Aaaaaaa!!!

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow! I'm so unprepared. Ha. Like I could prepare for the madness of both adults and all three children participating.

I have been helping my children, utilizing the stuff available on the young writers site. (Oh yeah, I'm expecting brilliance from myself, especially after having used "utilizing" and "stuff" in the same sentence.) Here are our word count goals:

• Ayeka: 15,000
  
• Aku: 5,000
• Sasame: 1,000
• Steve: 50,000
  
• Me: 50,000

I've committed to writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I feel there are a few other commitments I need to make, now, while sanity has its hold.

• I will feed my children at least one hot, home cooked meal per day.
• I will continue to home educate 5 days/week, with the emphasis on Latin, Math, and Writing (Science and History may just get the month off.)
• I will continue my Latin studies though I am going to adjust my schedule and allow two days for each assignment instead of one.
• Oh, there should be more, but panic set in when Anneliese told me this morning, "Tomorrow is NaNoWriMo!"

What can I let go for this month? Or rather, what am I willing to openly confess I will let go?

Hang Tags for Hats

These are for my dreadlock hats. What do you think?

I Love Latin

We don't hit, but that doesn't mean the kids don't get frustrated with each other at times and have some wishful thinking. Last night my 6 yo was reaching overload when her 11 yo brother had to open his mouth just one more time. Her reply?

Hedera Severum pulsat!

It was a great tension breaker as even she laughed about it.

On my list of things to do: Find more ways to expose my youngest to spoken Latin, so she can continue to keep up on the vocabulary. The older two have the oral exposure plus oodles of reading and writing.

The kids' current location in Lingua Latina? Capitulum IV, Lectio I.

Kittens!

What's to say? On to the pictures...

Oliver

Seamus

Another excerpt from our Latin journey...

Lingua Latina, Day 17

Here's the pattern I've adopted. On day one of a new lectio we TPR the vocabulary first, then I read it out loud while the kids follow along. Next we take turns reading it, or take parts and read it together. Somewhere in there we listen to our CD and follow along as Oerberg reads it.

That's it. I STOP. We have wonderful days where they grasp the vocabulary and understand the lectio, and I want to gain even more ground, but I've learned the best thing I can do is STOP. Just stop. Let them have a day (or sometimes a weekend) and then after we TPR, read, and listen, all to the same lectio, they do the exercitia. And it goes so much better.

Today we had TPR'd all the new verbs and that left just two words I was pretty confident they would get from the text, but it never hurts to be introduced to vocab before you read it. So enter the halo and the horns. It was fun seeing how the kids acted out being good and being wicked.

We read scaena secunda and they had no questions and begged for more. I caved and we read scaena tertia too. Only 40 minutes had passed and a part of me wanted to push on, to put in a full hour of Latin. I gathered up our books instead.

Of Latin and House Points (LL Day 3)

My kids wanted house points this year and so have them. Each their own house, they enjoy gaining points by answering review questions correctly, and occasionally they lose points for not having chores done on time, or for distracting a fellow student. The ones most often to lose points are the 6 year old and the 10 year old. They know each other's buttons and love to push them. The newly turned 6 year old does not like to be referred to as little or young.

We were reading together from Capitulum I, Lectio II:

Me: "Nilus fluvius magnus est." At magnus I opened my arms wide to indicate large. "Tiberis non est fluvius magnus, Tiberis fluvius parvus est." At parvus I indicated small with my fingers.

10 year old to 6 year old: "Hey, you're parvus!"

6 year old to 10 year old: "I am not! You're parvus."

I was about to deduct points from both houses when I realized, "They're insulting each other in Latin!"

Each house was awarded 3 points.

Our Lingua Latina Journey, Day 2

In the middle of reading Capitulum I, Lectio I, my 12 year old looked up and said, "I'm reading this, and I understand it." Wonderful. And the ease with which the 10 year old answered the exercitia let me know that he understood it too.