited for the glue to dry. He has added wood glue to his favorite materials list.

 The music lover has become frustrated with the guitar. Why? because we don't have a guitar teacher, or a guitar program to follow:(  Fortunately this hasn't stopped her from loving music. I picked up this Harmonica Kit and she has been happily playing songs and learning some history along the way. You don't need to know how to read music to play the harmonica, but Ken has been adapting this and learning the names of the letters on the staff, which is slowly but surely getting her to write music which she desperately wants to do. Also she can play a few songs that are included in the book.

 Michelle and Ken are working on making a clothing line together:) Michelle inspired by this book is in the planning stages of decorating shoes.

 I really like that the book has so many styles of shoes grouped by places and time periods in history.

                 Soon to be decorated shoes.

This post was awfully long, and I thank you so much for reading! Just adding one more kid seem to make the daily reports a bit longer to record. Oh yeah!! Just one more thing. Michelle just left to go to her volunteering position at a retirement home. Today she is helping with Bingo. This volunteer thing was all of her idea, her phone call contacts. I am pleased that she is able to do something that she likes to do which is helping people.