Mondays in Our House

Well, it's Monday, and I thought, hey, why not tell y'all what our Mondays are like.

We love Mondays. When most people cringe at the thought of a Monday, I get excited!

Monday is for books!
Monday is the day that I assign-- with recommendations coming from the kids many times-- the book for the week for each child.

This week??

Sara is finishing up Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and then, will be starting "Jacob I have Loved", by Katherine Paterson.
Cameron is finishing up "A Wrinkle in Time", by Madeleine L'Engle and then will be starting. "The Black Pearl", by Scott O'Dell.
Evelynn just started "Peter and the Starcatchers", by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.
Sonia is reading "Old Mother West Wind" by Thornton Burgess, and I am reading "Little Birds and Lilies", by Mary Callahan to her.

For Bridget?
Well, today, these are the books she pulled out of the library basket to be read to her by me or various older siblings:
"One Red Apple", "Birdhouse For Rent", and "The Little Red Hen", by Harriet Ziefert- I'm on a bit of a Ziefert kick lately. LOVE her books!
"Free Fall", by David Wiesner
"Who Loves the Fall?", by Bob Raczka
"Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf" by Lois Ehlert
"Mrs. Katz and Tush", by Patricia Polacco, who also wrote one of my all-time favorite kids' books, "Thunder Cake".

Yes, they'll all get read. :)

Monday is for movies!

We're going to stay in our jammies, which is kinda normal for us on Mondays, and watch the first season of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". It was recommended to us by a friend of Sara's, so I added it to the mammoth list of library holds, and we'll see if we can make it through Season 1 today.
I also got the movie of "Mrs. Katz and Tush" for Bridget to watch.

Monday is for music!

I promised Cameron a keyboard for his birthday in January if he can learn how to play some basic piano, so off he went that day and every day since to find videos on YouTube to learn how to play different songs on the piano. All of the kiddos are finding this a great way to learn to play piano. Viva La Vida, by Coldplay is the latest song he has mastered. No lie. It sounds amazing in my house!!!
Here is the video that he and Sara both learned with:



We love YouTube for music lessons of all kind for free. Cameron has become pretty good on the guitar learning this way too.

Sara's favorite site for learning piano is Online Pianist. She and Evelynn both love that you can slow the lesson down as much as you need to. Technology is pretty amazing! I would have LOVED to learn this way!

Monday is for math games!
We'll be playing Hot Potato with a ball today while doing times tables. We even include 5yr old Bridget. I'll say, " 5 times zero" or some such other easy problem while throwing the ball to her. When she catches it, I say, "Say zero!" or whatever the answer is, and she yells out the answer. She likes being included. We stand in a circle when we do this, and they toss it back to me as fast as they can with the answer. IF they get it wrong or don't say it quickly enough, they have to sit in the middle of the circle until someone else makes a mistake and takes their place. We have a great deal of fun doing this and it helps get those facts in there solidly.


Soooooooo, off I go to watch movies and read with the kiddos. Hope you're having a fabulous Monday!