Horses

We rounded out the day yesterday looking up different breeds and patterns of horses, printing pictures, and getting them ready to go in the notebook. Mane has had a fascination with horses for some time now, fueled by Grandma buying her those Schleich toy horses and telling her horse stories. We found out that there's only one heard of wild horses left, and scientists aren't even sure they're the same species as other currently existing horses! Mane compared the horse pictures to her Schleich toys.

Today we found a chart of all the parts of a horse and talked about the names for baby horses (foal, colt, filly) and grown horses (mare & stallion). Mane is currently pasting the horse pictures in her school notebook as I type.

This morning we read the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments from the Jewish Holidays book. I LOVED their take on this story, which is that we all make mistakes and mistakes are part of the process of growing and learning more about ourselves and God. The focus of the story was on Moses getting so angry that he broke the stone tablets. At the end of the story God tells Moses to save the broken pieces along with the new tablets. Moses complains that then he will always remember how embarrassingly angry he got. God says that's exactly why he should save them...not as a punishment, but because the mistake is holy, too. This is a lesson Mane needs to hear over and over again. She's so worried about making mistakes, sensitive to being wrong. It's a good story for me to refer back to when she gets all upset about mistakes, and it's good for me, too.

Mane read one of the Hooked on Phonics books, and then we put star stickers on her calendar for the recent days that she has practiced reading. Having some sort of small reward is a life-saving motivator right now. She is able to focus and even enjoy a little time reading if she knows she's working for something. It isn't my ideal. So, I haven't been pushing it. But, interestingly, she's been asking to read. So, whatever.

We continued reviewing some MUS Alpha concepts. Mane has a good memory for the things we haven't practiced in the last few months.

We're considering biking to the library, but there are storm clouds brewing. Not sure if we're going to make it out today or not.