One of the things we are grateful for is having such an awesome library within walking distance of home, at least when it’s not raining too hard. But we’re lucky because Ethan loves reading so much and could probably spend the whole day at the library, which is a good thing for a homeschooler. Today was one of those days when hanging at the library was a nice way to spend the afternoon.
Working early
We’ve been getting Ethan into the habit of doing some work every day, even on the weekends. And it seems to be working out because the first thing he did after getting up was doing some math problems. He’s been having fun practicing math lately, so that probably explains his enthusiasm.
Flags and the phonetic alphabet
We recently borrowed a book from the library about flags and the phonetic alphabet. Ethan liked learning about how different flags can be used by ships to communicate with and why we use the phonetic alphabet. We practiced saying our names using the phonetic alphabet, which was a lot of fun. Plus, the morse code for each letter was also fun to try out.
Studying chess moves
Another book that Ethan likes is this chess book for kids. He loves the strategies they teach and the characters in the book are interesting. I wouldn’t recommend this book because the human character threatens his alligator friend with flushing him down the toilet if the alligator isn’t telling the truth. There isn’t just one mention of it, but twice the boy threatens the animal with physical violence. Not sure why the authors decided this was okay, but I pointed it out to Ethan so that he would be aware of it and not just accept the attitude demonstrated by the boy in the book.
Manners
We’ve been working on improving Ethan’s manners and he’s been doing a great job learning each day. This book about manners is full of funny situations that makes learning how to behave in certain situations more enjoyable.
Time for chess
Ethan and I played a couple matches this morning and I loved it, as it’s a great way for us to do something together and connect.
A ponytail or a haircut?
Ethan hasn’t had a haircut since before we left for our road trip and he cut his own bangs that time. His hair has really grown out but we want him to decide when he wants to cut it. Today, he wanted to see what his hair would look like if he had it in a ponytail.
Library time
We finally hit the library after lunch and ended up staying for a couple hours. We had a bunch of books on hold to pick up and Ethan wanted more chess books.
We also borrowed a couple more of the Canadian Flyer books, since Ethan quite likes them and they’re a good way for us to find additional books about Canadian history that Ethan might find interesting.
Ethan was learning about early pioneers so we found a book that told the story of a fictional family that settled in Canada in the 1800s. We’re finding it easier to choose books after seeing how the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method suggest using “living” books; in other words, books with stories about people, instead of facts.
And we grabbed a fun-looking math book because we knew that Ethan likes finding hacks and other tricks to help him improve his math skills.
Ethan and I spent the evening reading the Canadian Flyer books and afterwards, we prepared some grammar worksheets for Ethan to work on the next day.
We know that Ethan needs to brush up on his knowledge of grammar, so we’re thinking of focusing on one grammar point for a week at a time. Hopefully, this will help him become proficient in recognizing something, such as prepositions, without having to think much about it.
Let’s see how he does.
Like I said off the top, the library is a fantastic place and we’ve barely scratched the surface of how we can use this amazing resource. What about you? How is the local library where you are and do you visit very often?
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