Grade 4, Spring Term, Beowulf Week 1, Day 3 ~ Sick

We were so far off our rhythm today. Papa and I are both quite ill; T-Guy and J-Baby seem to be at the tail end of it. Papa anchors our morning rhythm as he is the one in the family who must wake up and be somewhere around the same time each day. When Papa doesn't get up the boys and I tend to flounder a bit.

We made an easy day of it. We took in so much of Beowulf Tuesday that I decided to give us an extra day of "sleep" before starting the recall process. Instead, the boys worked with The Lightning Thief in order to be ready for book club this afternoon.

I want to like book club. I mean, I like the idea of book club, but so far this one has fallen far short. The kids have met twice and at both meetings the majority of the time was spent reading the book out loud. Um, they've already read the book. They've done a few activities: writing their names in Greek, a Percy Jackson word search, and coloring a Greek vase. There have been 2 - 3 questions about the book each week; however, the fall under the lame category as they were the most basic of comprehension questions. What kind of school does Percy Jackson attend? What is a boarding school?

We have one more week of this. I didn't want to pull out on the librarian after one meeting; I'm glad I didn't because another parent did and the group is really small. I'd like to offer ideas or even to help, but I realize that most children probably don't discuss books the way mine do. Oral recall and meaningful discussion is how we approach literature on a daily basis.

We rounded out the day with more mental word games and Papa read the boys their history lesson.