Our Perfect Home-school Day

Mr. B and I had a PERFECT homeschooling day on Thursday. This is a very rare occurrence with us.

After breakfast we had an importune Russian lesson. Generally, teaching Mr. B Russian has been very difficult. He loves Chinese but rarely wants to work on Russian (even though I spoke, sang and read Russian to him every day for the first year of his life...until he told me to stop). 

I have to be VERY creative with Russian. We learn through songs. Mr. B loves all the old childrens' songs that I sang to him when he was a baby and his favorite is Antoshka. Luckily, Baby G loves Antoshka too and I sing it to her when she gets cranky. She got cranky after breakfast, I started singing, Mr. B's ears perked up and we started our Russian Lesson. 

We focused on two simple songs. Antoshka and Two Merry Geese (from the same cartoon series). First I sang both songs, stopping several times to discuss vocabulary. Then we watched the videos for the songs on YouTube. 

Two Merry Geese

This was a very successful lesson. By the end Mr. B was singing Antoshka with me so at least he knows the words! At this rate I don't think that either of my kids will be fluent in Russian but at least they are being exposed to the language and culture. 

Next we worked on phonics and printing the letter A while Baby G worked on scooting around the room. 

After Baby G went down for her nap, Mr. B and I built and played with Princess Repunzel's Creativity Tower. 

Afterwords we had a great space lesson. We read Astronaut: Living in Space by Deborah Lock. This is an amazing book about an Astronaut who travels into space to repair a telescope. While reading this book we had a discussion about gravity and how Astronauts eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and get clean in space. The book also has an amazing description of what it takes for a space shuttle to re-enter the atmosphere. We highly recommend this book!!! We also read Fly Guy Presents Space by Tedd Arnold. This is a new book and this is our first time reading it. In this book, Fly Guy goes to the museum to learn all about space. This was a good review and a lot of new information. 

Next Mr. B wanted to go outside to play but it was about 100 degrees outside. To divert his attention I offered him a dinosaur digging kit. We opened a similar kit the week before so Mr. B was very excited. 

This time Mr. B did most of the digging and found a triceratops nest!!! I really need to find more of these!

Finally, we put together a life-size foam skeleton puzzle (from Learning Resources) and discussed the names of the bones and their location in our bodies. 

Just as Baby G's nap was coming to an end, Mr. B fell asleep on the couch.

If only every day was this great!