Homeschooling Week 1

Readers be warned: This is my journaling as I go, so it may be really messy to read. . .it's a first and only draft, almost always!

Day 1: Monday
Turned in my affadavit to the School Board!!!  It's REAL!
2 hours of math "complete curriculum" unit 1 (math)
1 hour ice skating practice (healthy living/PE)

Day 2: Tuesday
2 hours park play with Marley (S.S. & Healthy Living)
2 hours math "complete curriculum" Unit 2 (math)
2 hours math (computer play)

Day 3: (official first day of school) funny. . .received my affadavit in the mail this morning just as we were beginning. Wednesday

35 minutes Yoga
30 minutes reading "Sylvie"
1 hour "complete curriculum Unit 3 (math)
30 minutes writing ("First Day of First Grade" sheet)
2 hours church small group (arts-singing, S.S., healthy living/PE)
1 hour math games online

Today was our first official day of school, at least the day I'd prepared for with a little planning.  I've apparently misplaced Alani's history book. . .UGH. . .I am so excited about using this.  I still don't know what we're supposed to do for science, but I think maybe we'll go with some of the books Miss Kay gave us a couple of years ago and start with the body!  So many subjects intersect that sometimes I'm not sure where they fit, but I'm just counting everything we do as we go along each week.  I'm going to TRY to log it weekly.  It won't be a curriculum, it won't always have a certain order, but I do want to track what life-learning we do.

Monday night we went out to get a new "first day" outfit and a backpack.  I wasn't sure I wanted to do a backpack, because it's just one more "bag" in our house, but I decided that I actually love all of those "back to school" traditions, I'm not doing this to be "non-traditional" or "buck commercialism" I'm just doing this because this is the way that seems right for US.  I'm not even in a place where I think it's right for ALL kids, but it's right for MY kids.  Since I'm also photo crazy, of course I want a "first day of school" photo!  Airi REALLY wanted a backpack too, but I just decided we'd hand down Alani's ladybug backpack.  I promised Airi there was a backpack waiting for her at home, thankfully this was good enough.  As a birthday gift from last year, she had a little soft lunch pail which still had the tags on it, so I was also able to present that to her as "brand new."

You won't believe what kind of impact a back  pack can have on the confidence of EVERYONE in the house!  Alani was so proud to show hers off to her dad and Airi was a proud little monster toting her own new backpack around.  In the end, the reason I decided on a backpack was multi-fold 1) I struggle with organization, at least this would offer a specific bag that could and would hold school supplies and books so we wouldn't be searching for books EVERY single day (case in point, I can't find Story of the World at the moment, when I thought it was with the math art books, all of which I CAN find) 2) It would make Alani feel more official at the start of the year and also feel responsible for her school belongs and 3) Well, it's just plain fun isn't it?  To get a new backpack at the start of the school year?  Surely we don't have to give up all rituals, routines and traditions of "going back to school" even though we never left!

Alani has been so excited about math, she insists on doing math each day, even though I didn't want to start until Wednesday.  She asks to do math every day "When can I do more math?" and is really just a crack up "OOH, YAY, more graphs!"  This whole week has been exciting for her.  We went to get fitted for a violin on Tuesday, so this new thing she wants to do will also add to her list of activities that "count" for school (the arts).  It's going to be a fun adventure!!!

Wednesday:
Today we officially started school with 35 minutes of yoga.  Airi enjoyed part of it, then played with her foam craft clay stuff on her yoga mat the rest of the time.  She actually SEEMED to do quite well for the entire morning as Alani did school.  BUT. . .

I was ill prepared that though my toddler seemed contended to hang out, coloring on her TY notes for her birthday, while Alani and I worked on school all morning, and even participated in about half of the yoga "class" she became a complete bear in the afternoon due to 1) giant sugar cookie 2) no other food 3) daddy being home when it should have been naptime 4)no AM stimulation either social or physical and 5) severe lack of focused attention on her.  She was nasty all afternoon, shouting at me, slamming doors, saying "PINE" and "I don't like you!" sweeping things ON to the floor from other surfaces.  I put her in the bedroom for like a single minute as she cried "no mommy, no mommy, no mommy" because I needed to cool off and pick up a mess she'd made, during which time she peed in the corner of the room because she was mad at me.  Later she would say "PINE I will go in the bedyume by myself" or tell me how I had to go into the bedroom and be alone if i was naughty . . it really hurt her feelings that i'd done that, but I needed the moment!!!  I also kept telling her she needed to spend time alone if she was going to be hurtful and nasty towards people.  Eventually Alani was playing a game on the computer, so Airi and I went into the bedroom where she performed shows and I read to her and she put on jewelry and this seemed to smooth us over, she just wanted me undivided attention, even saying things when I'd leave the room "don't leave me mama" and "are you coming back to be with me mama?"  POOR kid. . .obviously this AM school schedule is not going to work, she needs friends and stimulation and attention before naptime if she's going to get down to a nap easily and securely.  So I think we might need to start with yoga, then plan to leave the house for an hour or so, doing focused school time with alani during naptime and beyond.  We also need to cut a LOT of sugar!!!  ALL OF US!!!  And I need to get them eating better, more consistently and more protein.

Day 4: Thursday
1 hour of crying (mom)
3 hours of playing with friends: dress up, problem solving, washing babies
2 hours of math (I swear, she does this on her own!)
I often forget to note how long she plays on the computer, but she's learning some computer proficiency as well as always playing a math game, it's nearly an hour each day

Thursday was a normal day as we've always known it. The morning was rough, carry over from yesterday. We headed to Melissa's at noon and spent 3 hours there, just playing. Social interaction. I guess we can cross of three hours of social studies or maybe the arts (dress up), or "healthy living" (mothering their dollies) or eh, I'm SURE recess is counted too, right? There is so much learning in just socializing with other kids during this age particularly, and working with kids of other ages too (the little sisters). .. learning never really stops.

Back at home we had another 2 hours of math. Alani has decided she will not work on any other part of the "complete curriculum" workbook until she finishes all of the math. There are seven units of math and she's doing nearly a full unit each day. I also found her history book!

Day 7: Friday
2 hours math
Reading

Friday we picked up Alani's violin. We also started a new "allowance" system, which is going to continue to solidify the concepts surrounding money we've begun working on, first in Girl Scouts a month ago and now, today, as the math unit Alani worked on, coins. Another 2 hours of math and some practice reading.

Day 6: Saturday
30 minute walk
1 hour at farmer's market (SS)
Purchased music stand from woman in Bountiful, it has a rich history and is over 50 years (probably much older) old

Saturday, yeah, we even did some learning on Saturday, another hour working on "time" and beginning a unit on geometry and measurement. I'm really excited about moving on from this curriculum. I think she's really able to pick up on math concepts, at least on first grade math. We're going to do Life of Fred from here and also get her a workbook for the "gifted" math student, to see how she does with that.

We also did the Farmer's market on Saturday and the girls insisted on walking, so 30 minutes of "healthy living" added to an hour of farmer's market, Alani spending her own money and learning even more about "healthy living."

The learning is in life, and by logging here I want to remind myself and others that we are learning these "core" and basic things so much of the day. I hope in the coming weeks we'll be able to get a better handle on how the flow of school will work. At this point it's really easy to work on math with Alani, but every day she talks about how excited she is to do school work. I think she likes the mind stimulation but more than anything, she enjoys the focused attention from her mom. I hope this continues to spill into her life and I can find a balance for our whole family as we school in years ahead.

I have to admit this first week had significant struggles and difficulties, but I have to put on my "problem solver" hat and start working things out with my girls instead of being reactionary.

I think I'm forming a plan

So many thoughts and confusion regarding homeschooling. Is it right for us? YES. . .am I scared to death that in 12 years my kids will not know what they need to know to have a future where they can decide to take any path they want? YESSSS!

In some ways it is coming to me more naturally, in that this time last year I thought I'd spend some time working out how to homeschool and felt completely overwhelmed and unready to even consider the options.

Through the year ideas, thoughts, resources, have all come my way. And it is so apparent to me that even Alani's readiness has made me more excited and willing to delve in. A year ago we just were not "here."

We "did" kindergarten by not doing much of anything, other than trying to get her reading. Talking with friends who have their children in conventional school for kindergarten this past year, I found that Alani wasn't missing out on much other than time away from me and busy work. Some kids went into the year not even knowing their letters, or letter sounds and others went in as proficient readers. All came out as basic readers. (Here's our "first day of kindergarten" obligatory photo)

Funny that many of the things we've learned in Girl Scouts this past year and will continue to learn, go along with what ALL K and 1st graders are learning. Mike says not to mix up HS and GS, but I think they go hand in hand at the moment. We'll be learning to care for animals and our environment and learned about taking care of a garden last year. . . HAND IN HAND with 1st grader abilities, interests and curriculum!

Alani is reading okay, not super proficiently, but she's reading. It helps if I read a page to her and then she reads it back. The information is fresh, some of the hard words she can remember but not read through. And I think it really helps her to HEAR the idea and where this page or story is going, so when she reads it, she knows why words are appearing or that certain words make sense in the context. I THINK she can put together a sequence of events from a book and repeat back to me the theme after hearing it.

In the past couple of months she has been more excited about reading, whether it's time with me or just interest in learning and getting better at something she's realized she actually CAN do, I'm not sure, probably a little bit of both. She hasn't been doing the whiny thing and doesn't get nearly as overwhelmed at pages with a lot of text, in fact, she often requests being able to read them. Today she said "this is a lot of words for me to read, but I can do it!" She was very confident. That's what I want her to be, confident. And she does have a handle on recognizing punctuation, reading accordingly, so that's really great.

I am completely overwhelmed on how to teach her spelling. If "ai" "ay" "a_e" "eigh" "ei" and "ea" all say the long A, how will she ever know which to use when??? The same goes for all of the vowels. She still mixes up lower case b,d,p and sometimes m,w. She is sometimes unsure of a j/g situation and of course, there's no hard and fast rule for when a c sounds like a k and when it sounds like an s. I mostly let her work through using the rules she knows, sounding out and flowing together one letter at a time until she creates some semblance of a word and then can often put together what that made up word sounds like, but she knows she doesn't know ALL words of the world and perhaps the word she's just sounded out is just some new word she's never heard and would now like to know the definition of. It works 8/10 times that she can work out a word and make sense of it.

Perhaps the spelling just comes with time and it's okay if she spells 8 "ate" until she's actually 8?! I try to point out things like the different ways to spell words, like "two, too, to" and when you use each version. She is noticing those things on her own as well.

I feel we have the arts and history covered with her extra curricular activities and story of the world. Math is coming along and I don't worry about it much, as long as I know what she should know by the end of her 1st grade year, I feel confident I can get her there. Science shouldn't be too much of a leap, I've been told they learn about plants. So I'm sure we'll touch on some of it while doing Earth & Sky with the GS troop and again, as long as I know what she needs to know about plants, I can be sure we have the resources. I think we're going to be okay this year!

I think it would be good to add in some social studies, awareness of where she is in the world, but we've been doing that a little at a time as she plays games on the computer and has started wanting to look at the globe, she plays a game where she has to put the states (or countries) into a continent (or country).

I wonder if a science time devoted to animals and outer space would also fit into this year? I'm sure they would!

This is also part of what overwhelms me. . .I love the concept of unit studies which tie in all subjects with one story. . .is this a way to go? or should I have a way of teaching math and history and L/A separately from one another? Can we build well enough, particularly in math? Perhaps I can pull some units I like and use those for our L/A portion, adding new stories to our repertoire, then adapting the math as we go?

And then there's always the option of just going with that one ladies full 1st grade curriculum, it has bible, God based history and science, basic L/A requirements, math games. . .all worked in.

I should probably sit down and write out a plan. . .but when is there time? School starts in a week or two or it already started a week or two ago and I feel under the gun now. . .except, honestly, I think we could take two more years to make some hard and fast decisions about our schooling and she'd probably still be right on par with her peers!

This year will likely be my year of hit and miss, fumble and stumble and pick it up and start a different way. . . and we'll figure it out together! We are both a whole year wiser than we were last fall, right?! Maybe I'll get her a backpack this year. . . nah, I don't need another backpack!