April 23 - 27

A lot of this week was spent figuring out what works and what doesn't. Encouraging to see how fast we can move now that we've reworked and streamlined things a bit!

Things I learned:

1) It is unnecessary to light a circle time candle, even though it is fun.

2) Suzi already knows a lot and can pick things up quickly. Wow!

3) We can do school in the morning or in the afternoon, as long as Robert is happy.

So here is what we did this week:

Morning routine: We established a loose routine of singing an opening verse ("Morning Has Come" from Oak Meadow), counting the days on our calendar, talking about the weather, and maybe singing a song.

Math: We love our counting bears! This week we used them to demonstrate greater than/less than/equal to. Suzi can count and compare up to at least ten, and can also add two groups of bears together and count them up to ten. We compared objects as small, medium, or large using counting bears and shapes, and introduced less than/greater than/equal to signs. She got the hang of using these fairly quickly. We called the "greater than" sign an alligator mouth and I told her, like I had been told as a child, that the alligator wanted to eat as much as he could, so he wanted the larger group or object. She can count to 20 (we practice this on the calendar) and we are working every day on going further. She's almost got it! She can also count backwards from 10. We like to sing "Alice the Camel" for practice with this. I'll have to videotape the girls singing it. Also, we are working on telling time with our fun new clock. Suzi has pretty much mastered full and half hour times. She loves to play with the clock and tries to teach it to Ivey.

Science: We talked about the sense of sight and read "Fire! Fire! said Mrs. McGuire." We played a "what's missing?" game, I Spy, and had fun watching our pupils react to changes in lighting. Then we worked on the sense of smell and read "The Story of Jumping Mouse." Suzi and Ivey both enjoyed playing "guess that smell" with different foods and things like soap in the kitchen.

Reading: I loved these books as a child, and reading them gave me such a sense of accomplishment, so this week we started Suzi off on "Who Cried for Pie?" and "Willie the Slowpoke." She picked up "Who Cried for Pie?" so fast that I called my mom to be sure she hadn't been teaching it to her at her house! Now, with illustrations and certain key words to help her, she can nearly read the whole book. "Willie the Slowpoke" is coming right along, too. I tell her to follow along one word at a time with her finger as she reads. We are working on recognizing key words as we read through these familiar books.

Writing: We've been working on writing her first and last name in upper- and lowercase (Oak Meadow only introduces capital letters to kindergartners). Really, I just wrote the last name out for her in case she wanted to try it. I don't expect her to get that for a while. I encouraged her to write some of the key words from her reading books, but she's not all that interested in copying words right now. I'm sure she'll enjoy it more when she's writing a story!

Health: We read "I'm Growing!" by Aliki and measured all our heights and weights.

Suzi: 41.5"/35 lbs

Ivey: 35"/29 lbs

Robert: 28.5"/~16 lbs

Mama: 5'4"/137 lbs

They get a kick out of seeing the scale go up so high when I get on :-) We started a little growth chart on the inside of our coat closet door. I tried to get them to draw self-portraits, but Suzi is not into prompted art. Then today she drew this with absolutely no suggestion from me. She didn't even show it to me; I found it on the counter.

Art: I don't feel the need to focus on this with Suzi, because she does it on her own every day. We provide the supplies and she just sits at her desk and lets her imagination run away with her. Today I gave the girls cardboard boxes, egg cartons and toilet paper tubes and let them cut them up for crafts. Here is one of the things Suzi made. A hat for her Easter chick!

Drama: Suzi and Ivey are both enrolled in a little drama class that meets once a week for six weeks. Their Grandma has been taking them to it. Lovely! I can't wait for the performance at the end.

Physical activity: We just joined the YMCA and have been taking the kids swimming about once a week. We usually go with our good friends. The kids play in Child Watch while we work out, and then we take them to the pool. I'd love to do more than once a week, but getting three littles into their swimsuits and then home and bathed and into pajamas by myself is exhausting! The kids also go to Grandma and Grandpa's house a couple of times a week, where they usually play outside. There are normally park playdates as well, but we haven't made it there this week!

Things I'd like to try next:

1) Word poster for words she sees frequently in her books (I, a, did, what, who, is, the, etc)

2) Flash cards for recognizing these words

3) Word tracing page - I'll write them out for her in highlighter*

*This is a Guru Grandma idea. My mom is a retired kindergarten teacher. She loved it and was awesome at it, and couldn't wait to have grandchildren so she could have the joy of watching them learn, too. She is our homeschooling support line, and also teaches Suzi lots of things at her house. I will have to do a blog post about her soon.

The simple surprise that finally got us started

I had curriculum. I had supplies. I had a four-year-old who was ready to learn. And I had a deep, longstanding desire to homeschool. But I was stuck. I couldn’t seem to get my act together.

My daughter Suzi was four years old in the fall of 2011--not yet official kindergarten age, so while we planned to get started homeschooling with the Oak Meadow curriculum, nothing was legally required. I had big plans for self-improvement as a mom, and I was going to clear out time and space and do this thing. Perfectly. I read the books that came with our curriculum and when we finally started our year I was brimming over with excitement. I loved reading the stories and doing the activities with Suzi (and Ivey, when she joined in). It was a lot of work, but it felt awesome... For a little while.

Baby Robert (born in April) was sleeping less and less and demanding attention more and more. Do you know how much fun it is to paint with your children with a baby wailing in the background? Or to try to read a long, wordy story with everyone piled in your lap, while the baby attempts to rip pages out of the book? Or to feel like crap because the curriculum said you were supposed to make bread dough and form it into letter shapes with your child, but you just didn't have the time or energy?

Well, it's no fun. No fun at all. We fizzled fast. Eventually I ended up abandoning the curriculum and doing a little of this or a little of that whenever it fit into our schedule. I would call it unschooling, but I think most unschoolers go to a lot more trouble than I was. I knew I had to do something soon. But what?

Over the past few months and since becoming a mother of three, I've learned some things about myself and my life:

My house is always going to be at least a little messy, and maybe a lot messy.
I suck at sticking to a schedule.
A resolution to get out of bed before about 6:30 is not sustainable for me.
I am not Energetic Mom, but I can be Creative Mom.
When I try to do too much, I become grouchy and tired and nobody benefits.
Robert is going to need massive amounts of my time and energy for a while.
I really like sitting around in my pajamas.
I love letting my kids sit around in their pajamas.
Being an over achieving mom is not a problem that I have.
And all of this is okay. None of it will keep me from homeschooling.

Once I realized this, I just needed to jump in and do something, even if it was something small. I was still stuck. Overwhelmed. Didn't know where to start. Then one day I saw it.

Exactly the thing I needed.

At a yard sale! For ten bucks!

Don't you just love it? When I saw those five multicolored drawers labeled with the days of the week, a little wheel started turning inside my brain. I could make a plan for each day, and put the necessary books and supplies in the corresponding drawer! I really could!

And that is what I did. I sat down with my Oak Meadow curriculum, a summarized list of kindergarten skills for our state, a pencil, and a piece of paper and wrote out what we were going to do each day for the next several weeks.

Our homeschooling only takes about an hour. We put friends and fun activities first and fit school in whenever. Robert (1) is usually content to snack in his high chair while we work. Suzi (4) seems to love spending this time together and takes pride in her new knowledge and skills. Ivey (2) follows right along, or runs around singing songs. I read books with her while Suzi works on her own. It's a start. We can work with this.

Oh, and we usually have school in our pajamas! It's not that we're lazy slobs or anything. We just love pajama parties! Join us!