It's really easy when you blog, or are posting on Facebook, to only mention the glorious moments. So in the interest of full disclosure, I'd like to mention that at 10:00 this morning, the boys and I were having such a dismal time that 1) I was ready to give up on homeschooling, and 2) we had retreated to three different rooms, where we were each weeping in solitary splendor.
I could not think how to salvage the situation. But after awhile I wandered into the hallway and said to the closed doors, "Um, guys, *sniff*, I'm going to go ahead and graph our Mystery Class data so we don't fall behind. Anybody who wants to come help, *snuffle*, can come help."
The boys wandered out to the living room, wiping their noses on their sleeves, and we transferred our sunrise/sunset data to the data sheets, calculated the photoperiods for each of the mystery sites, and charted them on our graph. We found and fixed a couple of our mistakes--calculating photoperiods is surprisingly tricky math--and were astonished that the site that got 24 hours of sunlight just a week ago got only a little more than 18 hours a week later! We checked and double-checked the numbers and that's what they said. I'll be curious to see where it is--the South Pole is still in full-time daylight this week. So it's someplace north of there.
Then we did an activity where you find other locations that are at your latitude and check their photoperiod. We did Sapporo, Japan; Florence, Italy; and Changchun, China; all of which we found by using the globe we got for Christmas. They all had photoperiods within a few minutes of ours. It was fun to see the boys figure out that photoperiod is all about latitude; they had previously thought that places with similar photoperiods must be close to us but now they get that they could be very far away.
Then we worked on this week's Lego Quest challenge. The challenge was to build something using 30 specific bricks, and we made a set for Yehva, so when she got home from preschool, she did it, too. I'd post pictures but the boys are excited that their creations might be on the website next week so I'll save it for then.
Doing fun stuff together got us feeling much less horrible, and the rest of the day went pretty well. Yehva and I had to run to the store at one point to buy eggs so we could make cupcakes, and I was reminded of why I am always running out of things: I simply cannot do the grocery shopping with Yehva. This is what it was like just running into a convenience store for one item:
Me: OK, Yev, just so you know, we're only buying eggs. We're not buying anything else.
Yehva: OK.
We enter the store.
Yehva: Mama, they have candy!
Me: I see.
Yehva: Can I have some?
Me: Not today. Today we are just buying eggs.
Yehva: But I'm hungry.
Me: We'll have lunch when we get home. And we're making cupcakes.
Yehva: Can we get donuts?
Me: No. We're just buying eggs. Another day we can get donuts.
Yehva: I want donuts.
Me: Donuts are certainly tasty.
Yehva, escalating: I want donuts!
Me: No donuts. We're just getting eggs.
Yehva: I see cookies.
Me: I see the cookies, too.
Yehva: I want some cookies.
Me: Sorry, we're just here for eggs.
Yehva stomps her foot: I want cookies!
Me: Not today.
Yehva picks up a package of bakery cupcakes: Can we get cupcakes?
Me: Yehva! We are buying eggs--and only eggs--so we can *make* cupcakes! We are not buying cupcakes!
Yehva: Then can I have some candy?
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