Thursday, October 27, 2016

Day 65

It was raining when we woke up today. That's like hitting a brick wall first thing, isn't it? It didn't rain all day though, so that's something. We read quite a bit of Black Horses for the King today. I'm thinking we just have a couple more days on it. I like it better than the kids. Especially Sarah. For some reason, she just can't get interested in listening to it. Every time I ask if they want more before I stop, she says no.

Sarah doesn't love her Physical Science book as much as she did her General Science. I told her today that she didn't love the General Science right away either. She doesn't remember that, but it took a while to get excited about it. She's almost done with Module 5, so I would think it would be kicking in soon. Actually, I looked at the topics and I think it will be a couple more modules before she starts loving it. I shouldn't say that. She has had plenty of times already when she loved it; it just needs to stick. Sam's getting a little tired of the geological chapters in his book too. I don't know what's come over them. Maybe we need a break from the textbooks to just do some hands on for a while. They love the TOPS science books. We've done some electricity and some adhesion and cohesion. We have an analysis book we haven't done much in; we'll have to see.

Rachel worked on writing the synopsis for entering her book in a publishing contest. I can't remember if I told you about that already. We looked at the kind of books they publish, and Rachel's book is along the same lines as those. So hopefully she has a decent chance of being selected. She's still not sure whether she wants to enter or just go ahead and publish it ourselves. I have a friend that's self-publishing a book that just came out today, and that looks pretty exciting. I guess she'll have to decide in the next couple days; the contest closes Monday.

Math seems to be stumping us this week. Sometimes I feel like I hit a speed bump and I can't think what to teach or how to teach it. Sarah's working on solving for unknowns algebraically which is new. She's getting it better than she thinks she is. It's always a bit tense for her when she learns something new in math. I think she feels unsure of herself for a while. Sam and I are reviewing some things before going on. He's been kind of negative about it lately, so I didn't want to teach much that's new for a time.

It's time for us to choose topics for research papers. This time I want Rachel to actually do some research too. I mean like hands on research, working with people in some way, even if it's just a survey they fill out. Wilson's taking some research methods classes in psychology, so I'm going to have to get him to help her. I hope they can pick topics that they'll want to stay with. They're always wanting to switch topics after a week or two when they find it less interesting than they anticipated.

See you tomorrow!



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