Betsy Bailey

After waking up early, getting breakfast and walking her sisters to their respective bus stops, Bailey (age 12.5) eagerly dug in with the following:

• She completed the placement test for Math-U-See. She’ll be starting at Gamma level (review and solidification of multiplication concepts). I ordered the materials today and they have been shipped.
• I’ve ordered a copy of Mavis Beacon Deluxe so Bailey can learn touch typing. In the meantime, she did 15 minutes of drill at http://powertyping.com. She was impressed to see her touch typing speed increase from 10 wpm to 15 wpm.
• She read Chapter 2 (Personal Style) of Girls Inc: You’re Amazing! and blogged the exercise on p. 23.
• She also did a free write sharing her first day experience on her new blog.
• Bailey loves history and is very interested in the Civil War era. Today she started reading Gone With the Wind (“I love books that make me feel like I’m THERE in history, mom!”). We also have the movie that she can watch at some point. Later, we will use the Penguin Readers Fact Sheets for this book to discuss the story in the context of history. In fact, the first unit in her 7th grade Social Studies class was the Civil War and that was the one topic that she really wanted to continue learning about at home. There are some *awesome*, FREE US History videos online and I’ll be incorporating these into the curriculum, as well as various other books and movies (Netflix) like Gettysburg, The Red Badge of Courage and etc..
• Bailey did 15 minutes of multiplication math facts online.
• She updated her blog layout to reflect her personal interests and practiced formatting, editing and other tools while logging two entries today.
• She researched two dinner recipes and two dessert recipes. Since we had the necessary ingredients on hand, she made brownies from scratch this afternoon. YUM. I have to say I’m liking having her around!
• She browsed the 800-page Home Learning Source Book and submitted a list of things she’s excited to learn about. Her list includes Latin (!), Physics (!), French and US Presidents, among others. She gave me a lot to work with!
• We reviewed science curriculum options and she thought the 8th level Alpha Omega Life Pac sounded like the most interesting option (plus the Science Kit for lab work). I ordered Getting Started With Latin and Classical Mythology and More to give her a taste of Latin (integrated with mythology literature) and the science curriculum with lab materials. She was also excited by this “game,” so I ordered The Physics Workshop Kit. As well as the book The New Way Things Work, which gets such exceptional reviews (I think Bailey’s not the only one who will enjoy these!)
• She’ll also be exploring this art curriculum (drawing instruction).

• And if that wasn’t enough, she did Week 1, Day 1 of the Couch to 5K Podcast on the treadmill and she LOVED IT.

A very productive and incredibly well-rounded day! And aside from the curriculum research and ordering, she did most of the work herself. She was busy non-stop from 8:30 until nearly 3 pm with nary a complaint nor a peep about boredom.