Wrapping up Archaeology

School today started with one phonics lesson which went ok and one math exercise which went very well. We finished up the school day by reading a couple of grade appropriate books on archaeology (The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells and Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke). Cameron was very attentive. He didn't even really want to read Archaeologists Dig for Clues but ended up very into the story and was asking tons of questions.

After we finished reading, I had him do his first ever narration. Instead of having him narrate back a specific book plot or encyclopedia blurb, I just had him narrate the subject to me... his first essay, I suppose. I explained that a narrator tells a story and that I wanted him to tell me a story about archaeology. I prompted him with, "What is an archaeologist?" and he went on and on! I was quite impressed. Next I had him flip through the myriad of library books we have on the subject and find a picture of a really interesting artifact to draw. What he found was a picture of an archaeologist looking into an unopened tomb with a periscope. He thought that was super cool and drew his picture of that. I had to help him out with the caption - he wanted to write a whole other story! We finally agreed on a concise and descriptive caption (so that we would know what it is actually supposed to be, lol).

It's funny how "subjects" just come up. I never would have considered that the importance writing concise descriptions would be a lesson that I would teach today. In fact, if I were strictly following a lesson plan, I doubt that would ever get covered, lol. But now we have our first two pages in the History Notebook and with that we shall move on to dinosaurs and prehistoric man on Wednesday.

Gymnastics went fabulously today. Cassia worked so hard - you could see how exhausted she was. This new class is really challenging for her, but she loves it. Cameron had a 100% turn around today. He was back to crazy monkey and enthusiastically volunteering to demonstrate everything today. His strength really isn't up there yet, to do what they are asking of him, but he is trying and that means everything. I was super proud of them both. Cassia spent Cameron's entire class watching the girl's team practice. She was in awe. She asked if she could be on the team too. Good thing we homeschool - I've heard the life of a gymnast is hard. Of course, she's still walking around on tiptoe everywhere so she may be a professional ballerina instead. Did you know you could toe walk in flip flops? I can see heartbreak in her future when she has to make a choice between seriously pursuing gymnastics OR ballet - not both. LOL.