April 20-24

MONDAY
There was no school today because I went up to Lindon for an unexpected funeral. The kids went to my visiting teacher's house for most of the day. They did get to see Grammy and Aunt Nicole for a little bit.

TUESDAY
Brenden did typing and French.

He did xtramath.org and we also started a new game to help him practice his multiplication tables and get them memorized quickly. It's from a Teachers Pay Teachers store. It's called Kicking It. It gives the kids a few math tables to practice, then gives them one minutes to do a 60 question quiz of those math facts. If they complete all 60 with no mistakes, they go on to the next set of facts. If not, they redo it the next day. As they complete each level, they earned colored belts (like in martial arts). Brenden is not a fan of the timed test. They give him stress. But after he went, I showed him that I could do it in less than 1 minute. So hopefully he realizes that it can be done, it will just require a bit of practice.

We started history. We are behind and have to catch up because we missed Friday and Monday. So far we read The Thanksgiving Story and he has narrated it. We're taking a break because well, he was whining about how hard it is. *sigh*


WEDNESDAY
Brenden went to science class. We spent the rest of our day running errands in Orem.


THURSDAY

Brenden did typing and French. I know in typing he said he won two games. In French, they gave him certain phrases, not too long, but longer than the ones he did before. He had to spell them correctly. He got 100%

In math, he did his xtramath practice. He also did the Kicking It practice and test. He did better today, with the attitude and the test. He got 30 answers done out of 60.

In history, I was thinking that it was taking too long to write out his narrations for him. He gets mad when he has to stop his narrations and wait for me to finish writing. So I tried videoing him, which worked fine, but takes up too much space on my phone. Then I tried using my tablet and talk to text to write what he said. Oh my word. It was a disaster, for many reasons. In the end, I started using Evernote to record what he said. I'm not sure if I'll end up transcribing them here or just uploading them to the Canvas assignment.

He also did one lesson of grammar and one lesson of PLL. We're really falling behind in English and trying to catch up.

Here's the talk to text we got from the first four chapters of Bears on Hemlock Mountain

Chapter 1

About Jonathan

Jonathan lived in a gray stone farmhouse at the foot of hemlock mountain. now hemlock mountain wasn't  really a mountain it was just a hill, and not a very big one either. Someone had started calling it hemlock mountain and the name started catching on. It was the year when Jonathan was eight when he first climbed hemlock mountain by himself . The winter had been a cold one . Jonathan hadn't forgotten to feed the animals. Even now in early spring, there was snow on the ground. which is why Jonathan hadn't forgotten to feed the animals. The small creatures could not find enough to eat but was not so with Jonathan’s aunts and uncles and cousins.

Chapter Two young uncle James

Jonathan was very fond of his uncles and aunts and cousins. If all his aunts and uncles lined up side by side they would reach the gate to the farmhouse at least. Of all his aunts and uncles Jonathan liked his uncle James the most . James was 14 so he and Jonathan were friends. They always went out into the woods together. “Look at that cotton-tail,” James would say, as they watched the brown rabbit wash itself .

“ Look!” James would say as they saw a raccoon holding an apple, the raccoon dipped its apple into a river, “ raccoons like their food wet” uncle James would say.

Chapter 3 the iron pot

Since Jonathan had a bunch of aunts and uncles he also had a bunch of cousins. Jonathan had a new cousin who was going to be christened. All the aunts and uncles and older cousins were coming to the church. Normally they came in small groups to the farmhouse but this time all 20 were coming and there wasn't a big enough pot that Jonathan and his parents had. “How will we feed all your aunts and uncles Jonathan?” Jonathan's mother asked. Jonathan's dad said she should make a bunch of stew and cookies. Jonathan's mom said they didn't have a big enough pot for the stew. Jonathan's mom thought and thought, then said that one of Jonathan's aunts had a big enough cooking pot. Jonathan's mom told him to get the cooking pot from his aunt. Jonathan asked why his dad couldn't get the pot. Jonathan's mom said that his dad still had to work. Jonathan's mom reminded him that it was only across hemlock mountain. Jonathan said that there were bears on hemlock mountain. Jonathan's mom guessed that his uncle James had told him this and that there were no bears on hemlock mountain. Jonathan got ready to go out, got some nuts and got some seeds and went out and turned around and came back in. Jonathan asked for some carrots and his mom asked why. Jonathan said that the carrots were for the rabbits. His mom gave him some carrots and some cookies for himself. Jonathan went back outside.

Chapter 4 up Hemlock mountain

Jonathan went up from lock mounting eating a cookie as he went. When Jonathan was out of sight his mom began to worry a bit. She then started to cut cookies. She tried not to worry about bears being on hemlock mountain but then discovered that she was cutting to a rhythm. The rhythm was: there are no bears on hemlock mountain, no bear is on hemlock mountain, of course there are no bears on hemlock mountain, no bears at all, no bears at all.


FRIDAY